Salzburg

Still Thursday, April 1 – We watched the Sound of Music on the bus to get us out of our depressed moods/ready for Salzburg! Our hotel was on the sketchy outskirts of the city (as usual), so we walked a found a little restaurant by our hotel to have some traditional Austrian food! I had Stiegl, a Salzburg beer, a salad, dumplings, and apple strudel. Man I love this food! I even used some of my German skills that I have picked up from Jill (and Aunt Kristi, and my mom) and the tape that Jill had when she went to Germany for the first time way back when – I still remember the alphabet from that tape :) Well if you consider telling the waiter how many of us there were and thank you and good night “German skills,” then I’m a pro!

Friday, April 2 – Salzburg! I was with my friend Alli all day, so I showed her around some of the main sites (I remembered where everything was!) – Maribel Gardens, Do-Re-Me steps and the running statue guys. Then we wandered down a little side street - so nice to get away from all of the tourist stuff. We wondered around and walked up this hill to overlook the city a bit. Then we crossed the river to tourist central!

Saw Mozart’s house, the street with all of the rod iron signs, a dog that looked like it had a bear’s head, and a guy playing wine glasses like on Miss Congeniality – it was amazing! I took a video of it, but I don’t know how to upload videos onto this blog, sorry. We went into another cathedral – Dom zu Salzburg which was SO pretty! Then we walked up towards the castle/fortress and took a detour to the red abbey steeple from the Sound of Music. It was a perfect day, so we stood up and overlooked the bright green valley and the snow capped mountains for a while – gorgeous! We went into the abbey – I think it was the same abbey that was in the beginning when they sing “How do you solve a problem like Maria?” although, that might have just been tapped in a studio somewhere.

Then we walked up to the fortress and did an audio tour through the different rooms and up to the top for a beautiful view of the entire city and the countryside. We also went through the museum attached to it and though the cemetery at the bottom of the fortress where the Von Trapp family hid. All of the headstones had bouquets of fresh flowers.

 The whole day was perfect with gorgeous weather! Trip #2 to Salzburg was just as beautiful as the first!

Back on the bus, took a pit stop at the Melk Abbey. It was like a palace with a cathedral inside. The abbey was unbelievable! It was an amazing baroque church (below). It had gold and gaudy decorations everywhere – very impressive!

At a pit stop on our way to Vienna, we were waiting for some other from our group and a Chinese tourist bus pulls up next to us (I have seen Chinese tourists in EVERY city that we’ve been to, and every time they take a picture they all give the peace sign…EVERY TIME!!!). Anyways, we see this one guy get out and start stretching; ok normal, they’ve been on the bus for a while. But then he continues stretching every part of his body in all sorts of way for the next 10 min!!! He started by moving his hips around in a circle like he was doing an exaggerated Macarena dance, then marching in place for a while (low marches and high marches), straight leg marches forward and to the side, arm circles, then swinging his arms across his body, then his neck followed by his wrists…then he started jumping in place! He did all of these for a good 3 min each! It was quite entertaining.

Dachau

Thursday, April 1 – Back on the bus, this time headed to Dachau – the first Nazi concentration camp to open. Even though I’ve been there already, I was still taken aback by it. We had audio guides, so we could hear interesting facts or stories or hear testimonies from survivors – very heart wrenching. I went through the museum, barrack, Jewish memorial, and crematories. One of the most eerie things is to be in a room and realize that that was where they slept or ate or, by far the most frightening was being in the room where they piled the bodies before they were burned and then in cremation room. I also saw the wooden shoes they wore and the faded blue stripped uniforms. It was very stunning.

Strasbourg

Still Tuesday, March 30 – Arrived in Strasbourg around 8 pm. We walked and ate at the first restaurant we could find, Indian food! I had the chicken curry – nummy! Walked back to the hotel, showered, finished the delicious Belgium chocolate we had left over! What a day!

