Wednesday, March 28, 2012

On reviens!

La jeune fille Katrine est revenue dans son pays adoptée! And she has apparently returned to blogging, too. I initially thought it wasn’t worth blogging anything from 10 days worth of travel, but I found within about thirty seconds of arriving in Europe that I was already taking mental notes of things I wanted to jot down.


The back story: my very first French teacher ever, Mme. Gonzalez, is currently the head of the language department at Walter Payton College Prep. My younger brother and my mom, while visiting said high school, ran into Madame. Email addresses were exchanged, and I received an email shortly after that read something along the lines of:


“Bizarre question…are you interested/available for chaperoning our HS trip to France between March 27th and April 5th? Transportation and housing are included. Don’t feel obligated to say yes, but let me know if you’re interested!”


I have a policy never to turn down free trips to Europe. I have never had to enforce said policy before, but I have no problem starting now. Free trip to France? YES. Yes, I am interested.


So, several months later, I am in a bed and breakfast just outside of Strasbourg and winding down my first full day in France. Well, technically it’s not even 4:30pm local time, but I am still quite ready to crash. I got maybe three hours of sleep on Monday night, and despite the fact that I managed to sleep an hour or two on the plane (quite an accomplishment for me), that makes it about five hours of sleep I’ve gotten in the past 48 hours, not counting the random moments when I have randomly dozed off. There have been a lot of those moments. This is also the first time in my life I’ve done a trip to France that has not involved moving to France, and I have to say that I’m quite pleased with it. Packing was far less painful than usual, and having only one suitcase and one messenger bag was absolutely lovely.


We left Chicago Tuesday at 2:30pm and arrived in Frankfurt Wednesday at 5:45am. The flight wasn’t bad—it was no Lufthansa, but it’ll do. I was unfortunately in the middle seat, which made the already not fun experience of flying across the Atlantic even less fun, but I survived. We got through customs in Frankfurt without a problem, but ran into trouble with luggage—one girl’s suitcase was missing. We spent a good amount of time trying to figure that out (without any success) before boarding a coach bus to Strasbourg.


Aside: There is something about being on a bus with school friends for students. They cannot resist the urge to burst into song. It entertains me.


We finally arrived at Lycée Margeurite Yourcenar around 10am, and were greeted by the exchange students. The French students had already visited Payton in the fall, and the kids were very excited to see each other again. The lycée looks almost exactly like Anita Conti—same architecture, same signs about the bac blanc and TPE, same teachers wearing jeans as work attire, identical cafeteria set up, same note on the main administration door telling people to go to the secretary’s if no one is there (and seriously, the wording is identical). We had a small breakfast they had waiting for us, mingled with the proviseur, chatted with the French teachers (meaning the French teachers of English, not the Americans), did a quick tour of the school, and then were taken to lunch. Because it is France. And that is all the reason you need to eat less than a half hour after your last meal. Meals in France are not eaten because people are hungry—they are eaten because the clock says it is time to eat, so eat you will!


We went on a brief walk after lunch to try to keep from falling asleep (it worked temporarily) and then dropped our things off at the bed and breakfast where the chaperones/Payton teachers are staying. It’s a really cute place. The couple who owns it built on a three level addition to their own house to turn it into a B&B—there’s one room in the basement, and dining room on the first floor, and then three more bedrooms upstairs. Marie-Paul, the wife, made us a delicious dinner tonight, complete with homemade rhubarb ice cream topped with strawberries. I forgot how delicious French food was. I will basically be stuffing my face the entire time I’m here.


And now I am sleepy.


Bonne nuit!

Friday, May 27, 2011

C'est Bientôt la Fin: Closure


(Please ignore the random pictures in this--the official music video didn't allow embedding.)

I have come to accept the fact that, unless I get really bored in the next few months, I will probably not be summing up my last two trips, though I'm going to make a shot at my last week in Rennes.

