Une visite de Marion, Cracovie, et Auschwitz-Birkenau

Alors! Again, sorry for the delay between entries -- the spring has turned out to be quite busy! Which has been great, but also very tiring and doesn't leave me much time for blogging!

This past Tuesday, Marion (my aunt) arrived from CT -- we've been having a great time lots of walking, sightseeing, and lots of delicious food. Tuesday when she arrived, we went for a nice long walk around my neighborhood (the weather has been absolutely amazing) -- i showed her the Tour Eiffel and we walked by the Ecole Militaire, and then up to the Seine and back by the Hotel des invalides. For dinner, i had looked up a restaurant on the other side of the Champs de Mars -- Les Cocottes (http://www.maisonconstant.com/fr_cocottes.htm) which was absolutely lovely. We sat at the long counter, and i had a delicious soup with little pieces of duck, and then a salad (which i can't seem to remember more about since we've eaten so much other delicious food since then!). But we both had a wonderful meal -- and i would definitely recommend it. Seemed a little touristy, but the food was still good.

Wednesday, i had two classes -- so in between then, i came back and met Marion for lunch. We went to a nice cafe in the Place Cambronne called Le Square Cafe. i actually went there with my parents when they were here, so i knew that the food was decent! After a nice lunch, we took the metro to Montparnasse to wander around a bit more, and then print out our boarding passes at Reid Hall. The weather, again, was spectacular -- and we definitely took advantage of it! After my class at Catho, we actually walked back home -- we stopped at the restaurant Suffren for a little something to eat -- i had the terrine de compagne, which is pretty much always reliably delicious!

Thursday, i swam early in the morning (as i had been the two days before as well), and then came back home to finish packing so that Marion and i could leave on time for our flight to Krakow! i introduced Marion to some new travel experiences, including the trip to and experience at Paris Beauvais airport -- which definitely earns its names as Paris' low cost airport. Our flight was on RyanAir which doesn't have assigned seats -- and so we made a run for it! The flight wasn't that full, so we lucked out by getting an aisle and window seat with no one in between us!

We were met by a taxi upon our arrival in Krakow, and he took us directly to our hotel, Cracowdays. it was an absolutely lovely place -- great bed and breakfast. Our room was enormous and clean, the service was great, and the array of foods at breakfast each morning was pretty incredible! We settled into our room, and then after a little bit, we walked to the main square of the city and had dinner at a restaurant called Wesele. it was a fun place -- with traditional Polish food. i had pierogis topped with crispy onions and little bits of bacon -- yum! We also split one of their "traditional" desserts which is a piece of cheesecake that's served warm and then has a thin layer of bittersweet chocolate on the top. it was interesting! Probably not my favorite way to have cheesecake, but i am glad i tried it.

Friday! One of the main reasons that i wanted to go to Krakow was to see the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps. So that's what we did on Friday. We bought tickets for the Crakow Tours visit which turned out to be a very good idea. They took us there on a bus, split us up into groups with tour guides and then took us back to Krakow. All in all -- it was a very long day, but thorougly fascinating in a terrible way. i won't really go into details, but i would say that if you have the opportunity to go, it really is an eye opening experience. it is something that cannot be imagined without visiting a place like this. i did take a few pictures, but felt a little odd about doing so. i'll just include the one of what most consider the most "famous" view at Birenkau (Auschwitz 2).

After a long day, we headed back to the hotel to put our feet up and then went across the street to a restaurant that's actually number 1 on TripAdvisor for restaurants in Krakow -- Zielona Kuchnia. it was absolutely delightful -- a small but very modern place with sort of European fushion food. i started with three little pieces of toast topped with spinach, raisins, and melted parmesan cheese. Sounds like an odd combination but it was actually really tasty -- and then i kept seeing it on menus, so i assume that it's another Polish specialty. For my dinner, i ordered the duck which came sliced and then topped with a sauce of oranges, pomegranate seeds and cinnamon. Then on the side, there were potato wedges with little bits of chorizo sausage. So delicious.