Wednesday, March 31 - Strasbourg. Had another delicious French breakfast and then took the tram to the Council of Europe. Outside the building they had flags from the 47 countries that are in the Council of Europe – very cool to see (as you may have noticed, I have developed a liking for flags, weird I know). But the building was ugly! It looked like I was walking into a 1970s library at a subpar university in the states. We went into the debating chamber of the Parliamentary Assembly, then into a room painted in sorts of lovely shades of ‘70s green and listened to a really long and boring lecture about the Council of Europe – but I got some good daydreaming in. :) We went back to the hotel to change out of our nice clothes (gross, who wants to wear that all day?) and set off to explore the city!

We walked across the river and into La Petite France – the old part of Strasbourg. It was beautiful! It had a unique combination of French and German influence. The houses all looked like the traditional German style houses, flower boxes everywhere, little cobblestone roads, and cute little bridges over the river – it was like living in a postcard! We found the Cathedral Notre Dame de Strasbourg (right) – it was all iron/steel, reminded me of the church that we saw in Freiburg when we went to Germany a few years ago. The inside was different than most churches that we’ve been in, it had a whole diorama scene from the bible, a “tower of angles,” and an astronomical clock.

Then we walked down by the river (saw a giant “litter box” for dogs, haha!) and to a big square. It was such a nice day, so we just sat there for a while…then we noticed it looked kind of weird. There were a ton of people around and there were army guys there walking around the square and setting up speakers and blasting music – it just had a really different feeling. I thought for sure a flash-mob was going to break out right then a there (for those of you who don’t know, it’s when music starts playing and people start doing the choreographed dance to it, then more and more people join in doing the dance; it seems spontaneous to outsiders, but it is all planned) unfortunately nothing happened, so we left. We walked through a flea market and to another square/park area with flowers and blooming trees; it was gorgeous! Then, time for dinner at the Academy of Beer in Petite France. 3 of us split a salad, flambé torte, and au gratin potatoes!! SO good!! It’s the first time I’ve ever had real au gratin potatoes, not the nasty kind from the box with the yellow/orange “cheese.” And an apple tart for dessert! It was an awesome end to a perfect day!

Some of my friends did a boat cruise on the river, which sounded awesome! They learned all about the history of the town and interesting facts about each bridge (apparently they all have some meaning or historical story). I loved Strasbourg (especially Petite France); although there is not a lot to see, it is a very quaint and picturesque town!

Luxembourg

Still Tuesday, March 30 – 3 hour bus ride and a pit stop in Luxembourg. We were only there for about 1 ½ hours, but that was enough time. It was a very small, cute little city we were in – the capital/downtown of the country I think. The cobblestone had cool designs in it everywhere we went. We saw a big sign in a store that said “boo” and the very next store over said “Marie’s lingerie” haha, weird! We walked around and saw the Palais Grand-Ducal (I think it’s the royal palace). There was a bunch of postcards of the royal family that the shops sold – family pictures and portraits of all of the members of the family individually – hilarious!! We went to the Cathedral of Our Lady of Luxembourg and then saw the huge bridge connecting two sides of the city (it’s their famous bridge, on all of the postcards). It was really pretty going over a little stream and a big park area. Luxembourg was nice, very small and slow paced, but cool to see.

                                                                                                                                           

                            Palais Grand-Ducal

Then, back in the bus, 3 hour ride to the next country…on the way, the countryside was BEAUTIFUL! It was sunny with and bright blue sky and bright, lush green grass, the mountains in the background, and the occasional small village. The colors were so vibrant, it was very picturesque; I felt like I was in a painting, it was unbelievable!