After a lovely time in Copenhagen, Munich, Salzburg, Strasbourg, and Paris, I returned to Rennes for one last week to pack my life up into suitcases (and, it turned out, to curse myself for buying so many books--shocker, I know) and eat. Eat a lot. I made it back on a Wednesday afternoon, and gave myself all of that afternoon and evening to sit around recovering from my travels.

On Thursday Lauren and I started the eating marathon with a trip to Haricot Rouge for coffee, and then one last stop at the Tartine place for tartines (naturally) and dessert. We also did some shopping around Rennes, and then just hung out at her apartment catching up on both of our travels. Emily, one of Lauren's friends, arrived in Rennes on Thursday evening, and so she joined us for our eating fests for the rest of my time.

Friday we did Lebanese sandwiches (falafel, YUM) for lunch, a trip to our favorite ice cream place for a snack (this place has a salted butter caramel ice cream that is my new obsession), and then one last trip to Creperie St. Melaine for dinner. This was actually only the second time I'd been to this creperie, and I wish I'd discovered it earlier--it's miles (or kilometers, rather) ahead of the other creperies I'd gone to.

Saturday was the last trip to the market and the last subsequent picnic. We did our normal rounds at the market--started at 9 to avoid all the crowds and so that they wouldn't run out of fondant au caramel muffins, visited the muffin (and kouign amann) man, grabbed dried sausage, bought strawberries, then walked to the nearby bakery for some baguettes before getting cheese and wine on our way back. We actually got carded buying the wine, which is unheard of in France. It was rather exciting to get carded again after so long! We had the muffins with some coffee at Lauren's, then went for a walk around Thabor until lunch time. Thabor looked absolutely gorgeous. It was only about two weeks since I'd last wandered there, but the roses had completely come into bloom, and it was beautiful. We then sat down for our picnic in the sun, and it was lovely.

Sunday I went to stop at the Lebanese sandwich place one last time with Adriana. This time I got a chiche taouk sandwich, which is absolutely delicious. I loved the falafel one so much right after I discovered this place that I was hesitant to try anything else, but Adriana talked me into the chiche taouk, and I did not regret it. It was a rather French lunch--some old guy sitting at the restaurant decided that, since we were not French, this was a perfect opportunity for him to corner some unsuspecting foreigners and talk about how he has lots of children all over the world, America has more freedom than France (my response: well, freedom to have guns, yes. Freedom to go on strike, not so much), and how scandalous it is that in Scandinavia, men help take care of their children. He kept saying how much he wanted to hear what people from different cultures thought, but he was too busy giving a monologue about his opinions to stop and ask Adriana and I our own opinions. It was a combination of annoying and hilarious. And, since it was a Sunday in France, there was no way we could excuse ourselves. No one works, nothing was open, so no errands could be done--I finally said I needed to catch a bus (which was true, I did need to catch a bus, I just didn't need to catch it at that moment) and Adriana and I went off to laugh over the conversation over more ice cream. Friday night Denise and Jean-Paul had me to dinner one last time, and I got to enjoy semoule and listen to a lovely debate about whether or not Dominique Strauss-Kahn was guilty.

On Monday morning (very early), Lauren, Emily, and I headed to Vitre to spend the morning with Caitlin. We sat around Caitlin's kitchen table, listening to music and drinking coffee for a few hours, and then we helped Caitlin pack all of her things up before heading to an Indian restaurant. I had to get back to Rennes early for a bank appointment (we're going to skip over that fiasco, but suffice it to say that apparently there is only ONE PERSON from this entire bank branch who can access cash, so I ended up making an unwilling donation of 9 euros and 4 centimes to BNP Paribas), and then I had one last galette saucisse. Hung out a bit with Lauren and Emily once they made it back into Rennes, and then I went back to attend to my packing.

See? I told you I basically spent the last week in Rennes eating. When I was not eating, I was packing, unpacking if I discovered things didn't fit, and then repacking in an attempt to make things fit. I managed to get all of my books home without having to ship any, thank goodness, though that did mean I was carting around quite a few books in my backpack during my travels.

