Last weekend was a long one, since we had Monday off for Easter (the explanation seems to be that the government does not want to give a religious holiday off, hence working on Good Friday, but they give Monday off so its still a long weekend), and Claire, Claire, and I went to Strasbourg. (Out of the six primary assistants in our department, two are named Claire--one is from Scotland and one from England. Add that to my landlord and the Claire I went to Morocco with, and you can see how it might get a little confusing.)
We were originally meant to take a 5pm train, but ended up catching an earlier one (at slightly more cost--we thought it was going to be cheaper, but as we were in the process of buying the tickets, the prices went up and then it was too late to go back), which got us there at about 8pm. Luckily it had stopped raining by then, so our walk across town to the hotel where we were staying was only cold, not wet. We found our room, which was enormous by my recent standards (two full beds and one twin, and the room was cheaper than it would have been to stay in the hostel), and decided to go to bed early so we could make the most out of the next day.
Of course it was raining again when we woke up, so after grabbing a breakfast from a bakery (I actually had a sandwich, because my dinner the night before had consisted of a pretzel and cookies) we went over to the cathedral, which we quickly admired, and then searched for the Palais Rohan, which houses three museums. As the rain didn't appear to be letting up and it was only one euro more to buy a day pass for all of the cities' museums (only three euros!), we went to the decorative arts museum and then the archeology museum. Both were pretty good and interesting, but nothing too exciting. After the museums we sought out Flam's, a local chain that specializes in tartes flambées, sort of like thin crust pizzas. Mine (onions, potatoes, and cheese) was good, but a little bland (probably the meat version had more kick). At that point it had cleared up a little, so we started exploring the city--La Petite France, the most famous part, Place de la Republique (the German-era bit), and then along the canals. We also stopped for some amazing ice cream (I just go chocolate sorbet, because I wanted a cone, but both Claires got more exciting things). After we figured out where we wanted to go to dinner (a baked potato restaurant), we discovered that nowhere opens for dinner before 7, so we wandered around some more. After dinner, we found a microbrewery and sampled their (all delicious beers).
The next day, Easter Sunday, it was snowing, though not really sticking. We decided to head for the modern and contemporary art museum, but stopped on the way for a cafe breakfast. The museum was pretty good, with a few really amazing pieces (especially a Kandinsky mural), but we did it in two parts, as we left halfway through to try to see the astronomical clock at the Cathedral (it wasn't running because of it being Easter) and then got lunch (student meal prices are one of the best deals in France). The snow kept up and it stayed cold, but we went back to the ice cream place for a second round anyway (this time I got peach and yogurt... mmm...) and then on to the Musée d'alsace (way too crowded) and the Museum of the History of Strasbourg (it was cool and very interactive, but we only went there because we had gotten another day pass, and only had a short amount of time). We had a late afternoon coffee break, where we sampled the local easter cake (in the shape of a lamb) and then found a winestub (the local traditional restaurant) that had vegetarian food and ate a feast.
Monday we got up early again and discovered that it was actually sunny, so we walked up to the university, which was very pretty, but closed off to visitors because of it being a holiday. On our way back we stopped to buy a kugelhopf (another local specialty) for the train and look at a really pretty high school. Then we checked out, bought some falafel for lunch, and went to the train station. Our train was 30 minutes late (it was waiting for a connecting train) and so we were a little stressed about whether we were going to make our connection in Paris, but it turned out fine and we got to see some pretty, snowy Alsacian villages on our way back.
samedi 29 mars 2008
mercredi 19 mars 2008
Life In Blois
I thought maybe I should actually talk about what I'm doing here, since this seems to have turned into just a travel journal.
School is basically the same. I picked up another 1.5 hours of CM2 class at VH, so I have an extra 45 minutes of work now (I dropped the 45 minutes of CM2s I was doing at BA). Its a big class, but they're well-behaved and they've had English all year so we're not struggling the way we would be if we were really starting right at the beginning. They're also really obsessed with getting me to speak French to them. (The teacher they had before, who is pregnant, was a regular French teacher, so she spoke a lot of French in the lessons). Another one of my schools invited me to go on a three-day bike ride with them in May, which would involve seeing some chateaux and spending lots of time with the students (but they're my favorite school), but I have to make sure I can make up the hours I would be missing at my other schools.
