Fall Break!

Hey, everyone, it's time for fall break here in France, and I'm going to be spending mine in Budapest, Vienna and somewhere in Germany or Austria.  Unfortunately, I was going to take a night train out tonight, but the strikes cancelled that train as well as a bunch of other trains that other people were taking, so I'll be leaving bright and early tomorrow morning!

Right now, my plan is:
Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights in Budapest
Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights in Vienna
Thursday and Friday nights in Salzburg
Saturday night in Munich?
Night train back to Metz?

I'll try and post a few incremental updates along the way.  See you all in a week!

An eventful weekend in Amsterdam

Friday

Curtis, Amanda, Jesse, Rivers, Kevin, Mike and I took a trip to Amsterdam this past weekend.  We were up quite early on Friday morning and caught a train at 06:20 to Luxembourg, then on to Brussels and then to Amsterdam Centraal.  Once we got to Amsterdam at about 2:30, we were starving and had lunch at a small Italian place.  After we walked to the hostel and got settled, we were dead set on seeing some of Amsterdam's plentiful museums, which are usually open late on Friday nights.

We initially tried the Rijksmuseum which the hostel desk attendant told us was open until 10pm, apparently was closing early, so we headed to the Van Gogh Museum right around the corner.  The special exhibit was about Realism in the early 20th century and their focus on the average man.  I found the permanent exhibit of Van Gogh's work and inspirations much more entertaining.  The evolution of his style was interesting and really showed how prolific and forward thinking of an artist he was, until, as he said, his artistic vision failed him and he committed suicide.

Dinner was next, and at about 8:30, we headed over to Wok to Walk, a chain that specializes in make your own wok meals.  Afterwards, we tried to find the Red Light District and ended finding what seemed a little offshoot of it.  Kinda disappointed in what we thought to be the actual Red Light District, we headed back home to the hostel.

Saturday

Breakfast at the hostel was pretty good, but not quite up to the "Best Hostel Breakfast EVER" that Katrina awarded it.  Nonetheless, by 9:30, we had already rented bikes (bright orange so the locals can avoid us) and were following Curtis' direction to the Rembrandt House.  Bikes are everywhere in Amsterdam, and is probably the most frequent mode of transportation for the locals.  Every single open railing has a bike locked to it, and there are specific bike lanes all over the city.  Cyclists even get right of way!  I wish we could import that to some places in the US, but the problem is when the tourists try to do it.  I got the distinct feeling that the rules for biking were really really respected and we had probably annoyed a bunch of people throughout the day.  

The Rembrandt House was interesting mainly through a perspective of the lifestyle of people and especially artists.  If you're ever there, make sure you grab the audio tour, because it's free and offers a lot of insights.  Unfortunately, the museum didn't have very many paintings, but it was filled with etchings, which could be produced cheaply and quickly.  After the Rembrandt House, we checked out the flea market right next to it, but then retired to a little cafe since there wasn't much worth braving the rain for.  After coffees and hot chocolate, we went back to the Rijksmuseum again, and had to stand in line for about 20 minutes before we got in, but it was definitely worth it.  The museum was filled with the Dutch Masters' works, of which the crowning piece is Rembrandt's The Night Watch.  

Once we left the museum, Amanda met up with one of her friends from Duke, Michelle, who joined us for the rest of the afternoon.  We had a late lunch/snack.  I got one of the renowned Dutch pancakes, which totally live up to the hype, especially with some delicious thick slices of bacon on top.  The Heineken Experience was next on our list of things to do.  Honestly, I felt like I paid 15 euros to drink 2 beers and look at a lot of Heineken commercials.  The first half, that wasn't about the advertising, had some pretty interesting parts about the brewing process.  It was enjoyable, but missing it wouldn't have killed the trip either.  

Dinner was at a small place closer downtown and I had some lamb cutlets, though the more memorable part was the fries with mayo.  Actually, I'm not sure if it was mayo.  It looked exactly like it, and I've heard that the Europeans prefer mayo on their fries instead of ketchup, but this stuff tasted better than any mayo I've had in the States.  The jury is still out on whether or not that'll be my de facto way to eat fries now.  

Finally the rain stopped, so we headed down to the actual Red Light District this time to walk through it.  It was definitely eye-opening to see how the sex industry had been built up around the area.  That and a bouncer, as we're all walking by, looked down at us and said "You should come in, little ones, especially this one here," looking right at me.  I'm pretty sure that there was steam blowing out my ears, but everyone else was grinning at the line. 