The trip back was long, as trans-Atlantic journeys often are, but without incident. I flew Lufthansa for the first time, and they've successfully converted me. Although they couldn't do anything about the fact that it was a nine hour flight, each seat had its own entertainment system (allowing me to watch two movies and a half dozen TV shows over the course of the flight), they handed out warm cloths to wipe your hands with before meals, and the salad had FETA on it, which made my day. I shall never fly United again.

My energies have now been directed towards fighting jet lag. It seems to be a losing battle, as I'm still waking up at 5AM every day, yet wanting to collapse from exhaustion around 5PM. Maybe another week and I'll be able to sleep again?

Anyway, for those of you who haven't heard, I'll be working as a high school tutor in the Chicago area for the next year. I will not be continuing this blog, though there is a chance I'll pick up with my book blog, should any of you wish to maintain my lovely blog-presence in your lives.

Merci, et au revoir!

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Scandinavia: Photos

At this point I really don't know if Copenhagen's going to get its own long post. I just got back late Tuesday night, and I leave tonight for another trip that'll have me gone until the 18th. I do have another week in France after that trip, so there will be a few updates...it just seems likely those updates will be about frolicking in Munich, Salzburg, Strasbourg, and Paris. Anyway, at the least I can provide Copenhagen with its own photo post!

1) Copenhagen's City Hall.


2) A stereotypical picture of colorful houses along the harbor.


3) Det Lille Havfrue--The Little Mermaid!


4) The City Hall in Malmo, Sweden


5) Rosenborg Castle in Copenhagen

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

The Bell v. The Bunny: A Cultural Easter Battle for the Ages



Full disclosure: I have been waiting since October to post this video in my blog for Easter. Amelia introduced me to it when I went to Paris to visit her, and it has been making me laugh ever since. Also, the following update has not been proofed, so I apologize in advance for any typos and grammar errors--the perfectionist in me really wants to edit it, but it's bed time, and my desire for sleep is winning out.


My last Easter in Europe was spent fleeing Roman rain, sharing a train compartment with a crazy lady who spoke no French yet was going to move to Nice (and who got off in Monte Carlo, for some reason…I hope she made it to Nice eventually), and promptly taking a three hour nap upon arriving in Avignon after a sleepless night. It was time for some new European Easter memories.


The weekend started off early on Saturday morning, when Lauren and I headed to the Marché des Lices. I was determined to have my caramel muffins (they were out by the time I got there last week), so I sacrificed some sleep just to make sure of that. We went to grab some baguettes, and then hung out for a bit at Lauren’s. I was on a mission for cute French placemats (I have never before seen such adorable placemats as French ones) to bring back to the US with me, since those are about the easiest things imaginable to squeeze into a suitcase, so we stopped at a few stores, and then went to get coffee. I had been craving an iced latté, and thankfully Haricot Rouge (which satisfied my hot chocolate cravings all winter) has those. Maybe it was sitting in the sun with a cool drink, or maybe it was the caffeine (it was probably the caffeine…), but I found myself with lots more energy after that. Lauren and I spent most of the afternoon wandering around and stopping in lots of stores. Lauren wanted a new pair of shoes, and we all know how much self-restraint I have when it comes to shoes, so I ended up leaving with a new pair of shoes, as well. They’re pretty freaking cute, and I’m quite satisfied with my purchase. We finally found a store that had placemats that lived up to my exacting standards, and Lauren bought a cute mug set, so the afternoon was a success. I was supposed to go to an assistants’ party that evening, but my stomach was bothering me, so I ended up going home and sleeping.


I managed to get myself up early enough on Sunday morning to do some yoga before heading off to Lauren’s (wearing my lovely new shoes) for our Easter brunch. I wanted to make a strata, but that requires an oven, so we just scrambled all the would-be strata ingredients (onions, cheese, and lardons) with eggs. Fast and delicious! We enjoyed that with mimosas, then pulled out our chocolate. On Saturday we’d bought a chocolate bunny and a chocolate bell, to honor the both the French and American bringers of chocolate. Once devouring most of the bell, we went out for a walk around Thabor…in our new shoes. This was, perhaps, not wise. There may or may not have been bleeding feet involved, but we shall not linger on that. Let’s talk instead about how lovely the flowers were and how it was beautiful outside and how I spent lots of time with lilacs, my favorite flowers in the world.


