Leaving Nantes and Vacation
Leaving is the weirdest feeling. I am unsure of what to think, the only thing is I feel like there is a part of me, a part of what I enjoyed, maybe a piece of a dream that I am leaving in Nantes. As silly as it sounds, traveling to France and living abroad had been a dream of mine since I was in middle school. I feel young to be talking about the end of an era, but in reality there is no proper age to when eras begin to end. Saying “au revoir” to my host parents was incredibly difficult, they both are incredibly generous and patient people. I was truly lucky that I had the opportunity to live with them this past semester. As I look back on this past semester, I don’t regret anything that I did, though it seemed to go so fast. They tell you when you arrive that you need to do as much as you can when you arrive and “profitez” from this experience, but in reality moving to a completely foreign country takes different amounts of time depending on the person. For me I didn’t begin to feel comfortable until the end of my stay, though Nantes and my home did almost immediately feel like home. I would accredit my longer acclamation period to the fact that my French skills were not strong when arrived, and though are better as I am on the train leaving Nantes, are still not very good. I did however learn a lot. The first week that I was in Nantes I ended up having to sit at the “teacher table” with the directors of our program and the bus driver. The bus driver kept trying to ask me questions and I was so confused. I would hope the reason I had so many problems was because he had a different accent, but I realize a large part of it was the fact I truly was having trouble understanding what was going on around me. On a slight side note, I also did not understand a word my host dad said until the middle of the semester, and still today if he says something quickly I am completely lost, him is definitely because of his accent. Back to my semester though, I halfway wish it could have continued because the last few weeks I was in Nantes I learned so much about the city and found new quarters I had never been in before, I just don’t feel ready to leave. I did say halfway though because I do miss my family and friends a lot. It was one of those things where for me personally I feel like all of the communication technology we have today like Facebook, Skype, and e-mail could have been and probably had more of a negative affect on my study abroad experience. Being able to talk to my friends at home at times was difficult because I felt like I had missed out on so much at home, though near the end I had an almost was you could say “wake me up” moment. I was talking to Olivia and Hector and though I know things have changed in the time that I have been gone, I don’t feel like I miss all that much. We were going through what was new in our lives and they were telling me restaurants that had closed, tests they had, and SU gossip. Looking back on my semester, I have done so much and had so many wonderful experience that I no longer feel I actually missed out on anything, they had a semesters worth of experiences that were separate and different from my own, and I have realized that.
To update you a little bit on my last few trips I took, starting with the most recent to Clisson, France with IES was a lot of fun. We took a coach bus to Clisson, which is a village in France, where all the architecture is Italian style and there are the ruins of a medieval chateau in the center of the village. The Maine river also flows through the town, along the side of the chateau. Right outside the entrance to the chateau, there is a pretty large open air market, with everything from cheese, to seafood, to meat, to even churritos (though we were unable to find them). On a side note I had churritos in Barcelona. They are fried sticks of bread with sugar on them and then you eat them in Spain with coffee or “hot chocolate” (not real American hot chocolate, but more like a cross between hot chocolate and pudding, its odd). In Barcelona, they have street stands with churritos all over the place. Back to Clisson though the town was absolutely gorgeous, Italian architecture is amazing, especially from the Tuscany (or so I have heard, because this is the closest I have gotten yet to the Italian Tuscany). We had the opportunity to wander all morning and afternoon. We ate at a Creperie called “Puss and Boots” in English. It wasn’t half bad, and I was able to get a caramel au beurre sale for only 2 euros, which is pretty amazing because at Saint Croix, the creperie in Nantes that I always go to with friends is 5.40 euros for my salty butter caramel crepe (so needless to say I have only had a total of two of them)! After we began looking for the house that my friend’s host mom grew up in and then afterwards we found a park and drank water bottle wine, it was about 50 cents for an individual bottle of wine. Before heading back to meet the group we found my friend’s host mom’s parent’s old store. After finding the store we met up with the rest of our group and drove about 15 minutes to a vignoble (vineyard) where they make Muscadet, a white wine. The man who owns the vineyard gave us a tour of the vineyard, which had gorgeous gardens and a little old tower along the side of the river. This particular vineyard is from before the French revolution which was around 1791 I believe, give or take a year or two. We then got to taste two different years of wine. Unfortunately by this point for some reason or another I felt pretty sick, so I was unable to partake in all the wine tasting. The man who owned it was so nice, we were all sitting outside on his patio and he was wandering around with bottles of wine constantly refilling our glasses. The bus ride home was definitely not as much fun, with all the rowdy people from my program singing karaoke in the back to the bus, but it was still a fun trip. I had wanted to head to the Atlantic coast the next day because Nantes is about 30-45 minutes from the ocean, but I ended up sick for the rest of the weekend. I fogot to mention that we had a three day weekend that weekend because it was J-Day or V-Day in English, so France goes on holiday (they like their holidays).
