Paris

For the past three weeks, French transportation workers have been on strike because the retirement age has been raised from 60 to 62. Tough life.  You know how taxing a 35 hour work week is.  So in the middle of all that, Shelby and I decided to go to Paris.  Luckily, we made reservations on the TGV, a high speed direct to Paris from Luxembourg train. You can get there in about 2 hours, because the train can go well over 200 mph.  Shelby's mom was great and got us a hotel right next to the Eiffel Tower. Everything in Paris is pretty spread out, but they have a great metro system set up so you can just head to the subway and get almost anywhere.  And pretty much every metro trip was quite the experience.  We arrived at about 16:00, and freshened up to head out.  On friday nights, the Louvre had free admittance for European students after 18:00, which saved us about 10 Euro.  I am not a huge art person, but it was fun getting lost for a couple hours and stumbling upon the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo.  The Louvre is simply massive, and when we tried to follow the exit signs we ended up in the mummy displays.  But it was a lot of fun, and when we finally got out we grabbed some dinner. I was so excited to be able to order my chicken, potatoes and carrots all in French! We headed home fairly early and mapped out the rest of our weekend.

On saturday, we got up early and headed up to Moulin Rouge, where we thought our tour started.  We grabbed Starbucks right across the street and took some pictures.  15 minutes after the tour was supposed to start there was still no tour guide, so we checked the directions again and realized we were at the wrong place.  Oh well, at least we got a tour of the city.  Luckily for us there was another tour starting in an hour, so we headed toward Notre Dame and the Saint-Michel fountain.  This was our third city that we used the New Europe walking tours, and once again it was great.  We walked all around the city and got to hear some great history.  She also told us about some the typical scam artists you would see in the city.  My favorite was kids with clipboards asking you to sign for peace, and really there was fine print saying you owe them 40 Euro.  The end of the tour took us to the Eiffel Tower, so Shelby and I took the opportunity to take some pictures.  We did not go up, because it had been closing frequently for security threats. After we were done with the whole tourist thing, we headed back toward the center of the city and did some shopping, finding some great things at H&M.  We found a cute Italian place and had some penne arrabiata and some wine. Before we left the center, we decided to pop by the Arch de Triumph for a quick picture too.  We headed home around 22:00 and rested up for our last day in paris.


On Sunday, we decided to take the train 30 minutes outside of the city to Versailles.  The palace was absolutely amazing! The gardens were gorgeous and the Palace itself was covered inside and out in gold leafing.  And because we were students of the EU, we only had to pay 6 Euro for the gardens as opposed to the regular 25! Good deal for sure.  We wondered around for a while, and it only confirmed my belief that I should have been a princess.  We couldn't stay for too long, because we had to catch the TGV home at 18:00.  We did end up with more time then we thought we would, and so we stopped by the Basilique du Sacre-Coeur.  It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. It is pure white, and situated at the highest point in Paris. We probably spent a little too much time there, and so for the next hour we were running around Paris trying not to miss our train.  We made it, barely, and were soon on our way back to Luxembourg!

Interlaken

        While it was still (relatively) warm here, we decided to go to Interlaken, Switzerland for some extreme sports. We left around 16:00 on friday, and arrived at 22:00.  We stayed at a place called Balmers, which is world famous, so when we got there there were guards that checked our IDs before they let us in. It was intense.  We stayed in a 10 person dorm, and there were 15 of us total.  We went down to the bar for a bit that night, but knew we needed to rest up for our big excursion the next day.  

On Saturday, we signed up for a 6 hours canyoning experience.  Canyoning uses repelling, climbing, jumping and sliding to descend the canyon. We headed to the shop we would depart from and were told it was time to gear up.  We were given a long wet suit, two wetsuit jackets, special shoes, a life vest, a harness and a helmet. Each of the helmets had names, and mine was "Flipper".  They loaded us into a van and we travelled about an hour up the mountain.  They dropped us off on the side of the road and that is where we changed into our gear. Good thing they told us to wear a bathing suit.  They lead us on a short hike and we came to a cliff where they told us we would now repel down into the canyon. Yeah okay.  It was a 150 foot cliff, and there was nothing to hold onto as you stepped over the cliff.  It was one of the most thrilling things I had ever done.  Once we got to the bottom, we continued on.  Now I should let you all know that the water in the canyon was about 40 degrees.  Almost right away we were swimming in the water, and it was a brain freeze every time you went under.  One of the coolest parts was using the natural slides that the water had made out of the granite rocks it ran over.  There was also a 25 foot jump, where you have to make sure you don't hit rocks! It was a workout, and we got a little bruised, but it was definitely the coolest thing I have ever done.  We were so cold by the end of it, that our hands were bright red and we were definitely ready to get into our sweats.   The rest of the weekend was pretty laid back.  We were so tired, so we just walked around some of the shops got dinner and packed up to leave early on sunday.  Such a great weekend!