On weather: I hesitate to say this, for fear of jinxing my last few weeks in Europe, but spring here has been incredible. Brittany’s currently in the middle of a drought, which has most of the area freaking out about the impact on the corn and other agricultural stuff. I, however, have no long-term investment in the area, so I think this drought is pretty excellent. People keep telling me in voices of dismay that it should rain every day in April, and I try my best to look concerned, when in reality I am doing an inner happy dance. I have become much more fond of Brittany ever since the drought started…remind me never again to move to a rainy climate, since apparently that results in me wishing ill on the local ecosystem.


After hobbling back to Lauren’s, we watched 10 Things I Hate About You (which is still one of my favorite movies in life), reminisced about middle school, and mourned Heath Ledger. After whining about how hungry we were for a good hour, it was finally an appropriate hour for the French to eat dinner, so we headed off to an Indian restaurant, which had long been our plan for Easter. Why Indian for Easter, you ask? The decision had a base in tradition—we both wanted lamb for Easter, but we weren’t feeling motivated enough to figure out how to cook it. So where in Rennes do you get good lamb on a Sunday? Indian restaurant! French food doesn’t do spice as a general rule, so I ignored all the warnings on the meal descriptions about how spicy things were—last time I’d been to this restaurant, nothing was spicy. Either they got a new chef or they decided to be serious this time around, because there was some serious spice in my dish. It was good, but a bit more than I expected. Once my mouth was no longer burning, we went back to Lauren’s, watched some Beauty and the Beast, and then fell asleep.


Monday was quiet (Easter Monday is a national holiday in France). Lauren and I finished Beauty in the Beast that morning, did some relaxing around her apartment, and then went for a walk with Amanda and one of her friends, who were passing through. I headed back to farmland later that afternoon.


I leave on Thursday for Copenhagen, and I’ll be back next week. I’m still planning an update about my last weeks at work, but we’ll have to wait and see if that ever gets accomplished. A bientôt!

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Printemps and Picnics

I could apologize here for the lack of updates, but I don't know if anyone is still reading, so I may not have anyone to apologize to.


Short version of the last month: crazy nice weather, lots of Lebanese sandwiches, and even more picnics.


We’ll focus in more detail on a few fun weekends. The first weekend of April, Lauren and I returned to Vitré to visit Caitlin. I had a skype interview and wanted to use Catilin’s reliable internet, plus I had some serious baking to do. Caitlin, in addition to having reliable internet (quelle idée!), also has an oven. Ovens are hard to find in assistant-affordable housing, so I had hoarded brownie mix and canned pumpkin for a while waiting to have the chance to bake with it. The brownie batter (which, let’s be honest, is all I was really interested in—you stick it in the oven and it just loses all the fun) was delicious and made me quite happy, and the pumpkin bread was excellent. There was even enough canned pumpkin left over for Caitlin to make a batch of pumpkin scones this week. The rest of the evening was spent dancing and following the first Sox game of the season (which, you’ll all be happy to know, they won).


Saturday we headed back to Rennes, where we had a low-key afternoon and enjoyed some delicious ice cream since the weather was so nice. That evening there was a clothing/book exchange/cocktail party hosted by Kelsey, another assistant. It was a really good idea, since I was way low on books to read in English, and I’m completely sick of 90% of my clothes. I’ve had the same limited wardrobe since September, and I miss my clothes at home! I got rid of a few sweaters and tops, and I snagged one short sleeved sweater and a cardigan. The simple addition of these two pieces of clothing have made my life so much more enjoyable the past two weeks. I was also able to bust out a few pieces of summer clothing, which made my wardrobe seriously exciting. Post-clothing exchange, we all danced for several hours. It was lots of fun. The only downside was that in theory the party was supposed to end pre-dinner, so no one had eaten. Instead, the party went until 10:30, and we all relied on the light assortment of chips and dips and a few strawberries for dinner. This was not quite enough sustenance for all of the dancing, but we were having too much fun to leave, so we just devoured what food there was.