The weekend before was also a three day weekend, but literally all of France goes on vacation for that weekend because it is their labor day. The TAN (Bus and Tram service in Nantes) closes, the only day of the year when there is absolutely no service. I took advantage of the three day weekend though because one I have a friend studying in Milan and two I found that Air France has direct flights Nantes to Milan, so I went to Milan, Italy for the weekend to see her. One of the most amazing parts was flying over the Alps. I never made it to the Alps on this trip, but flying over them was breath taking. They are enormous and still covered in a layer of snow in the beginning of May. The Milan airport was pretty cool because you could look away from the city and the horizon line was lined by the Alps. Milan for sure had a completely different vibe from Nantes, and France. For one the weather is warmer there so people don’t where as many clothes, but like France they do cover up and they are unlike the Spanish or English or wear so many crazy colors of clothing, though probably more than the French. My friend Cambria, is also studying with IES, but she didn’t know any Italian before arriving and she is living in an apartment in the center of Milan (it was pretty cool and convenient to everything). The first day I arrived we wandered and I saw the castle and the cathedral and the opera, along with some other places around the city. We returned home to grab money and then headed to a bar called Bar Magenta. There we were able to order paninis and beer because it was a beautiful day just to sit outside and relax. It was funny though because Cam doesn’t speak Italian and the menu was only in Italian so we just sort of picked a Sandwich name that we liked and went with it. I got pretty lucky and somehow ended up with just a Turkey Panini with mozzarella, tomato, lettuce, and a sauce. It was really good, because in the center of the bar was a deli so everything on the sandwich was fresh. They guys behind the bar were nice, they were these old guys trying to talk to me in Italian, but that was unsuccessful. We then set out to wander the town. Earlier while outside the castle it seemed like there was a festival or something organizing, we soon discovered that this was a large left-wing protestation. It was the largest protest/party in the streets I have ever seen. I think that we wandered against the direction of the parade for at least an hour just observing. There were pierced and tattooed people everywhere. Each float was either a bar or basically a rave on the back of a truck trailer. As they had gone through the streets people just joined in and everyone was incredibly intoxicated. It was a lot of fun though trying to figure out exactly what was going on, I saw peace flags, something that seemed like it might have been a non discrimination float for gay and lesbian, we also saw communist banners all over the place calling for a revolution (I did learn this semester the largest communist parties in Europe exist in France and Italy). It was really interesting, though as someone who is an activist and leftist it makes me a little bit frustrated because this protestation in my opinion was not at all productive, in fact in may ways it probably hurt the credibility of their causes, but also other organizations who are working for similar things. I was appalled as we were walking along the street behind the parade because there was litter everywhere, and the city street cleaners were following the parade just cleaning up tons of broken bottles. It was slightly funny though because there were at least 5 street cleaners following the protest and they were concentrated on a one block stretch. I also earlier in the day and in France have notice that you will see police driving big 15 passenger vans with bars on the windows and I was really confused because i didn’t understand the purpose of these vans, but after seeing an actual protestation in Europe, I understand if things get out of control they need a lot of vans to take these people in. It was interesting because a police brigade was following the protest, but they were just following and not at all interfering, even though these people trashed the streets and they were also spray painting buildings and the street as they went!