London

After our week in Germany and Brussels, I went to London with Meghan, Shelby, Garrett and Ben.  We left thursday afternoon on the Eurostar and were set to arrive around 9:30 via the Chunnel.  Well right before we were set to go under the water, the train stopped and the conductor declared that there was a security breech and we were all to remain in our cars.  After about an hour they made the back of the train get off and go through security again.  It took 3 hours before we got moving again, and we were all getting really antsy.  So Garrett decided to turn the orange he took from lunch and turn it into a super hero.  Thus Orange Man is born.  He has since deteriorated, but kept us entertained through the 6 hour journey.  When we finally arrived in London, the Eurostar people payed for our taxi, since we were so delayed.  We decided to stay at an apartment just outside of Hyde Park, and it was very nice.  A little small but super nice.  We ended up getting there around 1:00 and crashed right away.


The next morning we got up and had some breakfast, and headed to the free tour in London.  They met just outside of Buckingham Palace, and took us through Trafalgar Square, Parliament and Big Ben, and Westminster Abbey.  It was great and we really got a good feel for the city.  Then our tour group went out to lunch and got tickets for the pub crawl we were going to do later in the night.  It was already pretty late, so we headed back to the apartment and dried off and got ready for the night.  The pub crawl consisted of 4 bars and one club, and would last about 4 or 5 hours.  It was a great time and we got to know a really cool married couple.  The next day once we were up and recovered, we grabbed Starbucks and the girls decided to do some shopping at Portobello Market.  It was so much fun and they had a lot of unique items.  Then we met up with the boys around 3 for a tour of "Old London".  This tour took us by the Court of Justice, the bridges of London, old churches and expensive shopping areas,    and the Tower of London.  Then we were able to meet up with my friend from high school, Caroline, who is studying in London.  We got dinner at an Italian restaurant and headed to a small pub for some drinks and card games.  It was a lot of fun and I am so glad I got to see her!

Sadly, we had to head home early on Sunday and so we packed up all of our belongings to take the Chunnel back. It was a very uneventful journey home, but good to be back after a 10 day trip.

Berlin and our Chocolate Tour

Sorry I have been so behind! On September 24th, my friends Shelby, Meghan and I went to Berlin for a three day weekend.  It was an 8 hour train ride, and we tiredly arrived to our hostel, "All In" at 10 PM.  We slept in the next morning and joined the 11 AM free walking tour around Berlin.  It was excellent, and provided a lot of history during its 4 hour duration.  We saw amazing sights such at the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag, the Holocost Memorial, the ground above Hitler's Bunker, the remaining portion of the Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, many museums, and the Berlin Cathedral.  We also stopped into Starbucks and did some shopping to get our fill of "America" for the day.  I was really impressed by Berlin, and amazed at how much history this capital city had.  We headed home and went to bed early to get ready for the next day.


On Sunday, we decided to go visit a concentration camp on the outside of Berlin.  Sachsenhausen was a work camp, and saw the training of many Nazi soldiers.  It was a really humbling experience and a much more realistic view of the Holocaust then you get from reading a text book.  It was sad to see all of the suffering people went through, and the truly cruel ways that prisoners were tortured and murdered.  All in all it was a sobering day, and we headed home grabbed dinner and a drink and went to bed to get ready for our next adventure!


The next morning we met up with our "Chocolate Business" class to begin our study tour.  A study tour at MUDEC is a week long break where travel and have exposure to the topics we discuss in class.  Our tour was supposed to begin in Koblenz, Germany, but Meghan, Shelby and I missed the boat ride.  Our insructor, instead of giving us an address, gave us a street to meet them on, and no number to call.  They ducked into a building and we could,'t fin them until it was to late and they were on a boat sailing away. Luckily the bus driver was still around and he drove us to the next city so we could get on the next dock.  Once our blood pressure went down and we were seated, the crew served our class dinner and we enjoyed our meal and we coasted down the Rhine.  We arrived in Cologne, Germany late monday night.  We checked into our Hotel, and then headed out to a local pub.  It was a fun night and Miami definitely took over that club.




Tuesday we had a jam packed day of sightseeing.  It began with a tour of the Lindt Chocolate Museum, where we learned some history (or taught them history in some cases) and tasted some chocolate.  Later on we headed to the Cologne Cathedral, which was absolutely stunning.  It houses the remains of the Three wise men, and has towers with 509 steps.  And yes we went up them.  It was a stunning view from the top, but we were all so tired by the time we got down.  After we regrouped, we headed back to the bus and and began the second half of our trip to Brussels.  We arrived at the Hotel Du Congress and were immediately whisked off to a sit down dinner at Pizza Hut. No joke. And it was delicious. Later that night the group headed out to Delirium, the bar we had previous visited our first weekend away and which we love!


The next morning was some serious chocolate tasting. It was serious stuff and by about the fifth store I never wanted to taste chocolate again! It was a great experience though and chocolate from the US will never seem the same again! We even got to make our own chocolate at one place, which was really awesome.  I had to wear a white apron and a white bakers hat (super stylish).  After that we went to visit someone I would call a real life Willy Wonka.  Not only did he have great sweets, he could do magic tricks and looked a little mid like a mad scientist.  It was a great experience but we were so tired it was hard to really appreciate it.  We rounded the night off with a fancy dinner in the city and drinks in the Grand Place while we watched the light show.  Thursday was the last day of our study tour, and we headed to Brugge for the day.  We got a historical overview and a personal tour of the sights.  We also visited a place called the Chocolate Line where we all snorted chocolate! It was so bizarre, but really cool and we were able to taste the chocolate for about 15 minutes.  After that we headed back to Brussels to start our next trip, which was to London!