Suddenly, then the sky opened up on us, so we ducked into a pub for a beer and to stay out of the rain.  Our table has also discovered the magic of hot chocolate and Bailey's.  If you're ever looking to go to sleep, I'd recommend one of those.  That was our nightcap, and once we saw Michelle to the train station (she was staying in the suburbs with relatives), we rode our bikes back to the garage and passed out at the hostel.  

Sunday

Sunday was even earlier than Saturday, but all we did was hoof it over to the train station to get a train to The Hague.  The only thing on our list here was the M.C. Escher Museum, which I found really interesting.  His themes with infinity and continuity were really apparent, but very interesting to see the development of his perspective of showing it.  The trip back was by far the most interesting bit of Sunday, as when we were on our way from Amsterdam to Brussels, Curtis' bags got stolen.  There were a number of tip offs to it, and it was really obvious that something was strange apparently (I was asleep).  A sharply dressed man sat in Curtis and Jesse's booth while the train car was mostly empty, and this guy's accomplice sat behind Curtis.  When the train came to a stop, the first guy pulled out a ticket and made an obvious distraction for his friend to reach up and grab Curtis' bag.  Unfortunately, the duo made a clean get away before we could get a conductor to hold the train for us.  

Once we got to Luxembourg, we were looking at the departures board, and while we were watching, the boards flipped over and we watched our train get cancelled.  Stupid French strikes.  So we went out to wait for a bus that was arranged to take us back to Metz, and the last leg of the trip that usually takes only 45 minutes took a good two hours and a taxi ride from the station home.  Overall though, I really enjoyed Amsterdam.  It was a little cloudy for us, but I'd wholeheartedly recommend it for anyone.  There's tons of stuff to do there, and everyone can find something that'll excite them there.

And here's a link for the photos from this weekend. 

Interlaken!

Interlaken, Switzerland is a small town nestled pretty deeply within the Swiss Alps.  Some of the things it's famous for are the extreme sports. Because of the gorgeous scenery, Interlaken has become a destination for young backpackers.  The big activities, which are advertised everywhere, are canyoning, sky diving, paragliding and gorge jumping.  This trip had been planned by a few of the other students, and we had a trip of 8 GTL students: Whitney, Eric, Joe, James, Ethan, Curtis, Kevin and I.

Me, in front of the Jungfrau, the highest mountain in the area

My adventure for the weekend started off on Friday, when we took an 11:30am train from Metz.  I intended to get up at 5 and go with a group of people a little bit earlier, but I was way too tired to when I got up. Unfortunately, on the train in, I pulled out my camera to find I had grabbed the uncharged battery instead of the charged battery.  All the photos here are courtesy of Whitney :)  Eric, Whitney, Joe and I all arrived in Interlaken at about 5pm and made our way to Balmer's Herberge.  It's one of the "Europe's Famous Hostels" line throughout Europe, but this one is worth it.  Mom, I'm pretty sure that this is the one that Pat Murphy stayed at while he was there, because there are signs for it all over, and the main joint at night is the club right under the hostel.  The walls of the game room are covered in photos of the founder with Bill Clinton, a letter from a representative of the Queen and a bunch of other photos.  The place has really built up a great reputation.

Balmer's Herberge, the hostel we stayed at

Friday night wasn't too busy for us.  We arrived, checked into the hostel, and then played pool in the game room until we met up with everyone else that arrived there earlier.  Our dinner was Thai at the place next door, which served up some pretty good Pad Thai.  Afterwards, we headed down the Metrobar, the club under Balmer's for a few drinks, and then an early bed for our adventures in the morning.

Saturday morning was an early rise and then everyone but Whitney, Kevin and I went canyoning.  Essentially, they wrapped themselves in three wetsuits, a helmet and life vest to go jumping through slot canyons in freezing Alpine streams.  It looked like a lot of fun, but not quite worth the $150 to me.  I wanted to do something a little cheaper and see a little bit more of the area, so Whitney and I decided to try a high ropes course while Kevin went for an intense hike in the nearby mountains.  The ropes course was really intense with some really demanding elements.  Some of the platforms were 85 meters up, which translates to 27 stories.  One of the coolest parts was that, after the staff taught you how to clip in, you were completely on your own and responsible for your own safety.  I spent a good 4.5 hours on the course, and Whitney headed back to the hostel a little bit earlier than I did, since she was a little cold.  We met up at around 2:45 and had a quick lunch next to the hostel and then walked around the town for a while.  The architecture looks almost straight out of the Sound of Music in some parts.

