The rest of Winter Break: Amsterdam, Belgium, and Cologne

After my awesome week in Berlin, I got on an early train with Sam to the airport and she headed off to Wales to see her sister while I flew to Amsterdam to see mine!  We had a fantastic week together exporing, eating, laughing, taking tons of pictures, etc.  It was our first time traveling alone together so it was fun to figure things out on our own and also I think a good experience to have to plan our own budget.

So as not to ramble, I'll list the highlights.

Amsterdam:

I loved visiting Anne Frank's House. It was really sad (I almost cried a few times) but also really enjoyable.  I feel like no matter how much you read about history and especially events like the Holocaust, it never really registers until you're actually there.  One of the most moving parts of the museum was a video at the end of her father talking about reading her diary after she died and discovering a side of her through her writing that he never knew.  He was the one who decided to have her diary published and turned the house into a museum.

Bruges:

Spent 3 days wandering around a beautiful medieval town and enjoying all the usual Belgian treats: chocolate, beer, and fries!

In a really old bar with about 200 Belgian beers

In the brewery we visited: the Half Moon Brewery

Clockwise from left: pistachio, avocado, champagne, grand marnier, and tea flavored chocolates

Brussels:

Only spent one day but walked around and saw the sights: the medieval center, cathedral, royal library, park, etc

Brussels town hall

Cologne:

My second time there, so I already knew the city a bit but we mostly saw things I hadn't already seen, with the exception of the cathedral, which I climbed for a second time!  Saw a Roman/Germanic archaeology museum, history of the city of Cologne museum, university campus and park near Katrin's apartment. On our last night we had dinner and koelsch (the local beer) in the Gaffel Koelsch brewery, across the street from the cathedral, then walked over the bridge to see the city by night from the other side of the river.

Cologne Cathedral and Hohenzollern bridge

It was great to spend such a lovely week with my sister, who I'll get to see again in around 7 weeks!  We tried to cram as much action in as possible, resulting in a full and busy week, and also in one much-needed night in eating pasta and watching Sex and the City.  After all, we haven't been able to just hang out and watch TV together in 6 months!  After putting her on the train to get to the airport, I went back to sleep then got on my own train to Paris, where I was supposed to spend a relaxing night at Ginger's apartment.  Instead, I immediately got on the metro to another train station, and got on another train to Rouen, to spend the night with Sara, Baird, and Ginger at Sara's apartment in Rouen.  It was the first time we've all been together since our semester in Senegal in 2009 so was a long overdue reunion.  We stayed up really late talking, then I had to get up at 6 to get back to Paris to take my train back to Tarbes.  So I spent a total of 12 hours in Rouen and left exhausted but happy.

After less than a week to sleep and recover from that trip, I left last Sunday for my school's trip to London, which I'll wait to describe in detail in my next blog post.  I now only have 4 weeks left of teaching, and 6 weeks left in France!  Today is just a typical day at Theophile Gautier high school--2 of my classes were cancelled this morning and neither teacher informed me ahead of time!

Winter Break Part 1: Berlin

These are some of the highlights from Berlin:

The DDR Museum, a collection of nostalgic items from communist East Germany. 

The Stasi Museum--old headquarters of the Stasi, or secret police, in far eastern Berlin.  The most interesting part was the section about surveillance--there were all kinds of James Bond-esque surveillance devices

 Kunsthalle, an art squat which was a department store that they were going to tear down, and some artists squatted in there to protest and covered the entire building in graffiti.  In fact, the entire city of Berlin was practically covered in graffiti. 

 

East Side Gallery: the largest remaining section of the Berlin wall which, a few years ago, was painted in sections by various artists.  Most of the artwork has something to do with communism.  Here are some of my favorites

The food there was also quite good and cheap, for example I got this giant plate of food (and a large beer) for 5 euros

I also loved this cute little retro-decorated hipster café one of my French friends found, where we had some great (and great-looking) waffles

Obviously, one of the best parts about traveling are the people you meet, and I met these two lovely French girls with whom I spent 5 lovely days discovering Berlin :)

Coming next--my week in Holland and Belgium with Hannah!