That night we went out for Aperitivos, basically you buy a drink and you can get as much food from their buffet of finger food as you want. It’s a pretty good deal when you think about it, I had Malibu and Orange Juice and dinner worth of finger foods for 7 euros. After that we headed back, because this was Labor day in Italy too, so a lot of businesses were also closed and the tram and metro had also stopped early that night (though nothing like in France, where literally nothing was open and you have no way to get anywhere). The next day we slept in before heading out to see more of Milan. We went to this street (I don’t remember the name) but there were a lot of cool vintage stores and other stores. We went to a smoothie place for lunch and I am still unsure how, but I was able to order a smoothie in I have no idea what language, because I just wanted Strawberry Banana and not one of their crazy flavors. I was also able to find a vegetarian Panini, easier than in France. We then headed out to this store, again I am bad with names but it was like 10 Cosmos something…, apparently when famous people come to Milan it is where they go. It was funny because I found a seed bead necklace, that was literally one strand of seed beads for around 70 euros, and then I found a bag I actually have that I bought a while ago at Urban Outfitters in the states for $30, but here is was around 80 euros, craziness. That night we went to the suburbs of Milan to an apartment party, which was fun, its something that I haven’t done in a long time, been in a social setting with a lot of English speakers. The next day was Sunday and after having a last gelato and Panini, I boarded the train for the airport. Milan, despite what a lot of people might say, I think is a really pretty city. The weather when I was there was perfect and then it is spring so everything was in bloom. I noticed that downtown Milan had a lot more trees than any French city I have been to, there were a lot of streets that were lined with trees, and we don’t have that in Nantes. It was one of those things that whenever I saw trees I would always get really excited. I feel that is something we actually, despite what I may seem, do a better job at in the states, we have more green space. In France they have gorgeous parks but not much along the road, they separate city from nature. After going to Italy though I definitely want to go back, the people there are so friendly and it just has a really cool vibe about it, I can’t really explain it. You could definitely tell that the tourist season in Europe has begun. Its weird because I have never lived somewhere that is touristy, but even in Nantes they have a little train, like something you would see at an amusement park, that drives around the town giving tours.
Jumping back a bit further, the first two weeks in April, I had two weeks of vacation where I had the opportunity to travel to Paris, Barcelona, The Netherlands (Tilburg and Amsterdam), and Belgium (Brussels and Bruges). I made the decision to travel alone and just meet up with people that I know in each place, which was a good decision for me, its so much easier traveling alone, though at times really nerve wracking. I started my two week vacation in Paris, I did a lot of walking around the city. My first full day in Paris happened to me the first Sunday of the month so I was able to visit any museum for free. I took advantage of that by starting my day at the musee d’orsay and ended it at Le Louvre. Musee d’Orsay is the modern art museum in Paris, I saw lots of Renoir’s, Picasso’s, Van Gogh’s, and a lot, a lot of other cool art. They had a Rodin exhibit too that was pretty cool. I spent a few hours there just marveling at all the art, before heading across le Seine to the Louvre were like any good tourist I started by going to see the Mona Lisa. I didn’t want to be the typical tourist running through the Italian art just to see the Mona Lisa, but after 5 minutes of looking at the same picture over and over and over with some religious person in it, I just couldn’t handle it, so I booked it to the Mona Lisa and then out of Italian art. I was prepared though for the Mona Lisa to be tiny, because that is the typically reaction when people see it, but it is a pretty decent canvas size and of course has people watching it and a retractable tape that will not allow people to get close to it. After that I spent most of my time in the ancient Greek and ancient Egypt collection and also ancient Iran. I have discovered on my trip to France that I love sculptures, my favorite part of sculptures is one the face and two I love how they are able to make the stone look like fabric, the way it appears to “fall” is