Easter Holiday Travels Part 2

Hiya!



Wow, it's taking me a long time to do this, I apologize. Things have been pretty hectic the past week. As of now, I've had two out of three of my exams. I didn't really understand why everyone got so stressed out, but now that I've actually started taking my own exams, I'm starting to understand. Most exams here are given in essay format. You're put in a big room with about 200 people from your own class and other classes as well, and a set of proctors administers the exam. My first one was for my English class on Wednesday. We had two hours to complete two questions. It was pretty hard, but in talking to other people from the class afterwards, everyone else seemed to feel the same way. Friday was my Scottish History exam which I think I did ok on. We had two hours to answer three questions, so I felt pretty pressed for time. My last exam is this Friday, and then I'll be all done with the academic part of my semester abroad! And after that, it's only one more week until I'm back in the States. It's crazy to think things are finishing up already! A friend of mine left to go home Friday, which made the notion set in a little more. We had a pizza picnic dinner in the Meadows (the big park in Edinburgh) last night to see her off so that was nice, but after an hour or so of just sitting there, we were all pretty freezing. That's one thing that's been kind of depressing here. It will not get warm! It will be sunny and nice, but with the wind it still feels really cold! Normally in Iowa, I wear shorts and flip flops to my finals. Friday, I wore my winter coat! I'm ready for shorts and flip flops! The weather did get a little nicer this weekend though so I tried to take advantage of it and explore New Town some more. I went to the National Galleries which had some nice art. I thought the best parts were the Scottish landscapes and they also had some nice Impressionist stuff too. Besides that, I just spent a lot of time outside walking around. On Sunday, I walked over to the Stockbridge area which was really nice. It was a lot more residential and less touristy than Old Town and parts of New Town. I think if I actually lived here, that would be a nice area to be in. Of course, it's gone back to being rainy today.



Ok, so back to my holiday.



Paris: April 8-14


Luckily, we flew from Budapest to Paris. After our past two train rides I can't imagine how terrible or long the trip from Budapest to Paris would have been. Unfortunately, the weather was not as hot in Paris as it was in Budapest. When we arrived, it was raining, which it did on and off the whole time we were there. When it wasn't raining, it was pretty pleasant. Anyways, Claire was in Paris with me for two days and we stayed in a hotel in Montmarte which ended up not being very nice, but the location was good. We were right across the street from a metro stop so it worked well. We met up with Katie, a friend of mine from Iowa, who is studying at the Sorbonne for the semester. We had some difficulty meeting up because for some reason, our phones wouldn't work, but we were finally able to figure something out through email. Claire left on Friday and I moved into a hostel in the Latin Quarter. For the rest of the weekend in Paris, and the rest of my trip, I went around with Katie. Her first week of holiday was my last so it worked out well to travel together. I've been to Paris before with my family so it was nice not to spend a lot of time waiting in line at the Eiffel Tower or the Louvre or Notre Dame.



Some highlights of places we went/ things we saw:

Centre Pompidou, Jardins des Tuileries, the Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower, Musee Marmottan-Claude Monet, Sacre Coeur, Notre Dame, Galeries Lafayette, Saint Chappelle, Jardin Du Luxembourg

Best Part: When Claire and I got to Paris, we were both definitely looking forward to eating. The cuisine we sampled in Hungary was not the best, leading us to just make pasta in the hostel kitchen for dinner most nights. When we got to Paris, we were definitely looking forward to filling up on anything French and delicious! We ate a lot of crepes and pastries! Also after being in Eastern Europe for close to 2 weeks where the language was so foreign, it was nice to get a menu we could decipher without English subtitles. Claire and I tried our best to make use of what we could remember from high school French, but most people could tell we were not French and spoke English to us almost immediately.


Besides eating, I really enjoyed all of the art we got to see. Claire and I went to Centre Pompidou which had special exhibits by Kandinsky and Alexander Calder, both of which I really enjoyed. Last year we watched a video of Calder's circus in my sculpture class, so it was interesting to see up close! We also went to the Musee de L'Orangerie and saw Monet's Nympheas which was really cool.

Worst Part: On Friday, when Claire left for the airport, I hopped on the Metro with all of my stuff and moved into my new hostel. It took a little time, but I made it there pretty easily. Katie had class until 4:00 so I was on my own for most of the day. After checking in I decided to go get something to eat from the grocery store. My plan was to hop on the Metro and go eat in one of the gardens before going to see the Andy Warhol Exhibit at the Grand Palais. Coming out of the store, I couldn’t find my Metro pass which I had gotten to last me the whole time I was in Paris. I went back into the store and looked around and back to the hostel to look through my stuff, but I had no luck in finding it. The museum was several Metro stops and connections away and I wasn’t sure how to get a new pass so I ended up just wandering around the Ile de la Cite and Il Saint Louis until meeting with Katie around 4:30. She helped me get a new pass and we were good to go! It was disappointing though because I felt like I kind of wasted a day, and of course I had to pay for a new pass.

It was really nice to be back in Paris. It was a good place to relax for a bit. It's such a beautiful city, with so much to do. At the same time, I feel like you could just sit in a different garden everyday with a picnic and have a really nice vacation! Also, it was nice to have someone who knew the lay of the land pretty well and could take me around.


