Bruges/Brussels

For our last weekend of travel, we took a daytrip to Bruges and Brussels. Bruges is famous for its chocolate shops and they were delicious. It’s a very cute European town with a lot of shopping and is slightly touristy. We ate a legitimate Belgian waffle…mmm, good. We ran into some friends (Dustin and Sara) who also went to Bruges for the day. After walking around for a few hours, we trained to Brussels. There is started to rain, but we braved it to walk about 3 square blocks, haha. We found a really cute cookie/candy shop with all sorts of tins to fill up. After the shops and a market we trained back to Maastricht for the night and to catch up on sleep and studying!

Yay! Finals are almost over! Only one left tomorrow, the sendoff party and then 3 weeks of traveling!! I can hardly wait. Our plans are Barcelona, Carcassonne, Avignon, Nice, Strasbourg, back to Maastricht, London, Dublin, Edinburgh, Maastricht and HOME for Thanksgiving!

Luxembourg

The next adventure was a day trip to the enormous country of Luxembourg. It took about 3 hours to train through Liege and into Luxembourg City. Luxembourg has three official languages: French, German and Luxembourgish (no joke). The city looks like a fairytale land. The city is on a plateau, so forested ravines and streams surround it as well as old buildings emerging in different spots. The park was the perfect fall scene with a light breeze causing leaves to fall ever so slowly. The Grand Duke’s palace was complete with a guard out front, but is a bit hidden and unassuming. We climbed down into some caverns used as fortresses in previous wars. They were slightly creepy and we lost Annabelle for a few minutes-eek! I did find a French bookstore and bought a few books for fun. Overall Luxembourg is a really cool, relaxed, and inviting place. The people were very friendly and seemed to just enjoy the day.

Germany and Italy!!

Hello everyone! The semester’s more than halfway over…whoa. I just got back from a week and a half semester break. Believe it or not, with only twelve days of class I was more than ready for a break! We started the trip as a full group of 57 people including our professors. The first stop was Berlin. We went there to see the Charité Hospital and the Plastinarium in Guben, Germany. Baylor set up the accommodations for everyone and they did a very good job. The Maritim Hotel is 4-star. It is across the street from the German Department of Defense. Interesting historical tidbit, the courtyard where the Valkyrie conspirators were killed is there. Moving to the WWII part of the story, Berlin is noticeably different from other major European cities. Because the city was bombed in the war, nearly everything has been built since then. We went to Checkpoint Charlie and heard a brief history review from our tour guide near the Berlin Wall. I could go on, but this is just the beginning of the week! We bussed to Guben and saw the Body Works-like exhibit there. This site is the original and it was incredible to see the human bodies posed and preserved. The quantity of history at Charité was also stunning. Virchow’s desk is still on display among many things.

Next, we flew into Venice, Italy and bussed to Padua. There we enjoyed touring the University with the first anatomical theater. Galileo and Vesalius both taught there among others. Padua was a nice, small city with great shopping and gelato J

After Padua, we were ‘released’ from the big group and dispersed in our smaller travel groups. We went back to Venice for a night and enjoyed the city a bit. It hasn’t sunk yet! I found a true Venetian mask shop where the lady was making the paper maché masks. Now I’m ready for a Masquerade!

The next stop was Florence…aka Firenze. There we climbed all 46o+ steps to the top of Il Duomo. It was gorgeous to see the entire city. Every night we went to the Piazza Michelangelo, which is on a hill in Florence and brought dinner to the steps. The sunsets were beautiful and we had a view of the Ponte Vecchio. We took a day trip out of Florence and into Siena. The smaller town was nice and the surrounding area was pretty, but I’m still not sure how the town has become so touristy. Back in Florence we shopped the leather markets extensively and saw the David—perfection!

After Florence was the amazing Cinque Terre or Five Lands. The little towns are on the Italy’s northwest coast. We stayed in the first town of Riomaggiore and trained/hiked to the other towns. The beaches were beautiful and the mountains gave us great views over the water. Our first night there we hiked up to see the sunset. Then, an offshore storm started during the sunset…we took sooo many pictures of the sky. One of our group was actually in tears our last night there because it was so amazing.

We trained bright and early at 5:40 to Milan and met our whole group at the airport to fly back into Brussels and get back for class. We would have rather stayed in Cinque Terre!

Switzerland!

This weekend we went to Zurich!! Switzerland was amazing, but I don't recommend the overnight train to get there. We were exhausted. After a wild Paris weekend, relaxing near the Alps was perfect. Colleen's parents knew a family in Zurich and they offered to let us stay with them. Henriette is about our age and she met the group at the train station and helped us navigate. We took a ride around the lake with Lindt chocolate and delightful treats called Luxembergelis. We went up to the top of a mountain called Uetiliberg and found an awesome view of the city. On Saturday we tried a high rope course in the tiny town of Atzmanning. Getting up there by train, then bus, then van was interesting! The Grimmels treated us to a real Swiss cheese fondue dinner that night with Movenpick ice cream. Mmm mmm good! On Sunday it was back to Maastricht to study and prep for the week. Zurich might just be my favorite spot so far this trip!