A blurry shot of the high ropes course.  Some of the platforms were 85 meters up!

Whitney and I met up with the canyoning group and Kevin at 7:15 for dinner, where I split a fantastic pizza with Kevin, and then we headed back to the hostel to meet up with a group of girls Whitney and I had met earlier.  They were lost and looking for Balmer's, so we told them where it was and had agreed to meet up at the bar for the tail end of happy hour.

In downtown Interlaken.  

Sunday wasn't as exciting or intense, but definitely the most picturesque of the three days.  Whitney left early in the morning so that she would have some time to do work when she got back to Metz, but everyone else went to Lauterbrunnen at Kevin's recommendation.  There was supposed to be a 2 hour hike that was going to fit into our schedule perfectly, so we took a cog train up deeper into the valley that Interlaken sits in.  The vistas were amazing.  It's impossible to take a bad picture here.  Once we got out, we were supposed to walk down a road to this hike that would take us back into a narrow gorge to check out some waterfalls, but we got waylaid by a visible trail up through a cliff face behind a different waterfall.  The little side trip threw off our timing, so we contented ourselves with walking as far as we could along a road that led deeper into the valley before turning back.  From there, we took the cog train back to Interlaken, then picked our bags back up from the hostel and walked over to the train station and headed home.

I also got the chance to grab some patches of places I've travelled to, so I'm going to stitch them to my backpack when I have the chance.  Here's what it looks like so far!

Here's a link to the rest of Whitney's photos too.  The photos at the end of the set are of the cathedral in Metz.

Day 3: Monaco

Okay, so I've definitely got some catching up to do on this blog...

Sunday

So we had decided to go to Monaco on Sunday, since we were only a 45 minute train ride away from there, even though we realized that on a Sunday morning, all the rich people are sleeping in and all the shops are closed, so we wouldn't see too much.  We took the 10:01 train to Monaco and got there shortly before 11, and walked out to a huge harbor filled with superyachts.  These yachts were absolutely massive, and had home ports from all the glamorous places all around the world.  Absolutely amazing to see how much money people would spend on them.  

After wandering around some, we eventually stumbled upon the Monte Carlo, so we took some photos of it and meandered around the absolutely gorgeous landscaping outside of it, that as far as we could tell, was just maintained by the principality.  It seemed a lot like the medians in our roads, but that the bill for the landscaping probably cost more than building the road to begin with...

We eventually found the tourist center and decided that we were going to walk through Monaco.  First on our way was the shopping mall.  It wasn't that big and nothing was open, but it was absolutely gorgeous.  All marble floors all over and crystal chandeliers over the staircases.

After that, we walked over to the Japanese Gardens.  It's a Zen-inspired public garden and one of the free things for us to do.  If you haven't started noticing a theme, we were definitely doing Monaco on a student budget (i.e. $0).

The Japanese Gardens

We decided that we were all getting a little bit tired from the whole weekend and decided that after we saw the palace and the cathedral, we would go back to Nice and get ready to go home.  On our way to the palace and cathedral, though, we ran into Mark and Chad, two other GTL students in Nice.  They said that they were going to check out the town while Eric was going to catch up to them, so we convinced them to come with us.  A quick lunch was first at a market that was just about to close up (I got a chicken cheese and tomato panini) and then climbed up the staircases to the palace at the top.  We didn't take a tour of the palace, but we did walk around the corner and go to the cathedral around the corner.  Unfortunately, my camera's battery died there, but we didn't have too much more time there, so I was somewhat lucky.

The cathedral in Monaco

After walking through the cathedral, we took our time getting home, and actually missed the train back to Nice by about five minutes, so we had to wait another hour.  We decided to get some gelato while we waited for the next train that was coming in an hour.  Once we got back to Nice, there wasn't much time besides dinner at a Chinese take out place, picking up our bags at the hostel, then going to the train station to catch the train home.  

Oktoberfest Photos

Here's another link to the photos I took while we were in Munich this weekend.  In order, it's pictures from the Marienplatz, the Dachau concentration camp, the Hofbrauhaus, the BMW Experience building and the BMW Museum, then it's all Oktoberfest photos.

Link for the Nice Photo Album!

Here's a link to the photo album of everything I've got from Nice, Antibes and Monaco.  I know that some of them are blurry and most of them won't make much sense until I get the chance to add captions and such.  Have fun!