The Monday morning after Easter, we boarded a train to Brussels. The trip itself worked out well and was pretty quick.

Brussels/Bruges: April 14-17

Some highlights of places we went/ things we saw:
Brussels: Mannekin-Pis, the Grand Place, Jeanneke-Pis, St. Cathrine Church, Belgian Center for Comic Strip Art, the Automium, EU headquarters

Bruges: (see below)

We had some difficulty when we first got to Brussels (explained below), but once that got worked out, things went pretty smoothly. We didn't have any luck finding hostels in Brussels so we ended up getting a twin hotel room which ended up being pretty nice. It was located conveniently between the train station andthe Grand Place, the main square. We had our own bathroom and even a TV! The shower was freezing though. The weather was pretty decent most of the time we were there which made walking everywhere pretty easy. The weird thing about Brussels was that you could walk five minutes in one direction and it would look totally different than where you just were. You kind of felt like you were always walking into a different town. It was kind of strange, but interesting I guess.

Best Part: Hands down, the best part of Belgium was the waffles! Katie and I ate one for dessert after nearly every meal.

I also thought Bruges was really nice. We wanted to go after watching In Bruges last semester. It's a pretty good movie. If you haven't seen it, I recommend it. It's a pretty dark comedy, but it's good. The weather was really nice the day we went, and the whole city was just like fairytale land. My favorite parts were the canal tour and the beautiful Beguinage which we just happened to stumble upon. We also climbed the Belfort and went to the Basilique du Saint-Sang which was very beautiful. They had a vile of Jesus's blood that they take out at certain times of the day and and people can touch it and say a prayer. I bet not many other people can say they did that on their spring break.


Worst Part: We ended up getting into the train station around noon on Monday. We got off the train, and our plan was to do like Claire and I had done before and find the tourist information booth to get a better map of the city and directions to our hotel. When we got to the booth, it was closed. We didn’t know if it was just for lunch or if they were closed because it was Easter Monday so we decided to go and get our tickets for Bruges and Amsterdam and then come back and check. When we came back, they still weren’t open. Katie decided to buy a Belgian guidebook but they only offered them in French and Flemish so it really did not come in much use to me. We tried to figure out the metro, but the information place there was closed too so we decided just to walk it. The only problem was, the streets around the station were not marked clearly so we couldn’t figure out which way we had to walk. After we had walked in the wrong direction about four times, we decided to just take a cab. We asked the cabbie to take us to the hotel and he told us it wasn’t worth it, that it was within walking distance, and tried to explain to Katie in French, how to get there. We thought we had figured it out, but we decided to check the map to make sure we were headed in the right direction. While doing this, a guy approached us asking for a lighter. We said we didn’t have one and then he offered to try and help us figure out where we were going. At the same time, another guy had walked behind us pretending to talk on his phone and I turned around to realize he was looking at our stuff, mainly Katie’s purse which was on the bench next to us and had Katie’s passport and our train tickets we had just bought in it. Both guys noticed I saw him and they pretended to great each other and walk off together. It was obvious; they were trying to mug us. Luckily, I was smart enough to turn around. Frustrated we walked back into the station and realized that the tourist center had finally reopened and we were able to get a map and a woman who spoke English to give us directions we could both understand. Sure enough, we had just spent 2 hours trying to find our hotel which was literally just right down the street.


Amsterdam: April 17-18

Though we didn't have much time in Amsterdam, I enjoyed everything I got to see. Some of the parks/squares they mentioned in the book turned out to kind of be duds, but it was still nice to just walk around and enjoy the city.

Some highlights of places we went/ things we saw:
Anne Frank House, the Van Gogh Museum, Beguinehof, FOAM Photograpy Museum (exhibit of Richard Avedon portraits)

Best Part: I’d say my favorite part about Amsterdam was just walking around the city itself. I always thought Amsterdam sounded a little scary with the “coffee shops” which don’t sell coffee and the red light district and all. I expected it to be kind of run down and dirty, but it was really pretty! This also made it really easy to get lost considering everything looked pretty much the same, but the houses, the canals, the multicolored bicycles made for a very pretty sight.

Worst Part: The train from Brussels to Amsterdam ended up taking longer than I had anticipated and by the time we got there, we had already lost most of our first day there. Luckily, museums were open later around the weekends, but still, I feel like Katie and I weren’t able to do everything we could have done. Especially considering Katie and I somehow ended up getting really sick during the night, our second day wasn’t the most enjoyable. I felt like I was still able to see a lot but I’d definitely have to put it on the list of places to go back to, along with seeing the rest of the Netherlands.



All in all, it was a pretty successful trip! I think even the parts that were difficult and frustrating, served as a good learning experience. I’m proud of myself because I did most of the planning and I learned a lot about the difficulties of planning a trip and managing money and in all, probably how to act more like an adult. This trip really made me realize how much there is to see in the world, and I hope I'll have a lot more opportunities to travel in the future!

Here's the link to the pictures again:
http://picasaweb.google.com/NedPix/EasterHoliday?authkey=Gv1sRgCPHjr8W-oZrx-AE#