Bruxelles

Monday, March 28 – Bus ride to Brussels (or Bruxelles) – prepare to be in my food dreamland! We got there around 1:00 and started walking to begin our search for the list of food we had to eat in 8 hours :) We walked by this big cathedral (St. Catherine’s Cathedral), which was really pretty, but it was black, like it had been burned or had mold on it or something. Then right around the corner, success #1 – fries! My friend Natalie and I split a huge cone of fries – delicious! Then we started walking to the central station, we saw another pretty church (reminded me of Notre Dame), and down the hill from the church was a really pretty park area with flowers and individual wooden lawn chairs that everyone was laying in, soaking up the sun – it was awesome! We were headed towards the Grand Place, but got sidetracked and went into a number of chocolate shops! Success #2 – Belgium chocolate! Ever shop had free samples or a chocolate fountain!!! (I may need to move to Brussels!!) I bought some of the best chocolate I’ve ever had! :D

We finally made it to the Grand Place. It was the big center/square surrounded by huge gothic buildings – very pretty! Unfortunately we were not there during the right time of the year, all of the post cards had picture of what they called the “flower carpet.” The entire square is covered in flowers! They make designs, ahhh it looked unbelievable! I’ll just have to go back sometime so I can see it in person! Then we went and saw the “Manneken-Pis” – a statue of a little boy peeing….not sure why it is so famous, but we saw it anyways. Went into a store and had some Belgium beer (success #3), delicious!! Dinner time = waffle time! (success #4) I had the waffle with strawberries, whipped cream and chocolate drizzle – sooooo good!!! I really think I might have to move to Brussels for the food! :D

             

We walked back to the Grand Place and saw the drunken American girls that had heckled us early to try to get us to come and sit with them, were still there. So, we went and tried the beer sampler. It had 5 different beers, it was very good! So we sat there for a while and hung out with 2 American girls, 2 Brits, and 2 Australians, it was so much fun!

I loved Brussels!! Mostly for the amazing food – chocolate, waffles, beer, and fries = Marie’s a happy, happy girl! There wasn’t a whole lot to see with the little time we had, but it was very cute and the Grand Place was gorgeous!

Tuesday, March 30 – 3 countries in less than 12 hours! First, we went to the European Parliament (of the EU) in Brussels. It was very nice, very modern. First, we had a lecture, interesting facts: there are 23 different languages represented in the 27 countries of the EU, so everything needs to be translated into all 23 languages! They have 3 people translating/language, and as a result, they use really simple words/terms so something doesn’t get lost in translation. And the only places you are prohibited to take photos are in the security check and in the cafeteria, weird. Then we went into the parliament room/seats where they meet. One of my favorite parts was seeing all of the flags of the countries represented in the EU; they were everywhere! Then bus ride to the next country…

Amsterdam

Saturday, March 27 – Drove all day (over 8 hours) from Paris to Amsterdam. Once we arrived, we walked into more of the center part of the city (our hotel was in some sketchy outskirts). We walked through Vondelpark – a big park in the city, it had these huge mansion-like houses lining it on the other side of the trees - it was beautiful, even at night. We found a Thai restaurant (apparently Amsterdam is known for their Thai and Indian food); I had chicken spring rolls, chicken with spicy coconut milk curry sauce, and jasmine white rice – very good! We walked back to the main square where this guy was playing his guitar and singing; he was really good, so we sat and listen to him for a while. While we were there, I noticed this big gray thing in the middle of the square…it was a public urinal! No doors or sinks, just a big circular piece of plastic with little inlets so guys can go to the bathroom whenever they feel like. It was SO weird! Little did I know this was just the beginning of the sites we would see in this strange city…

Sunday, March 28 – Went to the Van Gogh Museum. I really enjoyed it, mostly because it was finally a museum that was not filled with Biblical painting or painting of royalty. It was really fun to see because it was all original painting, so you could see the brush strokes and the clumps of paint. The Almond Blossom Tree was my favorite painting – I loved it!! Then we headed to Anne Frank House. It was beautiful walking along the canals seeing all of the boats and bikes everywhere! We didn’t end up going into the Anne Frank House because the line was really long. So we went and decided to try some Amsterdam beer instead :) We walked through the flea market, then met up with some friends and walked through the Red Light District. Granted it was in the middle of the day, so it wasn’t really busy, but there were definitely women in their windows. It was interesting because we had an entire class discussion (2 ½ hours) about Amsterdam and the Red Light District: watching vs. being watched, if they women “hunt down” the men or the men find the women, and the proper etiquette for “buying” the women. After that experience we went to eat at an Indonesian restaurant.