For the second weekend of April, Caitlin, Lauren, and I headed to Fougères to visit David and Amanda, who are assistants there. Back when we had all hung out in Vitré together, we’d decided that a falafel party needed to happen in Fougères, and happen it did. We arrived around 6pm, and we were quite French and enjoyed a little appéro of wine with bread and cheese. Of course, we then ate so much of that that we weren’t hungry in the slightest for dinner, so we decided to go for an evening walk around Fougères and its parks, which was lovely. The sun is staying out really late here—I didn’t realize how much further north Brittany is than Chicago, and that combined with the fact that all of Western Europe’s time is off (when Germany invaded France, they brought them over from the same time zone as England, where they belong, to Germany’s time zone) means it’s light past 9PM. Anyway, after our walk, we headed back to create and enjoy our falafel spread.


Once we got up on Saturday, we all headed to Fougères marché to gather food for a picnic. I stuck to my standard bread, brie, and strawberries, along with an apple cake for dessert.


An aside on dessert: the French are really big on sweet things. I don’t think I’ve discussed this here before, but it rubs off on you. I get used to having something sweet after every meal, and my body gets mad at me if I haven’t had sugar in too long. That can’t be healthy…


Back to the picnic, we found a spot with a view of Fougères’ château, and we ate a leisurely lunch and listened to music. This was one of the first really warm weekends—I’d guess it was about 75, and it felt lovely to feel the warmth and sun! Once we got ourselves moving again, we walked around the château and some other parks, and then we stopped at a café for some drinks before we hunted down food for dinner. We ended up making moules-frites (mussels and French fries), accompanied by a salad, and with ice cream for dessert to celebrate the season. The evening finished with a dance party that went on for some time—I succumbed to exhaustion around 1AM despite the party going on two feet away from me.


Sunday morning we had an American breakfast of eggs and sausage (YUM), and we sat around and chatted until noon, when Caitlin, Lauren, and I went back to Rennes. Caitlin then hopped on a train to Vitré, I grabbed my bus to farmland, and Lauren stayed in Rennes.


Okay. I’m going to post this now rather than trying to catch up even further. Hopefully I’ll be back in a few days with stories of my Easter weekend and some work updates (you know, work? That whole reason I’m in France to begin with?).


Joyeuses Pâques!

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Fun and Falafel in Fougères Fest: Pictures

Update in progress, photos will have to do for now.

1) Looking over part of Fourgeres from a park.


2) Amanda, me, Caitlin, and Lauren.


3) The castle in Fougeres--one of the most well preserved in Europe.


4) My picnic fare of choice: bread, brie, and strawberries.


5) A flower garden in one of Fougeres' many parks.

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Brussels is...confused

I spent the first day and a half of my stay in Brussels trying to pin down a nice, fixed identity for it. Most of the other capitals I’ve been to have pretty well represented the stereotypes of the rest of the country. London was rainy, proper, and dignified. It also had lots of tea. Paris was full of couples, wine, food, and pastries. Rome was full of pizza, gelato, crazy people trying to steal purses, and Vespas.


Brussels did have the food it was supposed to have: waffles, chocolate, and fries (it’s possible they also had sprouts, but I have to say I didn’t look very hard for those). Beyond that, though, I could not figure out what image it was giving me of Belgium. Finally I figured it out—it’s giving me a conflicting message, because Belgium is a country with a lot of conflict right now. The northern, Flemish part of the country and the southern, French part of the country are not getting along so well, to put it lightly.


I finally decided that Brussels is the most comparable to Montréal. Random mix of old and new buildings? Check. Language confusion? Check. One part of the country wanting to be separate from the other part? Big check.