Saturday (or yesterday), according to Marion's pedometer, we walked more than 22,000 steps! Which apparently translates into more than 8 miles! We started out around 11am, and we found the Starbucks in the Galeria Krakowska (the enormous shopping mall) so that i could do my obligatory stop for tourist mugs....i am building up quite the collection. From there, we continued to make a circle around the city and down towards the Wawel Castle. The weather was again, gorgeous, and so we decided to not waste our time by going inside. We basically just kept walking around -- saw the fire breathing dragon -- and pretty much all the major stuff.

Krakow's main square

The castle

We went for lunch at a place called Miod Malina, which was actually a sister restaurant of the restaurant where we ate the first night. it again served mostly Polish food -- and so i tried their potato pancakes with sour cream, and a nice salad with beef tenderloin and and a raspberry dressing (i don't know if that was traditional Polish, but it was still yummy!).

From lunch, we walked down across the river to the old Schidler's Factory which is now a museum about the Nazi occupation of Krakow. The museum was a bit disorganized, but overall still really interesting and depressing. We walked back to the hotel via the main square for one last look -- we attempted to find some postcards but were not successful! But after out 8 mile day, we were a bit fatiguees! We hung out for a bit before walking up the street for an italian dinner at Mamma Mia which was actually really good! i had a nice fresh pasta dish with tomatoes, mozzarella, basil and garlic, while Marion had a quattro fromage pizza. Both were great!

Today, we left the hotel after breakfast around 8:45 and went to the airport. Fairly uneventful trip back! But we finally made it home around 3pm and i spent the afternoon doing homework and then we had a lovely dinner here with Marilu and Alain.

Here are some more pictures from Krakow that i liked:

Fire Breathing Dragon

Just found this too funny....

Alright, i am pretty wiped out so i will say goodnight! Sorry for all the lowercase letter "i"s -- my keyboard is a bit malade....

A bientot!!





Zurich et Rheinfalls!

So of course, why would I want to start on my homework while still in Switzerland?! It's great how blogging has turned into a procrastination tool...I had every intention of writing about Zurich last night, but with watching Bridesmaids and "writing" article summaries for my project tomorrow, it just didn't happen!

Yesterday, I spent the day in Zurich -- which really is a beautiful city! I caught the 9:09am train from Schaffhausen to Zurich and got there just before 10. The whole Bahnhof (train station) is completely under construction and so I finally found my way to the tourist information center -- where I had to actually wait in a line, unlike at St. Gallen. I got a map and was pointed in general direction of interesting things -- and then headed out! I lucked out with the weather once again -- beautiful and sunny and not too chilly.

I basically wandered around the old city for the entire morning -- it wasn't very busy, and so it was pretty peaceful! The old town was a wonderful mix of old architecture but really modern shops and restaurants -- very cool vibe. After the old city (or old town?), I walked down towards the lake which was absolutely gorgeous. Wonderful views, and again, I couldn't have asked for nicer weather! I did a little exploring in the Bellevue area which is an area that's a bit newer and down by the water by the opera house- still a very neat area!

By this point, it was nearing lunchtime and so I tried to keep a look out for an interesting restaurant! Zurich certainly didn't help disprove my theory that Switzerland is one of the most expensive places in the world...It was hard to find anything but street food for under 20 francs (approx. 1 fr = $1 -- sort of...). After making a few circles, I settled on an older looking restaurant -- which seemed to be full of locals, which was perfect. I was given an English menu (given that I really do not understand German at all) -- and I ordered the pork sausage with Rosti (which is hashbrowns) and then the sausage was covered in a delicious onion gravy. The whole meal was delicious! And the atmosphere was perfect as well.

Feeling re-energized, I made my way to see St. Peter's Church and then back up past the Bahnoff to go to the Landesmuseum which is the Swiss National Museum. I spent about an hour wandering through -- interesting exhibits on Swiss history and then a whole other section about the history of Swiss home and furnishings and how they have changed over time.

By this time, I was growing a bit tired, and so I took the next train back to Schaffhausen and go in around 5pm. It was, luckily, still light out, and so I took the opportunity to walk around the town a little bit. It's definitely quite a charming place.