After dinner we walked around for a while until it got dark and went back to the Red Light District - it was different at night. It’s so weird, they just sit/stand there waiting for men or knocking on the windows to get their attention. There were all kinds of women there, big, small, young, old, dressed “normal” and some more risqué. The other very shocking thing was the people who were walking in the area: men, women, elderly men, couples, police, we even saw some children! So strange.   
 

I decided that Amsterdam is one of the weirdest cities in the world! It has some of the most ethnically diverse food/restaurants (everything from Chinese and Indian food to hamburgers and sauerkraut). Smoking pot (or “dope” as my mother loves to refer to it as) is kind of encouraged. They had advertisements on the bus, like “did you know” posters about interesting facts and benefits of it. The strangest thing though is the juxtapositions it has. You’ll be walking down the street and see a souvenir shop with a pretty postcard of windmills and fields of tulips next to a peep show building next to a coffee shop where everyone is smoking next to a cute little canal next to a torture museum next to the Red Light District next to a street full of neon signs for Lebanese food, Chinese food, etc. next to a sex museum next to a shop selling wooden shoes next to another coffee shop…SOOOOOO weird!

Bike Ramp and parking lot

Amsterdam is really cute during the day with cute cobblestone roads, canals, and bikes galore (even huge parking ramps full of bikes), but at night it is much different. Everyone is smoking and all of the little shops that are cute during the day have big neon signs lit up. All of the people were so nice; they went out of their way to help us. They were all so happy too, I saw more than one person biking along the street by themselves with just a little smirk on their face. I wish we could have seen some of the country side and the windmills, but I still enjoyed it!

Paris

Uff da! 16 days + 12 cities + 9 countries = 1 unbelievable trip! Exhausting, but awesome! I filled up ¼ of my journal…far too much to write, so I’ll be as brief as possible (trust me, you would be reading for days otherwise..you may still be).

Tuesday/Wednesday, March 24 – took the red eye flight from Larnaca to Budapest, then to Paris. We got to Paris around noon, and headed in the center of the city to begin our exploration! While on the metro, all of a sudden this puppet show broke out, accompanied by song and dance...(pictured right). We saw the Egyptian obelisque that was put in the place where King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were killed by the guillotine after the French Revolution. We walked through the park/garden by the Louvre and then down the Champs-Elysées to the Arc de Triumph! It was huge, much bigger than I thought it would be!

We then walked to the Eiffel Tower. There was only 1 working elevator…and the line was almost the entire length of the tower! So we decided to WALK up the Eiffel Tower…700-800 some steps! (My giant legs from Nordic skiing paid off!) Who says Americans are lazy (except we did sit on the ground while we were waiting to do the ultimate stair master…got some dirty looks, apparently Europeans do not, under any circumstances, sit on the ground - who knew). We walked up and overlooked all of Paris. The sun was just going down, so the entire city was bathed in golden yellow – beautiful! We walked back down the stairs…at this point my legs were shaking…literally! While we were waiting for the light show to start we met a nice Moroccan guy who taught us some French (contrary to what I have always heard, all of the Parisians we met were very nice!). The light show came on for 5 min, then we took the metro back and ate a torte at a little café. We were so busy seeing everything that we hadn’t eaten ALL day (except for the airline food), that’s a once in a lifetime thing for me! Day 1 in Paris = great success! :)