just amazing! The Louvre is just so immense though, I really, really want to go back because there is so much I didn’t get to see there, including their Latin American art collection! I don’t have my paper with names of places I went to see, but I went to the famous cemetery where many famous Parisians are buried. We were also able to find the grave of Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison, Georges Sereut, and others there. It was really cool, and the trees and gardens were possible my favorite in Paris. It was sad though to see the tombs that over time people have forgotten about and they have been vandalized. I also climbed the Eiffel tour for the second time, which was again fun, and we explored all the touristy monuments (l’arc de triomphe, les champs-elysee, jardin de tuilleries, Sacre-Coeur, etc) and sites and also just wandered the city. I think quite possibly one of my favorite things in Paris though is le Seine at night, it is so pretty and there is just a cool ambience along the river, perfect for just wandering down. I am pretty disappointed though because I tried twice to go to Versailles and failed both times. The first time Kelsey and I got on a train going the wrong way and the second time was before I left and the lines were too long and I didn’t have all day because I had to leave for Barcelona that afternoon. Next time I am in France that will be one of the first things I do!
Barcelona was my next stop. I have a friend who is currently living there teaching English so I had an awesome tour guide and was able to stay at her apartment! Barcelona is just a really cool city, it has a funky artsy vibe, and a lot of the building are designed by Gaudi, so they are incredibly interesting to look at. In Barcelona I did even more wandering, over the span of four days we walked to pretty much every tourist site in the city. I saw Park Guell, the cathedrals, we went up one of the mountains overlooking Barcelona, and we also went to the old hospital (that quite possibly is one of the prettiest buildings I have ever seen). It was Spanish architecture with bright blues and pinks and yellows and then it was built with red brick. It looked too pretty and too old to actually be a hospital. I also went to the Picasso museum in Barcelona, and that was really cool. I think what was most fascinating about the Picasso museum was being able to see the transformation that Picasso’s art took from being realistic to the art he is better known for later in his life. In Barcelona I had the opportunity to go out for Tapas and Sangria, which was delicious. You could tell though that Barcelona is a huge tourist city, I felt it was even touristier than Paris, if that says anything. I say this because on every corner there were tourist stores and everyone spoke English and every menu and nearly everything there was written in Catalan, Spanish, and English. It was convenient, funny though because a lot of French families get excited when we go to romance speaking countries because they say that our French will be handier there that in a country like the Netherlands or Germany. It was slightly disappointing though because I was in Barcelona during Easter and Good Friday, and I swear besides for McDonalds nearly everything was closed, the entire weekend. Also while I was in Barcelona it was rainy and cool, so that wasn’t too much fun, but I survived and thoroughly enjoyed my time in Barcelona. It was good because I could wear my bright American colors and not be out of place, because someone was always wearing something brighter or crazier. A lot of the older women there also tend to dye their hair purples and reds instead of letting it gray, and the guys tend to have a lot of mullets. Barcelona really is though more or less a party city. They have a road called La Rambla (I don’t know how to spell it) but during the day there are party and club promoters everywhere and you are handed paper after paper. During the day there are also street performers out who dress up like various characters, we saw aliens, Edward Scissorhands, a guy sitting on a toilet, etc. At night though this main road is transformed and there are prostitutes up and down the road (Meghan taught me how to spot them, you generally find a group of Black girls who are walking up and down the street, I noticed a lot of them chew gum, which is weird because not many people in Europe chew gum, it is very much an American thing (in fact their gum in France is called Hollywood)). There are also men selling beers, they would come up to us and ask if we wanted “Sexy Beer” and we just continued walking. Meghan told me that the beer they are selling is actually stored in the sewers during the day.