This morning, I took the bus about 20 minutes to the Rheinfalls (thanks for your comment Mrs. Savage!!). Absolutely breathtaking. I started by looking at them from across the river on the Neuhausen am Rheinfall side and then walked across the railroad bridge to the touristy side. I caved and bought a ticket (I couldn't really not have gotten one at that point!) which allowed me access to all of the paths that went down right up close to the falls. Lots of water moving very very quickly!! But it was very cool to be literally right up next to the falls. Hard to describe it in words -- so I'll just move on to some pictures. OH -- and a picture of the cat, Guiness, this morning finishing the milk in my cereal bowl...too funny. He gives Pastel a run for his money...

And now back to Paris!

A bientot!



La Suisse et Saint Gallen!

So you know...here I am in SWITZERLAND. I didn't really realize that that I was leaving again until yesterday morning when I decided that I should probably pack my suitcase!

The first part of the week was fairly routine -- minus the fact that my class at Catho was cancelled not ONCE but TWICE -- and of course, I didn't find out until after I had gotten there both time. Gotta love the French university system! So that made it a 3 course week -- tant pis...

But yesterday, I made my first trip to the Orly airport -- which is actually quite easy. Just a metro ride to a bus which took me right there! It was about the easiest airport trip ever. And then to make it even better, there was no line at security and I just breezed right through! The slight snag in the whole thing was that our flight was delayed about an hour -- but other than that, everything was fine.

I arrived in Zurich around 7pm and then went to catch the train to Schaffhausen which is a town about 25 minutes north of Zurich -- very close to the Swiss/German border. I met Brendan, who is the son of a family friend, at the train station and then we took the bus to his house which is where I am staying. We ordered a pizza for dinner -- and Swiss pizza is actually pretty good! I was feeling pretty out of it so I turned in on the earlier side.
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TODAY -- was awesome. I made a spur of the moment decision to go to St. Gallen which is abour an hour and a half train ride from Schaffhausen. It was about a 45 minute train ride to Winterthur and then I changed trains to one that took me to St. Gallen. I got there just before 2 and found the tourist information center to grab a map and so I knew what direction to head in.

I went towards the center of the old town which was really charming and then found the cathedral -- which wasn't hard to find at all -- and it truly was one of the most beautiful churches I have ever seen -- it was really different than most of the cathedrals that I've seen in Europe, but absolutely stunning.

Inside of the cathedral

From there, I walked around the outside of the abbey to find the library -- which is the famous part! But FIRST, I stopped at the chocolate shop that the information girl recommended -- I got a Dutch hot chocolate to go, which was pretty delicious and definitely gives Paris' Angelina's a run for it's money!

The library is the first place that I've been to where they make you put slippers over your shoes -- it's actually pretty funny. But the library is breathtaking -- it's literally like something out of a movie set. I just wanted to curl up in the corner and read all afternoon. Unfortunately, pictures weren't allowed, but if you look at this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BibliothekSG.jpg, you'll get a general idea of where I was!

I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the old town -- and I even climbed up the mountain (or hill?) at the edge of the old part of the city so that I could get a better view of the city. The gorgeous weather only made it even better. I probably looked like a complete nerd -- but I attempted to get a picture of me with the beautiful skyline

I think that about covers it for today! Hard to put into words how beautiful of a place this is.  I took the train back to Schaffhausen and then went to the grocery store to pick up a few things for dinner. I've had a great night relaxing withe the two cats and watching some silly movies.

Looking forward to another great today tomorrow!

A bientot! 

Une visite, les Catacombes, et BEAUCOUP DE BONNE NOURRITURE!!

So I will warn you -- this blog post will be very full of delicioius food descriptions. Since that was one of the main components of this weekend. Well, I suppose the main event was the visit of my cousin Al and his girlfriend Kerstin from London! It was so great to have them visit -- we did lots of walking, saw some new things, and as I already mentioned, ate tons of incredible food.