I took the train to Brussels and arrived in the early afternoon. I was couchsurfing for the first time—through a website, people can search for people who are willing to let them crash on a couch while they travel. I had been a bit wary of this when I heard about it (lots of friends have had great experiences, but I was pretty convinced I’d end up staying with a serial killer), but Amelia had been to Brussels just a few weeks before me, and she had stayed with the same woman. If Amelia said she was cool, I’d trust her on it, and it ended up being a great experience. Brigitte is in her 50s, and she first got interested in couchsurfing when she was looking to take a trip to Barcelona. She ended up not going, but she now hosts lots of couchsurfers who go to Brussels. She’s really interested in the environmental movement and in trying to eat organic, and she was absolutely wonderful to me while I was there.


I didn’t do much my first day there. I hadn’t been sleeping well the past few days, so I really did not have the motivation to go and explore. Instead, I helped Brigitte run some errands and I played with her grandson for a bit. Went to sleep quite early so that I could profiter from Day 2 in Brussels.


I set off the next morning for the Royal Africa Museum, which Lauren had recommended to me. One of my favorite things about traveling is getting the chance to peer a little more deeply into past (or current) interests. Maybe it’s just me, but I’m always learning about some new subject, getting fascinated with it, reading everything I can find about it, bringing it up in every conversation, and then letting it fall aside because I’ve found another new subject. My time here has already allowed me to revisit my love for impressionism (Musée d’Orsay, May 2008), ballet (Pacquita, October 2010), and several dozen places that I read about in books and always wanted to visit (I’ll do a separate post on that later). This time around, colonialism. Yay! I went through a short phase in high school and a longer phase in college where I loved reading everything I could grab about colonialism and post-colonialism. The initial interest into this stuff came from Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible which, fittingly enough, takes place in the Belgian Congo. Full circle!


Anyway, the museum was really interesting. I don’t think I’d recommend it if you don’t know French, since there were quite a few things that were in Flemish and French, but not English. That said, the newer pieces of the museum did have English translations. I liked all the anthropological sections, skipped over most of the animal stuff, had lots of fun with the colonialism stuff, and then got mad because they didn’t have any fun linguistics sections (despite mentioning throughout the museum how many linguistic studies had been done in the DRC). It was a lovely day out, and the park in front of the museum was gorgeous.


Post-museum, I headed off on a park mission. My first stop was Parc de Cinquantenaire, which was built in order to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Belgium’s independence. There’s a huge central monument at the park—supposedly the king at the time said his goal was to make Brussels a new Paris, so naturally, huge monuments were necessary. I bought myself a sandwich for lunch and since it was gorgeous out, I ate it while sitting on the lawn and admiring the monument.


Once I’d exhausted that park, I moved on to Leopold Park, which is located right next to the EU Parliament building. This park was smaller, but had a little pond, and I was sure to admire that, as well. The EU Parliament building was fun to see. It’s one of the examples of extremely modern architecture that doesn’t quite seem to match up with the rest of the city. Walked from there to the Royal Palace, which was quite impressive. There were even some handy Belgian guards in front of it to protect Belgium from…well, probably from itself. The palace was right next to the Parc de Bruxelles. I wandered that for a bit, but it was my third park of the day, so I probably didn’t appreciate it as much as I should’ve. Stopped at Cathedral after that, and ended up just staring at it for fifteen minutes. I absolutely love the contrast of white stone with a bright blue sky, and lucky for me, that was what I had. Did some more wandering, stopped at the Grand Place, which was very cool, ate some food, and then met Caitlin when she got in.


Day 3, Caitlin and I met up near the Grand Place and then walked back to the train station to pick up Lauren, who was getting in that morning. Upon fetching Lauren, we walked to a brewery that Caitlin had heard about. They make beer the very, very old fashioned way, so it was interesting to see. I was much more interested in the process than in the tasting that came with the tour (I’m not exactly a fan of beer, and no, I still don’t know why I was allowed to live in Wisconsin for four years without liking beer). We tried two types of beer—the first was a gueze lambic, and it was not what I would call pleasing to the palate. To put it lightly. Ugh. Even Caitlin and Lauren, who do not share my distaste for beer, weren’t fans. The second was a raspberry lambic, which was much better because a) you couldn’t taste the beer as much, and b) there was raspberry, which makes everything delicious. Or, in the case of beer, relatively more delicious.