Me in Antibes, on top of the fort we visited

Nice Day 2: City of Nice and Museum of Modern Art

Saturday

We had all decided to rise early on Saturday so that we could get going, so we were all up at about 7 and ready to leave the hostel at 9.  Our first idea was to climb up to the top of a rock outcropping where there was a chateau at one point.  We didn't get up to see the chateau, but we got to some beautiful vistas and a nice fake waterfall (as far as we can tell) at the top.

Christina, Katrina, Amanda and Gregg at the top of the hill near the chateau we never reached

Next on our itinerary was the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art.  There was a huge display that was about the Chinese artist that organized and envisioned the Beijing Olympic opening ceremonies.  He had been experimenting with using gunpowder and black powder for drawings.  The video of all his assistants creating the piece was interesting, though he never really did a lot of work as far as we could tell. I also really enjoyed the pop art displays there, where they had a lot of really iconic and recognizable pieces, though I don't remember the names :)

Lunch was next, and we got fruit, bread and some bacon chips and took it over to a park in the middle of the city to eat in the grass.  Amanda had been really set on finding a small pastry shop, so we all got a little pastry there and took it to a square to eat before we split up.  I wanted to go shopping for a man bag, and Christina wanted a new top to go out later that night, so we split up.  It ended up really conveniently since the girls also wanted to go to the Matisse museum, while Gregg and I wanted to go to the beach more.  My shopping hunt was successful, and I am now the proud owner of a man bag from Jules, a guy's clothing store here in France.  It's definitely proved useful since I've gotten it.

Gregg and I then hung out on the beach for a good two hours or so, and I worked on going from paper white to merely pale in the sun, though I'm not sure how successful I was.  We met up with the girls after we had our time on the beach and a relaxing beer at the bar in the hostel's ground floor, and left for dinner.  We ended up at the same square where we ate Friday night, but at a different restaurant.  I had the menu option again, so that I could eat as much local food as I could.  The appetizer this time was a salade nicoise, a salad topped with seafood.  My entree was medallions of delicious duck, and dessert was the last pear tart that the restaurant had :)

After dinner, we wandered around a small market until we heard fireworks, so we went to investigate.  Once we rounded the big hill with the chateau at the top, we could see the fireworks being launched over the port that we knew was there.  Right after they ended, a friend called and started talking about moon bounces and stages and music and stuff, so he found us then led us to the port, where they were celebrating the 150th anniversary of something to do with this port.  There were four stages or so, and people everywhere, so we walked around and enjoyed the music and dancing for a little.  We again tried to find organize with the other hostel to go out, and we eventually did, but most of us got frustrated with the walking around and being turned down from a few places, so we went back to hang around outside our hostel before we went to bed.  

Nice Day 1: Antibes

Well, everyone, it's a week and a day late, but here's all about my trip to Nice (which ended up including Antibes and Monaco).

Thursday Night

The start of the trip!  We're all excited about our first real night train, and anxious about how it's going to go.  I booked my reservations at a different time than everyone else, so I was a car ahead of everyone and didn't know anyone in my compartment.  When I got there, the door is pitch black, and the door wouldn't budge (turns out that nothing on a train budges unless you throw your body weight into it).

When I opened up, it's pitch black for a moment, then I look down at my expected bunk, and there's a bald guy in it!  He kinda looks at me, and mumbles something in French, so I step in the car and attempt to say "I don't speak French well", at which point he realizes I'm an American and turns on my reading light for me.  So after I shut the door, and then comes a few minutes of eating my sandwich for dinner and wondering what comes next, all sitting Quasimodo style under the bunk above me.

Turns out next locking my bag to the ladder in the room and then leave to go hang out with everyone else.  We had a good time, even asking a few of the French people if they'd like to switch with few people. so we ended up with one compartment of all GTL students, so we could hang out and not disturb people.

Going clockwise from me: Gregg, Julie, Amanda,
Curtis, Whitney's shoulder, and Kayla

We had lots of fun, and some good bonding time.  We all were there until the power in the car went out, at about 11.  I ended up trying to get in bed at about 11:30, and slept off and on until about 7 in the morning.

Friday

The train arrived at 8, so I packed up and left the compartment so I could get some light without disturbing my compartment mate.  I walked down to the other groups car and bummed around there for a little, watching the beautiful landscapes go by.  After we passed through Marseilles, the train ran right by the coastline for 90% of the remaining run into Nice.  The French Riviera is absolutely beautiful along the route we took.  Gregg, the guy next to me in the photo above, was blown away that the railroad got such great land to run train lines.