I haven't found that many other things to occupy my time, but I'm volunteering at Chato'do whenever I can, and I might take over some volunteer English lessons that another assistant, who is leaving at the beginning of April, is doing. I'm a little worried about how I will pass my time when everyone leaves in April, but one of my best friends here, Claire, has got a bartending job, so she's going to stick around (though whether we'll have any overlapping free time remains to be seen) all summer. Also, the weather is just starting to get nice, and so I have plans to go on random day trips to little towns on the train line, just to check them out, and I'll also start biking more.
Last weekend, Claire, Luisa, and I went to a wine fair (a tasting with people from lots of different wine regions), which was pretty cool. I managed to learn a little bit about wines and what I like, so now I can leave France with some knowledge in that direction. We also got to taste some wines from the Loire Valley, some from right around Blois! Unfortunately, the buses stopped running on the way back, so we had to walk for a while in the wind and rain (and also, we walked 15 minutes in the wrong direction first) through farmland, and by the time we got back we were exhausted.
I also went to the chateau in Blois, finally, last Sunday. It was quite impressive and worth going to (at least once, I'm not sure how many times I'll want to go back), though they were in the middle of filming a movie there, so some of the rooms were not open.
I still haven't heard from the summer camp where I want to work, here in France. My plan remains the same, though (unless, of course, I don't get the job)--work there through August, travel around Europe in September and October (and/ or until my money runs out), and then come back to the states and get a job (though I am going to try to find something before I leave Europe so I have a general idea of where I'm going.)
As for future travels, I'm going to Strasbourg this weekend and then for my next vacation (the 5th through the 20th of April), I'm going to Greece for almost two weeks and then Rome for just a weekend. I've made a list of places in France I want to go to on weekend trips, so (as long as I have money left), I'll be hitting those as much as I can in May and June.
School is basically the same. I picked up another 1.5 hours of CM2 class at VH, so I have an extra 45 minutes of work now (I dropped the 45 minutes of CM2s I was doing at BA). Its a big class, but they're well-behaved and they've had English all year so we're not struggling the way we would be if we were really starting right at the beginning. They're also really obsessed with getting me to speak French to them. (The teacher they had before, who is pregnant, was a regular French teacher, so she spoke a lot of French in the lessons). Another one of my schools invited me to go on a three-day bike ride with them in May, which would involve seeing some chateaux and spending lots of time with the students (but they're my favorite school), but I have to make sure I can make up the hours I would be missing at my other schools.
I haven't found that many other things to occupy my time, but I'm volunteering at Chato'do whenever I can, and I might take over some volunteer English lessons that another assistant, who is leaving at the beginning of April, is doing. I'm a little worried about how I will pass my time when everyone leaves in April, but one of my best friends here, Claire, has got a bartending job, so she's going to stick around (though whether we'll have any overlapping free time remains to be seen) all summer. Also, the weather is just starting to get nice, and so I have plans to go on random day trips to little towns on the train line, just to check them out, and I'll also start biking more.
Last weekend, Claire, Luisa, and I went to a wine fair (a tasting with people from lots of different wine regions), which was pretty cool. I managed to learn a little bit about wines and what I like, so now I can leave France with some knowledge in that direction. We also got to taste some wines from the Loire Valley, some from right around Blois! Unfortunately, the buses stopped running on the way back, so we had to walk for a while in the wind and rain (and also, we walked 15 minutes in the wrong direction first) through farmland, and by the time we got back we were exhausted.
I also went to the chateau in Blois, finally, last Sunday. It was quite impressive and worth going to (at least once, I'm not sure how many times I'll want to go back), though they were in the middle of filming a movie there, so some of the rooms were not open.
I still haven't heard from the summer camp where I want to work, here in France. My plan remains the same, though (unless, of course, I don't get the job)--work there through August, travel around Europe in September and October (and/ or until my money runs out), and then come back to the states and get a job (though I am going to try to find something before I leave Europe so I have a general idea of where I'm going.)