After leaving Barcelona, I headed to Amsterdam and than onwards to Tilburg. When I arrived in Amsterdam I was starving so I managed to find a Burger King at the airport (I am pretty sure they don’t exist in France, or at least no outside of Paris). I had been warned by my friend that in the Netherlands they eat the French fries with mayo or with American sauce (sort of like tartar sauce), so when I ordered (in English of course, because I realized when we landed that I don’t know a single word in Dutch) they looked at me and said, “you don’t want ketchup, do you?” and the guy had a look of disgust on his face like I was going to order ketchup for my fries, so I told him no, and figured I would just eat my fries the Dutch way. After I finished my fries on the train I discovered that the man had actually put ketchup in my bag at the very bottom beneath the napkins and everything, I was sort of frustrated because mayo and fries cannot compare to ketchup and fries. The weather in the Netherlands when I arrived was gorgeous! Wouter (my friend I met while he was studying abroad at Southwestern) and I were able to go to a café and sit out and enjoy the day. I ordered an ice tea, because it seemed to be what everyone was drinking. It was different than American ice tea, because they drink ice tea carbonated. It was good though. I also tried white beer, which was also really good, and then these fried liquid mystery meat ball things. They weren’t bad, though you just can’t think about all the possibilities of where the meat might have come from.
To update you a little bit on my last few trips I took, starting with the most recent to Clisson, France with IES was a lot of fun. We took a coach bus to Clisson, which is a village in France, where all the architecture is Italian style and there are the ruins of a medieval chateau in the center of the village. The Maine river also flows through the town, along the side of the chateau. Right outside the entrance to the chateau, there is a pretty large open air market, with everything from cheese, to seafood, to meat, to even churritos (though we were unable to find them). On a side note I had churritos in Barcelona. They are fried sticks of bread with sugar on them and then you eat them in Spain with coffee or “hot chocolate” (not real American hot chocolate, but more like a cross between hot chocolate and pudding, its odd). In Barcelona, they have street stands with churritos all over the place. Back to Clisson though the town was absolutely gorgeous, Italian architecture is amazing, especially from the Tuscany (or so I have heard, because this is the closest I have gotten yet to the Italian Tuscany). We had the opportunity to wander all morning and afternoon. We ate at a Creperie called “Puss and Boots” in English. It wasn’t half bad, and I was able to get a caramel au beurre sale for only 2 euros, which is pretty amazing because at Saint Croix, the creperie in Nantes that I always go to with friends is 5.40 euros for my salty butter caramel crepe (so needless to say I have only had a total of two of them)! After we began looking for the house that my friend’s host mom grew up in and then afterwards we found a park and drank water bottle wine, it was about 50 cents for an individual bottle of wine. Before heading back to meet the group we found my friend’s host mom’s parent’s old store. After finding the store we met up with the rest of our group and drove about 15 minutes to a vignoble (vineyard) where they make Muscadet, a white wine. The man who owns the vineyard gave us a tour of the vineyard, which had gorgeous gardens and a little old tower along the side of the river. This particular vineyard is from before the French revolution which was around 1791 I believe, give or take a year or two. We then got to taste two different years of wine. Unfortunately by this point for some reason or another I felt pretty sick, so I was unable to partake in all the wine tasting. The man who owned it was so nice, we were all sitting outside on his patio and he was wandering around with bottles of wine constantly refilling our glasses. The bus ride home was definitely not as much fun, with all the rowdy people from my program singing karaoke in the back to the bus, but it was still a fun trip. I had wanted to head to the Atlantic coast the next day because Nantes is about 30-45 minutes from the ocean, but I ended up sick for the rest of the weekend. I fogot to mention that we had a three day weekend that weekend because it was J-Day or V-Day in English, so France goes on holiday (they like their holidays).