We arrived in Nice maybe 30 minutes late, and then went to a small diner for breakfast.  I had my first real cafe creme there, and it was amazing!!! Nothing like the coffee I drank all summer long.  It's understandable that everybody sits at a cafe and drinks coffee for hours a day when it tastes like that.  After breakfast, we went to the hostel we were staying at and dropped our bags off.  Christina, Amanda, Katrina, Gregg, Eric and I were all sharing one 6 person room, which was really convenient.

A view from Fort Carre of the Antibes Port

Eric split off to go to the beach and meet up with Mark and Chad (two other GTL students) there, while the other 5 of us went to Antibes for most of the day.  We got there and were greeted with a beautiful waterfront as we oriented ourselves and walked around.  The pictures I have can't to it justice because my camera can't really capture the amount that you can see from wherever you are.  One of the first things we spotted Fort Carre on the biggest hill around.  It was a fort from the Napoleonic era (I think) that was built in the shape of a 4 pointed ninja star.  It's organized so that the artillery could cover nearly any land or water within a kilometer of the fort.  We paid for a small tour of the fort that was in French, unfortunately, but we still enjoyed being able to walk around the fort some and see the beautiful vistas.

After the fort, we walked to through the old town of Antibes, where we had lunch at a small Lebanese place.  We wandered around and enjoyed the views, then stopped at the Picasso Museum, which was fairly interesting.  Once we were done with that, everyone was feeling pretty tired, so we made our way back to the train station and caught the next train back to Nice.  Once we got there, we went back to the hostel and made our first trip to the beach for the weekend.  The water was absolutely beautiful, even though it was quite a bit saltier than at Virginia Beach like I'm used to.  I also kinda liked the pebble beach instead of a sand beach because I didn't get sand everywhere! :)

Dinner on Friday night was in Old Town Nice, where I got the three course menu.  It's always a combo that has an appetizer, entree and dessert.  My appetizer (or entree in French) was mussels with oil and garlic, which were great.  The entree (plat in French) was lots of little squid topped with a tomato sauce and rice, and then I got an apple tart for dessert.  After dinner, we tried to organize with the group at the other hostel to go clubbing, but I was having some intense leg pain, and a bunch of people had already gone to sleep, so nothing came of those plans.

Fete de la Mirabelle!

This past weekend was le Fete de la Mirabelle, which is the big festival here in Metz.  It celebrates the harvesting of the mirabelle, which is a grape-sized, yellow plum.  There's been a lot of mirabelle jams and preserves, and recently I picked up a bottle of a soda made from it, which was really good.  

The festival went all weekend though.  Unfortunately, I don't have many photos from it specifically, but I'll try and get some from friends to put up here so everyone can see.  There was stuff going on all weekend long, so there was a fair bit of walking downtown from the Residence Lafayette (our dorm).  The walk is only about 20 minutes if you keep moving, but whenever we start travelling in a group, we start moving a lot slower.

Starting at around 5 on Friday was "The Ball" according to the information I was given to one of the professors.  A group of us headed out from the Lafayette at about 8 so we could wait for some of the students getting out of later classes.  We headed downtown to a cafe close to the cathedral where we thought we were going to meet up with other students, but they didn't show up for another 25 minutes and when they did, they were all dressed in their kitschy costumes for the night! 

This guy above wasn't with us, but he's a pretty good example of what we started to see around there. When the other students showed up in costume like that, we decided that we definitely needed to get our own, so Thomas, Stefan and I headed over to the tent in the festival square to pay our two euros and leave with all we could wear. Inside were about six racks of old clothes that people had donated, as well as buckets of ties, scarves, belts and that purse.  

Everyone had their photos taken by a photographer at the end of the tent so that they could be projected up onto a screen for everyone in the square to judge.  If you liked the outfits they were wearing, you were supposed to shout out "Vengeance!" to cheer for them.  We all had a fun time cheering for each other, but it seemed like the voting was a little rigged....

After all the costumes and picking the kitschiest of us all, everyone in the square turned to the live bands there for some dancing.  There was one rock band that we were all enjoying, and they sung a bit in English, too, though I didn't really recognize the songs.  Friday night was rediculously fun.  I ended getting back to the dorm around 1:30 and then slept until 2 on Saturday.

Saturday was a lot of fun too.  For most of the day was the market that is in town on the weekends.  Starting at about 7pm though, there were a few concerts and performances by a number of Celtic and pipe and drum bands before a fireworks show that was fantastic.  The French really know how to do fireworks here.  At one point there were some type of emitters or fireworks strung across the back of the stage which poured a sheet of fireworks down. I had gotten separated from everyone else somewhere in the massive crowds that were there and when I found a group that was heading back, I just decided to stick with them.  

