The Calm Before the Awesome Part III

I'm at work and have 15 minutes to kill before I can leave, so I thought I'd do a quick intro post for Big Europe Trip #3. I have to fly to JFK first before crossing the pond, so I might post later too. Of course, being JFK, I might be putting my emotional energies into not being angry. We'll see.

But this trip I will be going to Brussels for the first half and will be visiting a friend of mine (and her couch). She lives outside of Brussels in Leuven, which is in the Dutch region. I've been doing some last minute Dutch cramming so I'm not too rude. It sounds a bit funny.Mostly, though, I'll be in Brussels and the Walloon region, which are largely francophone, which I am very excited (and nervous) about..

Then I might spend a day in Luxembourg, because I dont think I've ever met someone from the States who visited Luxembourg. Plus it's francophone as well. This is up in the air. It depends on Belgium, I think.

Then to Paris, my sweet foreign mistress. I'm going to spend an entire day doing nothing but sitting at cafes and lazing around parks. And eating cheese. And pastries. And donner kebabs.

All I have to do is get through an 8 hour flight. Not too bad.

Short, sweeet.

So today I ate cheese and a baguette under a tree by the Eiffel tower, but it was soooo hot. It was crazy hot today. So I decided to watch a movie at the theater. I saw Midnight in Paris and it was excellent. Very much not what I was expecting, but very very good. The coolest part was that it opened with a montage of shots around Paris, one of which was the very theater in which I was sitting at that moment. How cool is that!

Then I walked around the latin quarter some more, took alot of pictures of the sunset, ate a gyro (just not as good as a kebab, but all they have here is gyros for some reason), then walked around for a bit until heading back to the hotel where I met two guys from Virginia and a girl from Jersey and we talked for a long time and now its late and I gotta get up to go to Versaille and have my last great night out on the town tomorrow night.

But Im tired so Im gonna keep this short. See you all soon.

Paris I missed you...

So after some problems with checking out of the hotel, I headed over to my hotel which it turns out is kinda in the boondocks in some suburb of Paris. It kinda nice to have my own room with a big bed though. After checking in I decided to head back to Paris, cause it was too hot to stay in the room (it was cloudy and rainy all month in Tours, suddenly it's bright sunny and hot the moment I get here).

I headed to the jardin du luxembourg, with a baguette and Nutella, and it turned out there was some performance with two singers and a pianist, who were all amazing. Everyone all over the park was sitting on the grass, but cops would wander around and tell people to get off, which they would, until the moment the cops left, then everyone would get right back on the grass. It was kinda funny. I was able to get a spot on the lawn by the stage where the performance was, and for a moment it looked like they were going to kick us all off, but they gave up at the last second since there were way to many people to remove. I laid back and listened and dozed off for a second. Once I woke up, I decided to just wander until I found the Latin quarter, where I sat at a cafe that was relatively cheap and just had some cold drinks, cause it was still pretty hot. While there I talked to some funny german guy until the sun started to go down.

I left the Latin quarter and walked along the seine until I got to Pont d' Alexandre, just as the sun was setting, which was very beautiful. I just watched the sun go down, then found a metro and headed back to my hotel and here I am.

I was going to go to Versaille tomorrow, but I just checked and found out the Palace is closed on Mondays, so Im going to try for Tuesday instead.

Anyways, Im really tired so Im going to go to sleep now.

Less than 3 days to go now...

oh the pretty lights

I am at an internet cafe so to be quick, im in Paris, last night was awesome, i stayed lastnight with another student, and tonight I go to my own little hotel, to sleep alot hopefully, thats called Hotel Cheap Beds. Sounds sketchy but its cheap and has a high rating on hostelworld.
All is excellent and amazing, and im gonna go to versaille tomorrow, one ,ore day after that in Paris, then I fly home.
But Ill post again at the other hotel.

Last class of Bacc

So today was the last day of classes. A bit sad actually. A bunch of people left for Paris this afternoon, but the last of us are going to hang out at the Ganguette (sp?) which is the regular place. I'll try and take some pics, cause it's quite a neat place. Everyone is really tired though and we all travel in the morning so I think it'll be just a short goodbye get-together.

And so for classes today, I had a four hour break until a history of art class at 3:30-5:30pm. Last class on Fridays, so the ten of us in the class were the last ones to finish with the courses. We'd actually all gotten our certificate things. The history of art class was one of the various non-graded classes, but we still had to take them in order to fill out the hours to get credit. I was really tempted to just not go since I hadnt been absent yet, but I decided that since it was going to be my very last class of my BA degree that I should go and see it through to the very end. As I sat there in the dark (slideshow class) trying to stay awake, I started thinking about how long this degree process has been going on and it's still crazy to me that it's actually over. Of course I still have my masters but I'll think about that later. When I left the class room it was a totally surreal feeling...

But anyways, tomorrow morning I take the train to Paris and meet up with a couple fellow Utahns to split a hotel for the night. Then I have a cheap (but nice) hotel to myself for the next couple days until I go, but I can talk about when it comes up...if there's wifi.

Ciao

Some last pics of the Institut

This is a shot of the cathedral (with the little dude on it) and the bell tower that guided me to school everymorning for the first week or two. The bell tower is the only remaining piece of some huge old basilica that burned down a dozen times and was eventually destroyed. It looks cool though.

Another pic of the bishop guy that spied on us during class.

This is the little plaza that's right in front of the Institut. It's empty cause its like 5:30pm and there was only one class that still had anything going on (and I happened to be in it...)

A peek inside the gate to the courtyard of the Institut where most everyone hung out.

Chenonceau, in full color!

The internet is cooperating right now, so Im gonna load some pics of Chenonceau too.

The first pic is what the chateau looks like when you walk up to it. The second and third are of the grand gallery (from the inside & outside) that straddles the river. The river was the dividing line in this area between occupied and unoccupied France during WWII, so it was used alot by resistance fighters to cross the river, then it was used as a hospital when the allies took it back, so they cleared out all of the sculptures & paintings which never were returned, hence why it's empty. The fourth pic is my friends walking into the maze, and the last is a pic through a window overlooking the balconies of the grand gallery.