The weekend before was also a three day weekend, but literally all of France goes on vacation for that weekend because it is their labor day. The TAN (Bus and Tram service in Nantes) closes, the only day of the year when there is absolutely no service. I took advantage of the three day weekend though because one I have a friend studying in Milan and two I found that Air France has direct flights Nantes to Milan, so I went to Milan, Italy for the weekend to see her. One of the most amazing parts was flying over the Alps. I never made it to the Alps on this trip, but flying over them was breath taking. They are enormous and still covered in a layer of snow in the beginning of May. The Milan airport was pretty cool because you could look away from the city and the horizon line was lined by the Alps. Milan for sure had a completely different vibe from Nantes, and France. For one the weather is warmer there so people don’t where as many clothes, but like France they do cover up and they are unlike the Spanish or English or wear so many crazy colors of clothing, though probably more than the French. My friend Cambria, is also studying with IES, but she didn’t know any Italian before arriving and she is living in an apartment in the center of Milan (it was pretty cool and convenient to everything). The first day I arrived we wandered and I saw the castle and the cathedral and the opera, along with some other places around the city. We returned home to grab money and then headed to a bar called Bar Magenta. There we were able to order paninis and beer because it was a beautiful day just to sit outside and relax. It was funny though because Cam doesn’t speak Italian and the menu was only in Italian so we just sort of picked a Sandwich name that we liked and went with it. I got pretty lucky and somehow ended up with just a Turkey Panini with mozzarella, tomato, lettuce, and a sauce. It was really good, because in the center of the bar was a deli so everything on the sandwich was fresh. They guys behind the bar were nice, they were these old guys trying to talk to me in Italian, but that was unsuccessful. We then set out to wander the town. Earlier while outside the castle it seemed like there was a festival or something organizing, we soon discovered that this was a large left-wing protestation. It was the largest protest/party in the streets I have ever seen. I think that we wandered against the direction of the parade for at least an hour just observing. There were pierced and tattooed people everywhere. Each float was either a bar or basically a rave on the back of a truck trailer. As they had gone through the streets people just joined in and everyone was incredibly intoxicated. It was a lot of fun though trying to figure out exactly what was going on, I saw peace flags, something that seemed like it might have been a non discrimination float for gay and lesbian, we also saw communist banners all over the place calling for a revolution (I did learn this semester the largest communist parties in Europe exist in France and Italy). It was really interesting, though as someone who is an activist and leftist it makes me a little bit frustrated because this protestation in my opinion was not at all productive, in fact in may ways it probably hurt the credibility of their causes, but also other organizations who are working for similar things. I was appalled as we were walking along the street behind the parade because there was litter everywhere, and the city street cleaners were following the parade just cleaning up tons of broken bottles. It was slightly funny though because there were at least 5 street cleaners following the protest and they were concentrated on a one block stretch. I also earlier in the day and in France have notice that you will see police driving big 15 passenger vans with bars on the windows and I was really confused because i didn’t understand the purpose of these vans, but after seeing an actual protestation in Europe, I understand if things get out of control they need a lot of vans to take these people in. It was interesting because a police brigade was following the protest, but they were just following and not at all interfering, even though these people trashed the streets and they were also spray painting buildings and the street as they went!