I am finally back "home" after 2 wonderful but exhausting weeks.  I want to write about everything (actually, let's face it, I don't really because I'm lazy) but today I'm just writing to say that I got home safely and am feeling pretty good about life: Tarbes feels like home every time I come back from travelling, the weather is warm and sunny, I just spent an awesome week with my sister, my students were all nice and fun today, I just got back from having a lovely coffee and sitting in a lovely square enjoying the lovely weather with Sam, and I'm leaving again in 6 days to chaperone my students on a week-long trip to London.  Also, including this week, but not including the week in London, I have 5 weeks of teaching left.  So that's pretty much just a whole lot of goodness :)

BERLIN

Just a quick update to say I'm in lovely Berlin where it is cold and sunny, and there are so many things to do and see!  It's been a mix of English and French, communist history/nostalgia and modern art, shopping, eating, riding around on 10 million different kinds of public transport, and generally just having a grand old time.  I have so many great photos of so much great stuff, but that will have to wait until I get back to Tarbes.

I really wanted to put some pictures in this post but I'm using Ginger's roommate's computer so can't upload them from my camera.  Anyway, here is what I hope will be a quick summary of my lovely weekend in Paris:

I arrived Friday after a miraculously punctual train ride.  Met Ginger at the metro stop, lots of hugging ensued, then we got coffee and came back to have dinner with her roommates and some awesome Belgian girls who are visiting for Ginger's roommate's birthday.

Saturday, we went to a Senegalese restaurant that we found on the internet and had a great nostalgic Senegalese lunch, (chebujen and yassa, for anyone who's wondering), then we went to this African neighborhood to peruse the Senegalese grocery stores, fish stores, and fabric shops.  It was really cool and chaotic and we heard lots of wolof and saw lots of products that reminded us of Senegal.
It started raining so we headed back to the metro and decided it was too early to go home so we went to the Mosquée de Paris.  We walked around the inside which was gorgeous, and then visited the mosque's tea room to have turkish coffee and pastries.  After that we got some wine and cheese and went back to Ginger's apartment to help get ready for her roommate's birthday party, where we met a bunch of foreign (mostly German) students who study in Paris.

Today, we got up and made coffee, then went to the Marais neighborhood to have the best falafel in Paris.  It did actually live up to all the hype, it was probably the best falafel sandwich I've ever eaten.  Details for Mom--it had falafel and hummus inside and also white and purple cabbage, tomatoes, grilled eggplant, white sauce, and spicy red sauce on top.  Miammmm...

After the falafel we walked to the Cluny museum where I finally got to see the unicorn tapestries, after waiting 5 years to do so since the first time I was in France.  So that was pretty great.  We even got to go for free since we're under 26 and reside in the European Union.  We got coffee then came back to Ginger's neighborhood to walk in the park and peruse a used bookstore, and then came back to relax for the evening.  Now there are less than 12 hours until I board my plane to Berlin!

Well, well.  There is obviously not much going on around here, I've had nothing to blog about for the last week!  Actually, last night I went to a bar in town with some friends to check out karaoke night, which is every Wednesday.  Normally, I think karaoke is a hoot--once you get over the initial embarrassment it can be really fun and hilarious.  So we had a few beers to warm up, I convinced Sam to sing a duet with me, and we picked an N*sync song (classic, right?) since they didn't have "Party in the USA".  An hour later, our song still hadn't come up, but we were forced to sit through a dozen drunken renditions of terrible French songs from the 80s.  I mean the crappiest, sappiest songs about being lonely and following your lover wherever he goes, etc.  So finally, we got so tired we aked the DJ could he please play our song or delete it from the queue because we needed to leave.  It turned out he had already deleted it because this wasn't the democratic karaoke I'm used to but the autocratic kind where the DJ has complete control and puts on the songs he likes, and not the ones the patrons pick.  So it looks like Le Moderne lost at least one patron for their karaoke night--that'll show them!

And now, I'm starting to get restless--it's time to hit the road again.  I have one more class tomorrow morning, then I'm on a train headed for Paris and it's all north from there!  I would normally say that I will be less available internet-wise, but given my current internet situation, I may actually be on the internet more in hostels and at friends' houses than chez moi in Tarbes.  So look for updates soon!

OH. ALSO.  I didn't even have one of my classes today because they lost so much time during the fire drill fiasco that they had to use today's class to make up what they didn't do.