As for future travels, I'm going to Strasbourg this weekend and then for my next vacation (the 5th through the 20th of April), I'm going to Greece for almost two weeks and then Rome for just a weekend. I've made a list of places in France I want to go to on weekend trips, so (as long as I have money left), I'll be hitting those as much as I can in May and June.
samedi 8 mars 2008
The Netherlands
So I think I've at least alluded to my first three days in the Netherlands, which involved a botanical garden, a canal tour of Amsterdam, and seeing the sights in Haarlem. Moving on to the post-Czech Republic part.
We got back to the Amsterdam airport early in the morning and took the bus to Haarlem, and from there the train to Zaandvort. At that point we were so exhausted that we just decided to go to sleep. Upon waking, we ventured to the supermarket, where fun with bizarre dutch products ensued.
The next day we got up at a semi-reasonable hour and took the train to the Haague, where we saw the Escher museum (his early woodcuts I thought were much more interesting than his playing around with perspective) and then took a long walk to the modern art museum, which was pretty amazing. There was a temporary exhibit on Picasso and an artist from De Stijl, as well as a permanent collection and a very technologically based (but all in Dutch) interpretation of their design collections. After that, some more strolling, including a view of the outside of the Peace Palace, and then we met back up with Sahar's mom in Haarlem, where we ate tapas.
Thursday we woke up early and caught the train to Amesfort, in central Holland (which actually involved taking two trains), and then a bus to a town just outside of a National Park. From there, we grabbed some free bikes (that were one-speed and only had foot breaks) and had a nice ride through some fields and trees until we came to the coolest playground ever. There was a ton of different climbing structures, including a treehouse that involved some serious work to get into and a zip line. From the playground, where we ate lunch, it was only a short walk to the Kroller Mutter museum's sculpture garden, which had some nice stuff but unfortunately was very covered up for the winter. Then we went to the museum, which featured a cool, temporary, contemporary exhibit, some classical Dutch art, and a lot of amazing Van Goghs (as well as some other impressionist and post-impressionist paintings). It was great!
After the museum, we made our way out of the park, deciding to wait half an hour for a bus rather than biking all the way back to where we starting. Luckily, some other Dutch visitors to the museum helped us out, because it turned out we had to take another bus after the first one to get to the Appeldorn train station. From there, we took the train to Urtrecht, where we changed for a train to Rotterdam. By then it had started raining, so we decided to take the tram (are you sensing the public transportation theme yet?) to the hostel I had booked. Unfortunately, they didn't have any record of my booking (though they were temporarily convinced I was a Spanish person who had booked for the next week), so after consulting their free internet, we decided it would be cheaper to take the train back to Zaandvort and stay there for the night than get any other hostel. To console ourselves, we decided to stop and getting a nice dinner, so we went to Look, a garlic restaurant. It was delicious (and not even that expensive)! I had garlic soup and agglio olio and Sahar had a tasting menu that involved the same soup, garlic roasted chicken, and chocolate cake with garlic ice cream. Plus, I remembered that going to nice restaurants (at least outside of Prague) means they give you a lot of free things, too, so we got bread with really good aoili, salad, and two kinds of potatoes to dip in more garlic flavored things. Unfortunately, that meant I was too full to get my own dessert. Then we got the train back, which, after much confusion, involved taking the train to Lieden, changing there (but the connection was timed so that we literally walked off of the first train and on to the second), and then changing again in Haarlem.
So, for those of you taking score, the day involved:
7 trains (three separate trips)
3 buses (two trips)
1 bike ride (well, two really, but one we just rode out to the bus stop and then back)
1 tram ride,
or 12 forms of transportation in all, not counting walking. (If you add the plane and boats we took earlier in the trip, we traveled in almost every possible way on our holiday.)