That night we went out for Aperitivos, basically you buy a drink and you can get as much food from their buffet of finger food as you want. It’s a pretty good deal when you think about it, I had Malibu and Orange Juice and dinner worth of finger foods for 7 euros. After that we headed back, because this was Labor day in Italy too, so a lot of businesses were also closed and the tram and metro had also stopped early that night (though nothing like in France, where literally nothing was open and you have no way to get anywhere). The next day we slept in before heading out to see more of Milan. We went to this street (I don’t remember the name) but there were a lot of cool vintage stores and other stores. We went to a smoothie place for lunch and I am still unsure how, but I was able to order a smoothie in I have no idea what language, because I just wanted Strawberry Banana and not one of their crazy flavors. I was also able to find a vegetarian Panini, easier than in France. We then headed out to this store, again I am bad with names but it was like 10 Cosmos something…, apparently when famous people come to Milan it is where they go. It was funny because I found a seed bead necklace, that was literally one strand of seed beads for around 70 euros, and then I found a bag I actually have that I bought a while ago at Urban Outfitters in the states for $30, but here is was around 80 euros, craziness. That night we went to the suburbs of Milan to an apartment party, which was fun, its something that I haven’t done in a long time, been in a social setting with a lot of English speakers. The next day was Sunday and after having a last gelato and Panini, I boarded the train for the airport. Milan, despite what a lot of people might say, I think is a really pretty city. The weather when I was there was perfect and then it is spring so everything was in bloom. I noticed that downtown Milan had a lot more trees than any French city I have been to, there were a lot of streets that were lined with trees, and we don’t have that in Nantes. It was one of those things that whenever I saw trees I would always get really excited. I feel that is something we actually, despite what I may seem, do a better job at in the states, we have more green space. In France they have gorgeous parks but not much along the road, they separate city from nature. After going to Italy though I definitely want to go back, the people there are so friendly and it just has a really cool vibe about it, I can’t really explain it. You could definitely tell that the tourist season in Europe has begun. Its weird because I have never lived somewhere that is touristy, but even in Nantes they have a little train, like something you would see at an amusement park, that drives around the town giving tours.
Jumping back a bit further, the first two weeks in April, I had two weeks of vacation where I had the opportunity to travel to Paris, Barcelona, The Netherlands (Tilburg and Amsterdam), and Belgium (Brussels and Bruges). I made the decision to travel alone and just meet up with people that I know in each place, which was a good decision for me, its so much easier traveling alone, though at times really nerve wracking. I started my two week vacation in Paris, I did a lot of walking around the city. My first full day in Paris happened to me the first Sunday of the month so I was able to visit any museum for free. I took advantage of that by starting my day at the musee d’orsay and ended it at Le Louvre. Musee d’Orsay is the modern art museum in Paris, I saw lots of Renoir’s, Picasso’s, Van Gogh’s, and a lot, a lot of other cool art. They had a Rodin exhibit too that was pretty cool. I spent a few hours there just marveling at all the art, before heading across le Seine to the Louvre were like any good tourist I started by going to see the Mona Lisa. I didn’t want to be the typical tourist running through the Italian art just to see the Mona Lisa, but after 5 minutes of looking at the same picture over and over and over with some religious person in it, I just couldn’t handle it, so I booked it to the Mona Lisa and then out of Italian art. I was prepared though for the Mona Lisa to be tiny, because that is the typically reaction when people see it, but it is a pretty decent canvas size and of course has people watching it and a retractable tape that will not allow people to get close to it. After that I spent most of my time in the ancient Greek and ancient Egypt collection and also ancient Iran. I have discovered on my trip to France that I love sculptures, my favorite part of sculptures is one the face and two I love how they are able to make the stone look like fabric, the way it appears to “fall” is just amazing! The Louvre is just so immense though, I really, really want to go back because there is so much I didn’t get to see there, including their Latin American art collection! I don’t have my paper with names of places I went to see, but I went to the famous cemetery where many famous Parisians are buried. We were also able to find the grave of Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison, Georges Sereut, and others there. It was really cool, and the trees and gardens were possible my favorite in Paris. It was sad though to see the tombs that over time people have forgotten about and they have been vandalized. I also climbed the Eiffel tour for the second time, which was again fun, and we explored all the touristy monuments (l’arc de triomphe, les champs-elysee, jardin de tuilleries, Sacre-Coeur, etc) and sites and also just wandered the city. I think quite possibly one of my favorite things in Paris though is le Seine at night, it is so pretty and there is just a cool ambience along the river, perfect for just wandering down. I am pretty disappointed though because I tried twice to go to Versailles and failed both times. The first time Kelsey and I got on a train going the wrong way and the second time was before I left and the lines were too long and I didn’t have all day because I had to leave for Barcelona that afternoon. Next time I am in France that will be one of the first things I do!