The main event on Sunday was the parade through town.  We started off with walking downtown to the train station and bought our train reservations for our trip to Nice next weekend.  It seems like half of everyone here at GTL is going to be coming with us, but we're hopefully going to be splitting up a bunch.  The train reservations went just fine for me, so I've got a bunk on a sleeper train for next Thursday night!  I'm really looking forward to that trip.  

Outside the train station was a craft show where a number of artisans came out to display their work.  A lot of it seemed like the typical craft show type fair.  There was one very interesting watchmaker/watch repair stand that had beautiful work.  I didn't even bother trying to figure out how to ask the price though, since it would have been through the roof for me.  After we walked through all the stalls and admired their work, we found a little place on the side of the road and waited for the parade to start.

It seemed like there was a general theme to the parade, starting out with very early history and a float that seemed like it had Flintstones characters on it... All the people walking along with it had toga looking things on and necklaces of little plastic bones.  Then came along the first pipe band of the group.  It wasn't quite the typical Scottish pipe band that I'm used to seeing at the Alexandria Scottish Christmas Walk though, since some of the musicians had an instrument that looked like a clarinet that was fitted with a bagpipe style reed, and there were some of those in pretty much each band that was there, and relatively few of the bands wore kilts too.  The rest of the parade was pretty much a float, then a band, then a float and a band.  

The floats seemed to generally get more modern too, as we had the medieval(?)  lord and dragon float, which was somewhere close to the group of princesses we saw walk by, and we also had the Renaissance players float, which these two walked along next to.  

The culminating float was, though the cathedral float with the freshly crowned Queen of the Mirabelle.  She won the beauty pageant on Friday night, and got to stand at the front of the final float, strategically placed in front of the two monks.  I assume they were there to remind you not to sin :)

From what I remember, there were one or two more pipe bands after that and then it started raining more heavily, so we decided to walk home, by way of the creepy graveyard :)  

Hope it's all going well back home!

Classes, Festival and Nice!

Classes are starting here at GTL this week.  Tuesday was basically sitting through a few monotonous orientations, except for the one by a professor that's been here for a few years about daily life in France.  She told us a lot of stuff, like seltzer water usually comes in a hard bottle with a red cap and skim milk is usually color coded green.  

Yesterday I had my first User Interface Design and Technology and Society classes.  The UI class looks like a lot of fun, even though I'm taking the same class as a bunch of graduate students.  Most of them are French students who are also taking classes in other tech schools around here.  Apparently they're having a bit of trouble already with some of the English technical terms.  Tech & Society looks kind of interesting, but It definitely seems like a lot of work.  It's my first real history class with a lot of reading and writing associated with it.

Today I actually don't have any classes, just meetings to take care of rent and residence card issues and such.  There's also a presentation on travelling in Europe that I'm looking forward to for tonight.  

We're looking forward to the festival this weekend in Metz.  I'm not exactly sure what's supposed to be going on, but it looks like there's going to be a few live performances, some fireworks, and apparently a lot of dancing.  It'll be another good experience.  Next weekend (the first one out of Metz!) I'm thinking of going to Nice with some people.  We wanted to get to the beach early if we were going to go, so I figured that it would make a good first trip.  I think we're going to take a TGV to Paris and then one to Marseille, and then a train from Marseille to Nice.

I hope everything's going well at home! 

Exploring Metz!

So this weekend has been about a lot of downtime and chilling while everyone travels to GTL.  We've been to the cathedral, which is has the third highest ceiling in France, and the biggest "enameled wall" (I think they were referring to the stained glass window).  After that we had decided to try to find a tower we saw sticking above the roofs, so it led us on an adventure through the city.  I'm glad I had my camera, and here are some of my photos from it! Thought everyone might like to see our city.  :)

Getting to Metz!

So it's the end of my second full day in Metz and my updates are a little overdue, so here's the story of my travels to Metz.

My plane ticket were from Dulles to JFK to Frankfurt.  Both my connections were delayed while I had already boarded, but there was a really nice tailwind going to Frankfurt which helped us make up for all the delays in taking off.

Getting through customs and picking up my bags wasn't much of an issue and even meeting up with Siri (one of the people going to Oktoberfest with me) went really easy.  We had arranged to travel to Metz together and met up outside of Customs really easily, all due to her purple hat.