I met them at Gare du Nord yesterday at around 10:45am -- we stood in line to get them metro tickets and then I took them to their hotel, which turned out to be just a few blocks away from where I live! They dropped their stuff off and then we began with a pass by the Eiffel Tower on our way to find some lunch! They had a few recommendations for restaurants from collegues and friends -- and so we found one of the restaurants not far away called L'Ami Jean (http://www.amijean.eu/index.htm). It was pretty unassuming from the outside, but it was a cute cozy place on the inside. After confirming that we did not have a reservation, the host said "Okay, we have decided to take you", and he led us to a table in the back. It seemed to be a mix of locals and tourist types -- hard to tell. But we did have an absolutely wonderful meal. We each got the prix fixe menu -- I started with the salmon which was on top of a warm lentil salad and surrounded by sweetened white foam. I think it's the first time that I've really eaten salmon on the rawer side -- but I still enjoyed it quite a bit. OH -- I almost forgot the charcuterie plate that we shared as well -- dried ham and a little pot of homemade butter. Does life get any better? WAIT -- IT DOES. For my main course, I got the roasted sausage with potatoes -- it was not only beautiful, but again, so yummy. There was one sausage which formed a sort of teepee with two long roasted potatoes. They also brought us these two little things of mashed potatoes for the table -- it tasted like they had pureed the potatoes and then just put in a few sticks of butter and some cream. I'm afraid that all of that was only the lead up to the grand finale. For dessert, I ordered the riz au lait. They brought out 3 chilled bowls -- one for each of us, and the waiter told me that I could share what I wanted. We could barely finish the bowl between the three of us. It truly was the most delicious riz au lait I have ever had. They also brought us a little cup of salted caramel cream and of roasted peanuts (it was almost like a granola). It's difficult to describe in words how good it was. I just wanted to lick the bowl clean -- but my overly full stomach thankfully stopped me long before that point.

Salmon starter

Saucissons et Pommes de Terres!

We left L'Ami Jean more than satisfied, and from there we went to the Catacombes where we were told it was too late for us to get in line for the day! We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the Montparnasse area and made our way up to Notre Dame, Ile Saint Louis, and finally up to the Marais district. We finished off the night with a drink at a bar down the street from me called Le Primerose -- charming little place with really tasty drinks!

This morning, we tried again with the Catacombes and this time we stuck it out and waited in line. It only took about an hour for us to get in -- and again, this place is a bit difficult to describe in words. I think it was safe to say, though, that it was a good call when my dad decided that this wasn't the tourist attraction for him. Lots of stairs down to dark and dank tunnels and then the most bones I have ever seen in my entire life. They just kept going and going and going -- all nearly stacked as if they were meant to be looked at for peoples' pleasure one day. It was eerie, but absolutely incredible at the same time.

After that, we headed for lunch. We ended up at a cafe in the 14th not far from the exit of the Catacombes. It wasn't at all a bad lunch -- but compared to the other meals we had, it wasn't quite on the same level! My starter was, without a doubt, the highlight -- it was two pieces of goat cheese that were wrapped with pastry and then sauteed (or probably fried) with a side salad and then drizzled with honey. It was so delicious.

It being the first Sunday of the month -- all of the museums in Paris are free. This made it a bit difficult to decide where to go for the afternoon, as we wanted to avoid long lines and huge crowds. So naturally, we headed towards the Louvre! This was after our brief encounter with some of the Paris fashion week mobs -- Kerstin and I each got some free fashion magazines as we passed through. That was after we got the look up and down to see if we were worthy of a free fashion magazine...

The Louvre wasn't nearly as busy as we thought it might be. We went in through the mall underneath where the security line is always much shorter (good thing to remember!) and then because of the no fee -- you could just go right in. After a little wandering around, I left them to continue perusing and I came home to study for a little bit.

We finished off our culinarily incredible weekend with a light-ish dinner at Suffren - which is the brasserie that's right down the street from me. It's a place that I pass literally everyday as I go to and from the metro station -- and it's always packed, so I thought it would be goo to give it a try! We were not dissapointed. It's a lovely atmosphere -- warm colors, comfortable chairs, beautiful woodwork on the walls. A nice change from the usual chillier Parisian cafe. I ordered a salad which had tomatoes, slices of smoked duck, some sauteed bacon pieces, and lettuce, of course. It was again, delicious. We all had dessert....and I got the molten chocolate cake which was like everything, just as yummy.