Barcelona was my next stop. I have a friend who is currently living there teaching English so I had an awesome tour guide and was able to stay at her apartment! Barcelona is just a really cool city, it has a funky artsy vibe, and a lot of the building are designed by Gaudi, so they are incredibly interesting to look at. In Barcelona I did even more wandering, over the span of four days we walked to pretty much every tourist site in the city. I saw Park Guell, the cathedrals, we went up one of the mountains overlooking Barcelona, and we also went to the old hospital (that quite possibly is one of the prettiest buildings I have ever seen). It was Spanish architecture with bright blues and pinks and yellows and then it was built with red brick. It looked too pretty and too old to actually be a hospital. I also went to the Picasso museum in Barcelona, and that was really cool. I think what was most fascinating about the Picasso museum was being able to see the transformation that Picasso’s art took from being realistic to the art he is better known for later in his life. In Barcelona I had the opportunity to go out for Tapas and Sangria, which was delicious. You could tell though that Barcelona is a huge tourist city, I felt it was even touristier than Paris, if that says anything. I say this because on every corner there were tourist stores and everyone spoke English and every menu and nearly everything there was written in Catalan, Spanish, and English. It was convenient, funny though because a lot of French families get excited when we go to romance speaking countries because they say that our French will be handier there that in a country like the Netherlands or Germany. It was slightly disappointing though because I was in Barcelona during Easter and Good Friday, and I swear besides for McDonalds nearly everything was closed, the entire weekend. Also while I was in Barcelona it was rainy and cool, so that wasn’t too much fun, but I survived and thoroughly enjoyed my time in Barcelona. It was good because I could wear my bright American colors and not be out of place, because someone was always wearing something brighter or crazier. A lot of the older women there also tend to dye their hair purples and reds instead of letting it gray, and the guys tend to have a lot of mullets. Barcelona really is though more or less a party city. They have a road called La Rambla (I don’t know how to spell it) but during the day there are party and club promoters everywhere and you are handed paper after paper. During the day there are also street performers out who dress up like various characters, we saw aliens, Edward Scissorhands, a guy sitting on a toilet, etc. At night though this main road is transformed and there are prostitutes up and down the road (Meghan taught me how to spot them, you generally find a group of Black girls who are walking up and down the street, I noticed a lot of them chew gum, which is weird because not many people in Europe chew gum, it is very much an American thing (in fact their gum in France is called Hollywood)). There are also men selling beers, they would come up to us and ask if we wanted “Sexy Beer” and we just continued walking. Meghan told me that the beer they are selling is actually stored in the sewers during the day.
After leaving Barcelona, I headed to Amsterdam and than onwards to Tilburg. When I arrived in Amsterdam I was starving so I managed to find a Burger King at the airport (I am pretty sure they don’t exist in France, or at least no outside of Paris). I had been warned by my friend that in the Netherlands they eat the French fries with mayo or with American sauce (sort of like tartar sauce), so when I ordered (in English of course, because I realized when we landed that I don’t know a single word in Dutch) they looked at me and said, “you don’t want ketchup, do you?” and the guy had a look of disgust on his face like I was going to order ketchup for my fries, so I told him no, and figured I would just eat my fries the Dutch way. After I finished my fries on the train I discovered that the man had actually put ketchup in my bag at the very bottom beneath the napkins and everything, I was sort of frustrated because mayo and fries cannot compare to ketchup and fries. The weather in the Netherlands when I arrived was gorgeous! Wouter (my friend I met while he was studying abroad at Southwestern) and I were able to go to a café and sit out and enjoy the day. I ordered an ice tea, because it seemed to be what everyone was drinking. It was different than American ice tea, because they drink ice tea carbonated. It was good though. I also tried white beer, which was also really good, and then these fried liquid mystery meat ball things. They weren’t bad, though you just can’t think about all the possibilities of where the meat might have come from.
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