Paris

Enjoying a croissont au beurre on the Pont Neuf over the Seine

I'm in love. My first visit to the city of lights went beyond my high expectations, making it my favorite so far. Of course it didn't hurt that the weather was absolutely, uncharacteristically clear, sunny and warm for late March. The city flows out onto itself in good weather for some serious street strolling or mid-afternoon wine sipping on one of the foot bridges crossing la Seine.

Lizzie, whom I know from growing up in North Carolina, is studying in Heidelberg, Germany this semester. Her spring break worked out so that we could plan a trip together. Oh boy!

Lizzie, enjoying a sumptuous mousse au chocolate blanc dessert

Back in middle school when I met Lizzie, I started taking French classes. My wonderful, eccentric teacher, Mme Page, made us penpals with French students in our year studying English to practice writing letters to each other. My pen pal's name was Christine. We were in 8th grade, I think, when we started to exchange letters. Mme Page organized a trip in the spring with the class, taught by a French woman Mme Page was friends with, where the French students would come visit for 2 weeks. We organized the exchange and Christine stayed with my family for two weeks, going out to the Outer Banks for a trip, as well.

We got along really well and ended up traveling to Chicago together one summer later in high school. I hadn't talked with her in several years when she found me on Facebook about a year and a half ago. Science!

This is my first time in Europe, and so I wrote to her to tell her that I was coming to her continent, and she offered to host me at any time, so I had the chance to travel to Paris for 5 days with one of my best friends from home with my penpal from middle school. It was the best. We stayed with Christine for 3 nights and then Couchsurfed with a lovely Parisian master's student, Olivier, who also lived in the 18th arrondissement. We cooked him risotto and had a great time wining and dining with a few of his ridiculously French friends who chain smoked the entire night while listening to jazzy Parisian radio. Excellente.

Margaret, Christine, and Lizzie in the Montmartre flat

The wrought iron balconies all over the city were really stunning

First French snack, a Bordeaux red and crusty baguette
with stinky cheese!
Parfait!

Margaret & Liz at Basilique du Sacré Coeur -
Christine's flat was about a block away from this stunning
church in the 18th arrondisement

View of Paris from Sacré Coeur in Montmartre

La Seine
View of Pont Neuf and l'Ile de la Cité

Thought of Jacob, of course.
He was infatuated with Paris, and I know he would have loved it oh so much.

La Palais du Louvre and the Grande Pyramide -
It's free for young people 14-26 Friday from 6-10pm!

The Louvre is huge! Like, multiple football fields huge

Arch in front of the Louvre museum leading to
la Jardin de Tuileries

I think the French have an arch fetish... or maybe just Napoleon

The crowd in front of da Vinci's La Jacond
It was pretty funny seeing this, considering this small painting
was in a room surrounded by enormous oils that seemed forgotten
by most of the people in the room vying for a place in front of the Mona Lisa

Museé du Louvre

OMG TARTS

Cute lil rainbow car

Street art vendors lining the river

French royal palace at the Jardin du Luxembourg,
acres and acres of prim beauty

Jardin du Luxembourg

Big ol' head at Jardin du Luxembourg

View of la Pantheon, once an abbey and a Christian cathedral,
during the French Revolution the revolutionaries had it converted
into a Pantheon celebrating French intellectuals like
Curie, Voltaire, Rousseau, Hugo, and Zola

Blue sky showing off at Université de Paris

Oui, oui!

Watching the sun set on Paris from the 2nd level of the Eiffel Tower -
You can see the hill of Montmartre on the horizon in N. Paris

Bye bye, sunshine!

Paris at nightfall from the very top!

At Versailles, le Roi du Soleil, Louis XIV's play pad

Royal chapel, Versailles

Famous Hall of Mirrors, Versailles-
30+ enormous chandeliers ... a bit excessive??

Green and gold wall design, Versailles

Louis was quite fond of this gorgeous pink marble

Basking in the gardens by the Grand Canal, Versailles

Le canard de l'orange et crème fraîche

Christine cooked us quite the French dish - duck with green beans!
Though I do label myself as vegetarian, I do it more for
environmental reasons, so when I'm traveling I've decided to be
flexible in terms of trying local specialties in an effort to
experience the Real Deal when traveling, as well as in certain
situations to avoid offending anyone's cultural sensibilities.
The last time I "broke" my vegetarianism was in Holland to try
the traditional raw herring and onions ...
Christine's duck was much tastier.

Lizzie & Notre Dame

Beautiful prints all over the walls and ceilings in Notre Dame

Museé d'Orsay
Once a train station, now an awesome art museum housing the
French national collection from the 1840s to 1914 -
Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, Degas, Manet, Gauguin,
Van Gogh, Matisse...amazing

Hôtel des Invalides & Napoleon's tomb

Catacombs - wicked cool,
props for the recommendation, Shirin

Piles of bones from millions of old Parisians 20m underground -
When disease broke out in the 1780s, thousands of graves
were exhumed and the bones relocated to an old quarry in S. Paris

Botanists & zoologists alike delight at la Jardin des Plantes

Another view of the river

BEAUCOUP DE FROMAGE
Fromagarie on Boulevard Saint Germain on the Left Bank

La paysage de la France du train

et

LE FIN.