Friday we woke up and got ourselves to Rotterdam again. It was raining on and off, so we decided to take advantage of a temporary stop to do a tour of the architecture. Then we went to Kunstwork, a contemporary art museum, which had a cool building and (unfortunately for us) exhibits only in Dutch. We also ate lunch at their (equally interesting) cafe, before we made our way over (through another sculpture garden) to the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen. By that point we were a little museumed out, so I sped through the classical Dutch and Eurpoean art and most of the 20th century art as well, but I lingered in their temporary exhibitions that featured a wide range of things, and almost fell asleep in these four, themed, exhibits/ rooms that featured benches, beds, couches, technicolor fertilizer crystals, bones hung with watches, and other such amazing things. Then we had another snack and went to check out the Netherlands Architecture Institute, which was unfortunately closing. We decided to go see some of the older architecture on our way back to the train station, but made a stop in H+M so I could buy some kids jeans (because they fit me!), and just saw the town hall. Afterwards, we met Sahar's mom and one of her coworkers in Haarlem, where we ate dinner and went to a few bars, just catching the last train back to Zaandvort.
Saturday, my last full day, I picked Lieden over Delft for spending the day. Mostly we wandered around, exploring the Saturday market. Lieden has a self-guided walking tour, but we kept getting confused and walking in circles, so I don't really know if we saw everything. We did see their old fortress, which gave us nice views of the city. And we ate some delicious falafel (there is apparently no falafel in Blois, so I try to eat it as much as possible when I leave). Then back to Zaanvort, where Sahar's mom fed us, and we went off, back to Haarlem, to see Block Party do a dj set. It took us a while to figure out where it was, and then another while for the show to get good (about midnight) but it was pretty fun and pretty crowded. We had just decided to leave (after a series of bad songs) when they played a series of really great songs, so we didn't end up leaving until about 3am. Then the bus that was supposed to come didn't, so we ended up taking a taxi back (the driver was really nice and had worked in Blois putting up roller coasters, and luckily it wasn't too expensive), so we fell into bed, and I made Sahar promise she would get up early, since I wanted to spend some time in Amsterdam on my last day.
She did get up, as promised, and we made our way into the city, where I dropped my backpack off in the lockers. We starting walking towards Vondelpark (since it was a nice day), but eventually decided we needed to take a tram or else we would just get there and have to turn around. The park wasn't packed, but there were quite a few people out, and it was warm enough that I got some gelato, and we saw some flowers blooming (!) and then took the tram back and Sahar got her train and I got mine, and then ended up in Paris with plenty of time to get my train back to Blois (which was packed with boarding-school kids coming back to school).
Whew. Now that that's done, maybe I'll finish up Morocco.
We got back to the Amsterdam airport early in the morning and took the bus to Haarlem, and from there the train to Zaandvort. At that point we were so exhausted that we just decided to go to sleep. Upon waking, we ventured to the supermarket, where fun with bizarre dutch products ensued.
The next day we got up at a semi-reasonable hour and took the train to the Haague, where we saw the Escher museum (his early woodcuts I thought were much more interesting than his playing around with perspective) and then took a long walk to the modern art museum, which was pretty amazing. There was a temporary exhibit on Picasso and an artist from De Stijl, as well as a permanent collection and a very technologically based (but all in Dutch) interpretation of their design collections. After that, some more strolling, including a view of the outside of the Peace Palace, and then we met back up with Sahar's mom in Haarlem, where we ate tapas.
Thursday we woke up early and caught the train to Amesfort, in central Holland (which actually involved taking two trains), and then a bus to a town just outside of a National Park. From there, we grabbed some free bikes (that were one-speed and only had foot breaks) and had a nice ride through some fields and trees until we came to the coolest playground ever. There was a ton of different climbing structures, including a treehouse that involved some serious work to get into and a zip line. From the playground, where we ate lunch, it was only a short walk to the Kroller Mutter museum's sculpture garden, which had some nice stuff but unfortunately was very covered up for the winter. Then we went to the museum, which featured a cool, temporary, contemporary exhibit, some classical Dutch art, and a lot of amazing Van Goghs (as well as some other impressionist and post-impressionist paintings). It was great!