Thursday, March 25 – Had the best breakfast ever!!! Crepes, croissants, baguettes, fruit, brie cheese, jam, coffee, cereal, yogurt = Marie’s heaven! :D Then we went to the Louvre. We saw the Winged Victory of Samothrace, Mona Lisa, Coronation Crown of King Louis XV, Wedding Feast painting, Aphrodite statue, the medieval mote that used to surround the Louvre (the Louvre used to be the kings’ palace before King Louis XIV build Versailles), and the Code of Hammurabi (pictured right). The Mona Lisa is so small and not very impressive. Apparently it is so famous because after da Vinci painted it, it was stolen (brought to Italy because they thought it rightfully belonged to Italy because that is where da Vinci was born (I think); however, he had given it to the Louvre). So in order to get it back, they made thousands and thousands of copies to give to people, so they could recognize it and return it to the Louvre. But that is why it is so popular, not because it is an amazing painting by any means, but because of the story behind it and that everyone knew what it looked like. I also really liked the Code of Hammurabi (weird, I know). I had to read the entire code and write a paper on it my freshman year, so it was really cool to see it and see the writing/hieroglyphics (read from top to bottom and right to left). It was the moral code of conduct before the Bible – “an eye for an eye” or “if an adopted child says to his parents, ‘you are not my parents,’ the child’s tongue should be cut off!”

The Louvre

          We then went on St. Germaine’s Street to a little district in Paris – Odeon. It was very cute and quaint with the little shops and cobblestone roads – I loved it! Had my first real crepe with nuetella!! New favorite food! I’m buying a crepe pan thingy when I get home! :D

Back/side of Notre Dame

         We walked to Notre Dame. Once we got up-close to it we could see the gargoyles and the ornate decoration on the arches and all over the church – very pretty! And the inside was gorgeous!! It was HUGE. The ceilings were so tall, and the stained glass was amazing! We walked all the way around it, at this point the sun was shining and the sky was so blue – we were all loving life! :) We walked down by the river, then went into the Sainte Chapelle (after first failing at getting in for free, she believed me that I was under 18, but we didn’t have our “teacher” with us). It was under construction, so I couldn’t actually see the front alter, but it was unbelievable! The entire thing from floor to ceiling was stained glass! Then, off to see the Sacré-Coeur. After hiding in a little café to get away from the torrential downpour, we walked up to see it – so pretty! We walked around up there in Montmartre (another small district/part of Paris). It had little cobblestone roads, restaurants, little shops, artists, and men playing the accordion. This was probably one of my favorite parts of France – the quaint little part in this huge city with the Sacré-Coeur and occasionally you could see the Eiffel Tower. We walked back down (while being serenaded by these guys behind us playing the guitar as we overlooked the city), and had dinner – meat, cheese, bread, and hot wine – delicious! It was a perfect day/night!

Sacré-Coeur

Montamartre

Friday, March 26 = free day in Paris! We took a train to see Versailles; it was HUGE and very ornately decorated. We saw the hall of mirrors (right) - very cool to see because we had just talked about the Treaty of Versailles in my history class – yep, we do have class here, occasionally. We saw the bed that King Louis XIV (I think) slept in and died in and Marie Antoinette’s bed were she bore 19 children…in public…umm…no thank you! All of the beds were like the princes beds with a cover and drapes over the side, except they were square and it was only like 4 feet long. After our tour was done, we went out to see the gardens in back – very pretty! We walked around, and then made our way to Marie Antoinette’s Estate, basically like her little play house. I mean, what else does a queen have to do? Tough life. As we were walking back the sky had changed from the lovely blue and sunny skies to a dark and ominous sky – the entire atmosphere had changed! It was very eerie. Kind of made me remember that it used to be a place where decisions were made that changed the course of history. I can’t really explain it very well, but it was the strangest feeling.

We took the train back to Odeon and had another crepe, this time chocolate – best crepe EVER! While were ordering/eating the little store was blasting music by Pink, and there was this American woman (probably in her 40s-50s) and this Chinese man drunk, dancing and singing to Pink…just the two of them. Hilarious! We later found out that one of my roommates, Charlotte, and another one of our friends went to the catacombs and saw Katie Couric there; they walked around with her and her daughter, talked with her, and took pictures. Cool! They said she was very nice and really funny. Yay for Katie Couric not being a stuck-up snob!

Overall, I liked Paris much more than I thought I would! There is so much to see and do there, and it has a nice combination of big European city and quaint parts hidden in the city. I loved it!