We still hadn’t eaten lunch, so we set out for the Grand Place, where we had some Belgian fries and waffles. YUM. Lauren’s Rick Steves travel guide informed us that the reason Belgian fries are delicious is that they fry them twice. That is one way to guarantee deliciousness. The waffles were also incredible—Klare had warned me that I’d never be able to eat another waffle after tasting these, and she was right. There was either a lot of sugar in the batter or a sugar coating, because it all carmelized on the outside, which was yummy. AND the chocolate on top of the waffle was real chocolate—none of this lame chocolate syrup stuff. Nope, this started to solidify into real chocolate as the waffle cooled, and it was super rich. My tummy was happy.


After eating, we made our way to an Automobile museum (located right in the Parc de Cinqantenaire). I know next to nothing about cars, but I enjoyed looking at all the old cars. There were a couple names that I recognized from various books, so it was nice to be able to put an image to the name. It was also just funny to see all the crazy car designs people have come up with over the ages—we got to see the first models with bumpers, a car that was even smaller than a Smart Car (it was about a third of my height), and some cars that were ridiculously huge (they looked like tanks, and I do not know how anyone parallel parked those things).


We hopped on the metro back into town and chilled at a café for a few hours. This place had the most amazing chai tea—it was incredible. Apparently some other people agreed, since they’d stuck a note on the wall next to the register saying “BEST CHAI TEA IN EUROPE.” I’ve noticed that most travel guides don’t seem to provide good café recommendations (mostly because they don’t provide any café recommendations). This is a void that must be filled, since one of my favorite parts of traveling is sitting in cafés with my travel journal and people watching. Anyway, I’ve decided that I’ll be working on my own travel guide series that simply highlights all the best cafés in the world. This one definitely makes the cut (I’ve already started to make a list of my favorites in other cities). We then moved on to dinner at an Irish pub, then I called it quits for the night.


Thursday morning we met at the train station to head to Bruges. It’s about a half hour train ride away from Brussels, but it’s firmly in the Flemish area of Belgium—no French here. Bruges is known as the Venice of Northern Europe, presumably because of all the canals (no gondolas, sadly—just speedboats). Like Brussels, it has lots of gorgeous Gothic architecture. Unlike Brussels, Bruges does not have all the new buildings. It’s much less confused. We stopped at a lovely tea shop pretty soon after we made it to Bruges—I wanted some caffeine. This place was EXCELLENT. At first I thought €3,50 was a bit steep for tea, but it turns out the tea comes with a pile of chocolates. Naturally, I was not opposed to this, and the price suddenly seemed quite reasonable. The chocolates were also accompanied by a large heap of whipped cream, which was quite delicious. If I lived in Bruges, I would probably spend way too much time in that tea house.


Anyway (I’m going to start paraphrasing a bit since I really want to finish this post), most of Bruges consisted of looking at pretty buildings and looking at chocolate. I bought some delicious champagne truffles, along with other varieties of chocolate, took lots of pictures, did not pay money to walk past a vial with Christ’s blood in it (I decided to listen to Jesus when he said that you weren’t supposed to turn churches into marketplaces), saw a sculpture by Michelangelo (‘twas excellent), and wandered a lot. There. Bruges in two paragraphs.


Friday Lauren, Caitlin and I met up for more chai tea in the morning, and then I had to head off for my train . I was on my own to Lille and then Paris, but Lauren was on the same train to Rennes with me. Caitlin, meanwhile was on the same train as Lauren from Brussels to Paris, but then she had a different one back to Brittany. Lauren and I chilled in the Starbucks at Montparnasse while waiting for our train, and then we had a relatively painless journey back.


Apologies for both the lateness and the paraphrase in this update (my English teachers would probably want more details and less summary), but it’s already been two weeks since I got back. It needed to get done!


I don’t have any more big travels planned until the end of April. I’m probably going to spend part of next weekend in Vitré with Caitlin, and then the weekend after that I’m going to stay with some assistants in Fougères. Hope all is well in the USA.