After the museum, we made our way out of the park, deciding to wait half an hour for a bus rather than biking all the way back to where we starting. Luckily, some other Dutch visitors to the museum helped us out, because it turned out we had to take another bus after the first one to get to the Appeldorn train station. From there, we took the train to Urtrecht, where we changed for a train to Rotterdam. By then it had started raining, so we decided to take the tram (are you sensing the public transportation theme yet?) to the hostel I had booked. Unfortunately, they didn't have any record of my booking (though they were temporarily convinced I was a Spanish person who had booked for the next week), so after consulting their free internet, we decided it would be cheaper to take the train back to Zaandvort and stay there for the night than get any other hostel. To console ourselves, we decided to stop and getting a nice dinner, so we went to Look, a garlic restaurant. It was delicious (and not even that expensive)! I had garlic soup and agglio olio and Sahar had a tasting menu that involved the same soup, garlic roasted chicken, and chocolate cake with garlic ice cream. Plus, I remembered that going to nice restaurants (at least outside of Prague) means they give you a lot of free things, too, so we got bread with really good aoili, salad, and two kinds of potatoes to dip in more garlic flavored things. Unfortunately, that meant I was too full to get my own dessert. Then we got the train back, which, after much confusion, involved taking the train to Lieden, changing there (but the connection was timed so that we literally walked off of the first train and on to the second), and then changing again in Haarlem.
So, for those of you taking score, the day involved:
7 trains (three separate trips)
3 buses (two trips)
1 bike ride (well, two really, but one we just rode out to the bus stop and then back)
1 tram ride,
or 12 forms of transportation in all, not counting walking. (If you add the plane and boats we took earlier in the trip, we traveled in almost every possible way on our holiday.)
Friday we woke up and got ourselves to Rotterdam again. It was raining on and off, so we decided to take advantage of a temporary stop to do a tour of the architecture. Then we went to Kunstwork, a contemporary art museum, which had a cool building and (unfortunately for us) exhibits only in Dutch. We also ate lunch at their (equally interesting) cafe, before we made our way over (through another sculpture garden) to the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen. By that point we were a little museumed out, so I sped through the classical Dutch and Eurpoean art and most of the 20th century art as well, but I lingered in their temporary exhibitions that featured a wide range of things, and almost fell asleep in these four, themed, exhibits/ rooms that featured benches, beds, couches, technicolor fertilizer crystals, bones hung with watches, and other such amazing things. Then we had another snack and went to check out the Netherlands Architecture Institute, which was unfortunately closing. We decided to go see some of the older architecture on our way back to the train station, but made a stop in H+M so I could buy some kids jeans (because they fit me!), and just saw the town hall. Afterwards, we met Sahar's mom and one of her coworkers in Haarlem, where we ate dinner and went to a few bars, just catching the last train back to Zaandvort.
Saturday, my last full day, I picked Lieden over Delft for spending the day. Mostly we wandered around, exploring the Saturday market. Lieden has a self-guided walking tour, but we kept getting confused and walking in circles, so I don't really know if we saw everything. We did see their old fortress, which gave us nice views of the city. And we ate some delicious falafel (there is apparently no falafel in Blois, so I try to eat it as much as possible when I leave). Then back to Zaanvort, where Sahar's mom fed us, and we went off, back to Haarlem, to see Block Party do a dj set. It took us a while to figure out where it was, and then another while for the show to get good (about midnight) but it was pretty fun and pretty crowded. We had just decided to leave (after a series of bad songs) when they played a series of really great songs, so we didn't end up leaving until about 3am. Then the bus that was supposed to come didn't, so we ended up taking a taxi back (the driver was really nice and had worked in Blois putting up roller coasters, and luckily it wasn't too expensive), so we fell into bed, and I made Sahar promise she would get up early, since I wanted to spend some time in Amsterdam on my last day.
She did get up, as promised, and we made our way into the city, where I dropped my backpack off in the lockers. We starting walking towards Vondelpark (since it was a nice day), but eventually decided we needed to take a tram or else we would just get there and have to turn around. The park wasn't packed, but there were quite a few people out, and it was warm enough that I got some gelato, and we saw some flowers blooming (!) and then took the tram back and Sahar got her train and I got mine, and then ended up in Paris with plenty of time to get my train back to Blois (which was packed with boarding-school kids coming back to school).