Vive la France!

Hey everyone! I know I'm a little behind on this, but here are some pics from our Paris weekend! We took an early 5:58am train to Paris and hit the ground running. The entire Baylor group went to the Pasteur Institute and toured Louis Pasteur's apartment and lab. At 7 that night we went on a bike tour of the city. It was beautiful! We rode through the Latin Quarter and stopped on the Ile de la Cite to look at Notre Dame and eat Berthillon's ice cream. I recommend the passion fruit and pear :) Then we rode around the Louvre at night and along Seine to jump on a river cruise. The next morning Annabelle, Jordan and I took a train to the town of Chartres. The largest cathedral in France is there and it's famous for the stained glass. The glass was stored piece by piece during both world wars and is gorgeous. We also made time for the Musee d'Orsay and the beautiful impressionist paintings there (Degas was my favorite.) On Sunday, I went with the family, who was still enjoying their Parisian vacation, on a tour of the Loire Valley. The castles and countryside are beautiful. The three castles we saw are Chambord with hundreds of chimneys, Chenonceau across a river and Cheverny with its hunting dogs. Sunday night was a fun night hanging out at the Eiffel Tower only to catch a train back to Maastricht bright and early on Monday.

A Bit More Exploring...

Here are a few more pics around Maastricht. Included is an old church that was converted to a bookstore of all things. It's beautiful, but still a little strange. One surprising treat today was the ice coffee at a chocolate shop. It was more like a coffee float with vanilla ice cream, very strong coffee and whipped cream. Mmm...

Plans are coming together for Paris and we bought train tickets for Zurich!

Amsterdam

This weekend was entirely devoted to Amsterdam. Mom, Trent, Emma and Ethan flew in on Friday and I took the train to meet them from Maastricht. Five other Baylor girls and I navigated our first train ride successfully :) The city is really beautiful. The canals are lined with trees and beautiful, old canal houses. The flower market in the middle of the city was fabulous--the pictures don't do it justice. After trying to locate the hotel for awhile, I found my jet-lagged family in the Hotel Pulitzer. The hotel is made up of several canal houses that were connected and transformed into a gorgeous hotel.

In Amsterdam we visited the Van Gogh Museum and the Anne Frank Huis (house). The cross-sectional picture is the business and house where Anne and her family hid for 2.5 years.

A nighttime canal cruise showed us all around the city (including the Red Light District). Oh and the 'coffeeshops' were everywhere. Soft drugs are only legal in private homes and coffeeshops. The shops have names like 'The Grasshopper' and the 'Magic Mushroom,' and the smell reaches into the street.

Despite this, Amsterdam is a very cool city. It really is relaxing and beautiful. The train home was a bit more exciting than the ride there. The whole family plus luggage needed to get to Maastricht. The train made more stops and took a long time. Getting near Maastricht we asked a lady getting off the train when the Maastricht stop was. She told us we needed to get off the train and walk down a couple of cars then get back on. The train was SPLITTING IN HALF and the other half went to Maastricht. So, we hurried off the train, down the platform and scrambled to sit in the right car. We made it though....Some other friends were not as lucky on their return trip!

More pics of Maastricht coming tomorrow...then Paris!!

Orientation Day in Maastricht

Today's main attraction was a walking city tour of Maastricht led by the wonderful guide Jola (she's in a pic below). She walked us around and really enlightened the group about the history of Maastricht and it has a lot (too much to mention here). The city was founded by Julius Caesar so that gives you an idea. We are about 20 min walking distance from Belgium so there's a lot of French influence and only 25 km from Aachen, Germany. Jola explained some of the difficulties with the Dutch language to us. Everyone reads Dutch writing and converts it to something very different in their heads and the dialects are very different all over the place. This area is more French while the North is more German. The other pics below are around Maastricht (which means to cross the river Maas). One of my favorite spots from the day is a 200 year old weeping willow and birch growing together. They make this totally shady spot by a small river that is gorgeous. Anyway, check it out!

Hi everyone! I finally made it over here to Maastricht--yay! After a long and rather exhausting day of travel it's nice to be settled in. First impressions off the plane in The Netherlands...cool place. So far the Dutch people have been very nice and speak English! Dutch is a crazy language though. It's like English and German got together and added some vowels everywhere. After we arrived in Amsterdam, we took a bus to Maastricht. It is about a 2.5 hour bus ride and while I napped most of the way there were lots of cows, sheep and a least one water mill. I knew being below sea level gave the country similarities to south Louisiana, but it sunk in when there was a blue heron walking among some cattails on the side of the road--ha!