The best day

I just had the best day ever. I woke up early to finish my assignment and head to my course on agricultural models for the afternoon.

Class went well, but as I was leaving, I discovered my bike had a flat tire. I was riding on the metal beam of the wheel, and had to walk all the way back home. It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon at least.

Twenty minutes later, I was about three or four blocks from Kaarsenmakerstraat when a guy with the craziest jogging shorts I've seen in Holland yet - neon geographic patterns - went by. He looped back around and asked me something in Dutch. I understood "pomp" and noted my flat tire. He waved his hand and told me he had a pump and that he lived right down the street. He jogged back a few meters and went into his house and popped back out with a huge old bike pump and jogged back to me, neons fluttering in the wind. He checked out my tire and filled it with air, smiling and announcing that a hole did not seem apparent.

I smiled and thanked him again and again and told him to have a nice run.

It was the best.

Then I got to bike the rest of the way back home to Lizzie, here from Heidelberg, to tell her of my pleasant story.

I'm off to pack for our adventure!

South Holland: Maastricht

Jeff and Ellie, both a year above me at W&M, came to visit! Traveling around for their break, we took a lovely holiday down south to Limburg, the southernmost tip of Netherlands nuzzled in between Belguim and Germany. It's a really different part of the country - there is even some hilly altitude! Plus, the entire feel of Maastricht was very "pan-European" and very fashionable, not just the cute Dutch style that marks the north of the country.

Jeff and Moo Moo are excited to travel through
the Dutch countryside
It was a beautiful 2.5h train ride from Leiden

Pretty!

Maastricht is split down the middle by the beautiful Maas river, with the best parts of the city straddling both sides of its banks, connected by several beautiful foot bridges.

13th century Sint Servaasbrug foot bridge
over the Maas River

When we arrived, we learned that we happened to be in Maastricht during one of its busiest, most important weekends, the European Fine Art Foundation Show (TEFAF), a celebrated art exhibition. There are hundreds of little galleries all over artsy Maastricht, and they all opened their doors to show off this weekend to the poor masses like myself and for thousands of rich collecters. We popped in to a few to check out some really neat artwork - prints, paints, sculptures, furniture, you name it.

Art exhibit posters

We Couchsurfed with a girl named Zoe, a law student at the University of Maastricht. She showed us a great time, walking around the city when she had time and introducing us to other nice Couchsurfers in the area. Our favorite was Guilluime, who makes homemade ice cream flavors. He had over 20 flavors in his mini fridge on the one day we met him. Awesome. He also sported a secondhand chocolate fountain. Doubly awesome!

Walking down the Markt, Zoe's street, we meet
Mr. Minkelers, the man who invented the gas lantern and
Maastricht's beloved native son...
Any statue with an enormous flame is awesome

Couchsurfer Guilliume's fresh made ice cream!
Vanilla and kiwi

Saturday we wanted to explore more of the city and its surroundings, and we woke up to a gorgeous day, so we headed out to the countryside. Just 2km outside the city on top of the highest hills in the area sits Sint Pietersberg, an old Roman fort. Connected to the fort are the Northern Corridor system tunnels, an incredible network of thousands of underground caverns hollowed out in the hills for defense purposes built over a period of 2,000 years.

Jeff looking not so impressed with Stadsmuur,
the ancient city wall built by the Romans

Pretty moss on a walk through Limburg

Beautiful countryside and pasture

Spring approaching in the Netherlands = mud

St. Pietersberg Roman fortifications on a hill outside the city

Shoot some arrows!

Tunnels!

Top of the hill looking down at the city

We walked by this pretty church outside the city where
a wedding had just concluded, as evidenced by all the petals
scattered over the entranceway

church

graveyard

After our nature walk through the countryside to visit the tunnels and fortifications, we walked back into town to lounge out at a streetside cafe in the sun to oogle all the fancy locals.

Outdoor cafes

Jeff, Margaret & Ellie

space people live in Zuid Holland?

Finally, we met up with Zoe for coffee and she showed us around the city. My favorite sight she took us to was an old cathedral that has been converted into a hotel! It was absolutely beautiful and one of the most interesting things I saw in the city with it's old, traditional interior accented by really colorful, contemporary furniture and modern art. It was really cool, and we got the concierge to show us around the wine room and the courtyard where the monks used to meditate, now furnished with kooky outdoor furniture and giant art pieces.

PIE

Ellie & Margaret at the mod cathedral hotel

We ended our trip back singing Johnny Cash songs late into the night, even drawing the attention of a lovely Dutch train worker who joined in on a rousing rendition of "Ring of Fire" during our connection from Eindhoven. Usually I am terrified of the Dutch ticket-checkers, but she was so great! After singing with us, she didn't even ask to see our tickets, which was hilarious because we were scared when we first saw her in her navy uniform, but she just jumped right into the chorus with us - so great!

I really hope to go back to Maastricht. It was one of my favorite places I've been so far, and since it's in the Netherlands, it's easy to get to, and now I have new friends I can stay with there!