Whew. Now that that's done, maybe I'll finish up Morocco.
mardi 4 mars 2008
The rest of the Czech Republic
Okay, I'm back in Blois, and I know I haven't finished telling you about Morocco yet, but I thought I would catch up on my last vacation.
On Sunday, we explored Cesky Krumlov, which I think is mobbed with tourists during the summer, but was pretty empty. We slept late and missed the tour of the local brewery, so instead we got some brunch at a cute cafe and then wandered around the castle grounds (the inside was shut for the season). There were a lot of trompe de l'oeil paintings on the wall and a big tower. There were some gorgeous views from the walkways down to the river and the town. There was even a bear in the castle moat (which would have been more exciting if the bear hadn't seem so depressed)! After that, we walked around the town in its entirety, stopping to drink some tea and watch a cat chase a bird. Finally, when it was a reasonable hour, we went to a vegetarian restaurant, where we ate more delicious food.
Monday we took the bus back to Prague. We had to change buses in a nearby, but larger, city, where the bus station was on top of a large and very modern mall. Since we were carrying all of our stuff, we didn't do much exploring, but we did manage to get a pharmacist to understand that Sahar needed some decongestant. Once back in Prague, we dropped our bags in lockers at the train station and then walked to the Jewish Quarter, where we saw a lot of synagogues and a really old Jewish cemetery. Then we took a coffee break, and then after that went back to the New Town to do some shopping. (We were planning to take the last metro to the airport, so we had a lot of time to kill.) Sahar bought some shoes, and I discovered that H+M children's pants are my size. I ate a fried cheese sandwich from a stand on the street (it was not awful, but also not good, though the server seemed aghast that I wanted it with mustard, rather than mayo) and Sahar got a rolled-dough on a metal stick thing, which I thought was kind of weird. We ended up at a cool English-language bookstore, where I bought some old New Yorkers and we played trivial pursuit while drinking coffee. We caught the last metro and ended up at the airport at about midnight, found some benches and tried to sleep (our flight was at 6am), which was semi-successful for me, and much less so for Sahar.
Then we got our flight back to the Netherlands!
On Sunday, we explored Cesky Krumlov, which I think is mobbed with tourists during the summer, but was pretty empty. We slept late and missed the tour of the local brewery, so instead we got some brunch at a cute cafe and then wandered around the castle grounds (the inside was shut for the season). There were a lot of trompe de l'oeil paintings on the wall and a big tower. There were some gorgeous views from the walkways down to the river and the town. There was even a bear in the castle moat (which would have been more exciting if the bear hadn't seem so depressed)! After that, we walked around the town in its entirety, stopping to drink some tea and watch a cat chase a bird. Finally, when it was a reasonable hour, we went to a vegetarian restaurant, where we ate more delicious food.
Monday we took the bus back to Prague. We had to change buses in a nearby, but larger, city, where the bus station was on top of a large and very modern mall. Since we were carrying all of our stuff, we didn't do much exploring, but we did manage to get a pharmacist to understand that Sahar needed some decongestant. Once back in Prague, we dropped our bags in lockers at the train station and then walked to the Jewish Quarter, where we saw a lot of synagogues and a really old Jewish cemetery. Then we took a coffee break, and then after that went back to the New Town to do some shopping. (We were planning to take the last metro to the airport, so we had a lot of time to kill.) Sahar bought some shoes, and I discovered that H+M children's pants are my size. I ate a fried cheese sandwich from a stand on the street (it was not awful, but also not good, though the server seemed aghast that I wanted it with mustard, rather than mayo) and Sahar got a rolled-dough on a metal stick thing, which I thought was kind of weird. We ended up at a cool English-language bookstore, where I bought some old New Yorkers and we played trivial pursuit while drinking coffee. We caught the last metro and ended up at the airport at about midnight, found some benches and tried to sleep (our flight was at 6am), which was semi-successful for me, and much less so for Sahar.
Then we got our flight back to the Netherlands!
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