Our next steps were taking the train to Metz.  I purchased a ticket in the airport (which is really easy and done all the time) and we walked to our platform.  Our original plan was Frankfurt => Mannheim => Saarbrucken => Forbach => Metz.  We were supposed to arrive at about 5:35, which would give us nearly 1.5 hours to check in at the Residence Lafayette (the apartments we are staying at).  The connection to Mannheim ran like most other European trains (that is, on time).  But when we got to the platform, there was a little announcement next to the information saying that the train wasn't running.  We heard later that a garbage truck drove into the side of the express train we were to take and that the line had been shut down for the day.

So, at the information desk we were given another itinerary: Mannheim => Offenberg => Strasbourg => Metz, which would put us in the Metz-Ville station at 6:58, 2 minutes before check in closed.  We figured there was a long shot that we might be able to check in that night, so we were still pretty hopeful.  Sitting on the train however, there was an announcement in German that made the three locals in front of us laugh.  We just smiled and chuckled, pretending to know what was going.  We must have made some comment at some point, because one of the ladies sitting across from us suddenly started explaining what happened.  There was a medical emergency in one of the cars and a doctor had been called to help.  After about a 45 minute wait on the platform, the train finally started moving.  We figured that we wouldn't make the next train by a long shot, so we had to wait for another hour and a half before we could finally make the connection to Metz.

Once we were in Metz, Siri (who has been here before) grabbed us a cab and we finally got to the dorm, to find it dark and locked.  Fortunately, there were a few people who showed up and happened to be the few that Siri knew before getting here.  We were able to sleep on their floors for the night and I was finally able to check into my room the next morning.

In Metz!

It's late Wednesday night, and I just wanted to post that I made it late Tuesday night, for all the family and friends following this.  I'll have a more detailed post coming soon.  It's kinda been hard to find the time so far since all the students here have been travelling in packs.

Good night from France!

packing!

It's 9:12 pm on the 15th and I take off for New York in approximately 19 hours and 45 minutes.  I'm a little behind on the packing right now though.  I've gathered the majority of all the stuff I've been taking.  There's a few things to add to the piles in the guest bedroom, but it's mostly there, so I've decided I'm going to start on my first practice pack.  The challenge:

This stuff: 

Into these bags:

Let's see how I do!

Eat Mor Chikin

Sorry for the week without a post, everyone.  It hasn't been particularly busy, but I still haven't gotten around to posting.  I've just been taking care of the little stuff and getting details in line.

What I've been meaning to post about was what I cooked a week ago.  Laura, my little sister, had to go to fencing practice, so the whole meal wasn't ready for her.  For a quick dinner, I made her an omelet with some tomatoes and onions, and the salad that I had made for dinner.   

The rest of us had more sauteed chicken and a tomato, rosemary and white wine pan sauce on a bed of mushroom pilaf.  The salad was spinach and arugula with oil and balsamic vinegar topped with crumbled cheese and crasins on top.  It was good, but I think the first dish was better.  The flavor of the mushrooms in the pilaf was a little strong.  The salad was fantastic though.  

12 more days to go!

Introverted and Travelling

So, one of the things that I've been curious about how this semester will turn out is meeting locals, having spontaneous plans, making friends and merging with the culture.  The only hitch is that I'm fairly introverted.

Not that anything's wrong with it, but I just have a harder time meeting strangers and spontaneously interacting.  I can do it when I need to, but I'm much more relaxed when I know it's going to happen, almost as if it's like I've got to plan for it.  Even around the pledge class in my frat (my 15 closest friends with the exception of my girlfriend), I get really quiet, but I still love hanging out with them.  I'm still adjusting to the idea of blogging consistently too, but it's getting easier.

So I've understandably gotten a little excited when I found this blog.  Digging through a few links also found these two articles.  Reading these really let me relax some.  I was a little anxious about feeling pressure to bond with locals every weekend when I was abroad, as my mother would do.  And while I admire Mom's ability to do that so quickly, I just didn't feel like I'd be comfortable doing that.

As much as I can, I'm still going to try making friends and being open to everything, but I'm going to be doing it in my own style a little bit more.  As silly as it sounds, this is the first time I thought of doing that, but I'm really looking forward to it now :D

BTW, I leave in nineteen days...

Sauted Chicken!!

One of the big things that's new for me is that I'm going to be feeding myself for really the first time.  I've been working my tail off this summer, as well as tons of fencing. It's after Fencing Nationals now, so I'm taking a little time of and letting my ruined knees heal some.  That means I have Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights off to learn to cook!  Based on what I did tonight, I'm really looking forward to it.  Thanks to my amazing mother, I got a solid lesson on how to sauté.  She planned the meal and got the ingredients for me, but dinner was sauteed chicken with an orange dijon rosemary pan sauce over a bed of couscous and a small spinach, arugula, walnuts, pears and bleu cheese with a champagne vinaigrette.  Magnifique!

I'm looking forward to French food :)

Visa!

Alright, it's less than a month until I leave! I'm flying to Frankfurt via Dulles International and JFK. I'm getting more and more excited :)

I picked up my visa about a week ago. It's essentially a big stamp pasted into my passport. It's got the typical information about me, and then some security printing on it. Overall, it's not that fancy, just mainly the basic passport information in French, and the fact that I'm a student.

The process, however, is ridiculously complex compared to the product. First off, for France, you need to apply in person. I know that this isn't the case for all countries. Anna, my girlfriend, is going to New Zealand and she gets to mail hers in. Each French consulate around the country (there are 10) has a visa department, and (here's the catch) each consulate has their own list of required documents!. Make sure you figure out your consulate's information.

The documents are all fairly basic, but I've heard varying stories. One of the girls going to GTL had her initial application rejected even through she had above the minimum amount of money in her bank account. I got my first whiff of the patented French bureaucracy when the lady helping me made me get a different receipt than what I had. The only difference was that I didn't have the CampusFrance logo on mine.

Then just make sure you're on time for your appointment, even a little early if possible. And expect stereotypical French attitudes, especially if your appointment is the day the French team gets knocked out of the World Cup, like mine. My best advice, just like my mother said, is to take care of this early. You might need to contact your school and get a proof of enrollment and the like.

GTL General Info

First off, this is a really cool post on Come and See the Universe.  It's a travel blog done by two 19 year old girls.  One, Wordy, is a writer and the other, Dreamsweat, is a photographer.  I'm not sure what I think of Wordy's writing yet, but I really like the photos.

So, I've decided that instead of posting stuff on obtaining student visas for France (sorry Thorn Tree visitors), I'd talk a little bit more about Georgia Tech Lorraine.  There's all the basic stuff I said yesterday: It's a GT campus, where I'm taking 2 computer science and 2 humanities courses.  It's a pretty unusual place, as far as I can tell, because it's a fully operational Georgia Tech campus. They're always very consistent to mention that it's not a different school than Georgia Tech Atlanta. Effectively, the difference is that there are GT-Atlanta faculty on rotation in Metz, so all the courses are compliant with all the Engineering school's requirements, and most importantly, taught in English.

It's in Metz, in the Lorraine region of France. It borders Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany. Being stuck in the middle, it became a really important region, and Metz is the capital of it. Apparently, the languages in the area became so muddled that it was "sometimes not even mutually intelligible with either French or German", says Wikipedia. The official French dialect is lorrain and the Germanic dialect that still exists in the remote parts is francique. Apparently it's also a region of lots of breweries!


View Larger Map

There's definitely all the typical college campus stuff. There's a 24/7 computer lab, mini technical library, and an all hours building. The dorm that we're all staying at is within 20 minutes by walking. Around town is CORA, which is essentially a Super Walmart. Around the corner is a little cafeteria for our lunches.

So I know that this is a really half baked post, but it's late for me and I've got to get up early. I promise I'll edit this one tomorrow.

First!

For those of you that don't know me, I'm Ryan.
Occupation: Rising 3rd year Computer Science student at UVA
Current Destination: Metz, France :)
Fall 2010 Campus: Georgia Tech Lorraine
Bad Habits: Fencing, Whitewater Kayaking, Computers, Toys...err...Gadgets, coding, nice clothes

The general stuff:  Here's where I'm going: Georgia Tech Lorraine. It's a Georgia Tech campus in Metz, France. What really convince me to go here was that I can take engineering courses that will count for credit at UVA and classes are scheduled 4 days a week so that students there can travel for three day weekends. I'm going to be studying Computer Networking, User Interface Design, Technology and Soceity, and Special Topics: Ideas of Europe.

I'm going to be staying essentially in dorms with the other students. I just tried to google where I'm staying and a hotel website came up, so I think I got the wrong place...

I'll try and be kind to everyone and not drop EVERYTHING on you in one post so I'll post a little bit on each topic every day. :D Please, give me any advice you've got and if you want to hear about any of my preparation, drop a comment and I'll look into it.