If you're wondering -- my pants do still indeed more than fit. And I may or may not be drinking only water and eating vegetables for the next week. But it was definitely worth it. It's so incredible that on any old weekend I can do so many amazing things and have such a great time.

Alrighty - back to reality tomorrow, which should be rather interesting! I still can't believe it's already March!! Crazy how time flies.

A bientot!

Pompidou!

I had a wonderful morning of sleeping in -- complete with really odd dreams! But I slept until about 10 am none the less. It was great after basically getting up before 8 every morning this week.

It turned out that yesterday my class was cancelled -- the class that was technically the reason that I came back from vacation when I did. I was there aroung 8:15 ready to go -- and some more students sort of stumbled in over the next 15 minutes -- there was still no professor. Finally, one of the girls went down to the main office to ask where the professor was, and we found out that she wasn't coming! Sort of good news, bad news I suppose. Instead of just going home, Nick and I walked to the Musee de Cluny to visit the Musee du Moyen Age! It didn't open un 9:15, and so we walked to a boulangerie where Nick got an almond croissant.

We got into the museum for free (as with most of the museums in Paris), and we spent about an hour wandering through! It was filled with lots of carvings, stained glass windows, woodwork -- all very cool but after a while it all sort of started to look the same.

After the museum visit, I went home to cook up some vegetables for my lunch with Louisa! We had a lovely lunch here at home -- fresh multigrain baguette, hummus, roasted tomatoes, zucchini, corn, and cauliflower! Absolutely delicious food -- and not to mention wonderful company!

Today, my cultural activity was the Centre Pompidou! Something that I should have done long ago. It's a pretty intimidating place I have to say -- for how large the building is, the collection only takes up 2 of the 6 (?) floors. I really don't understand modern art. Well, I sort of understand the modern art -- it's the contemporary art that is really confusing. I wouldn't even know where to begin to describe the pieces in this museum. Everything from Matisse, Modigliani, Picasso, to pieces of canvas painted in a solid color. Very interesting what some people consider to be "art".

One of my favorite things about going to the Pompidou is the view of Paris from the top. It's absolutely breathtaking. There are look outs on every direction of the city -- and because the museum is covered in glass -- the view is great!

Here are some pictures -- the first is of my chat favori -- who decided to climb into my suitcase last night as I was unpacking, then one of the views from the Pompidou, and the Pompidou itself!

A bientot!

Les Vacances de Fevrier!

Well -- it's certainly hard to know where to begin! I've had a wonderful week of vacation and got back yesterday -- as much fun as I had, I do have to say that it's great to be back home! And by home, I mean Paris. So I guess I'll give a bit of a run down of the week!

I left Paris last Wednesday night -- made kind of a mad dash to the train station for my train at 7:06pm after my class got out at 6:30 -- rather exciting! I took the train from Paris to Mannheim (Germany) which took about 3 hours, and then I had about an hour and a half "layover" in Mannheim which was a bit eerie. It seemed to be the place where all the homeless people hung out -- and people kept on wandering in and out. And people were only speaking German or Italian -- the whole thing was just a bit unnerving.

My overnight train to Prague left at midnight -- I shared a sleeping "cabin" with this lovely French family of 4 (parents and two young girls), and some other man. It was literally like something out of a movie. I had the bed that was on top -- and there were three "beds" on either side, and so I climbed up and got into my little sheet pouch and fell asleep pretty soon after that. I actually slept pretty well overall -- I only woke up each time that the train stopped - which seemed quite frequently. At around 9:30am, I got up and went to one of the cabins to sit for the last hour until we finally got to Prague!

After we arrived, I spent a little pit of time wandering around the train station trying to figure out how to buy a ticket for the metro, and also how to get some "Czech Krones" -- which is what I needed in order to use the metro machines. Not to mention that everything is written in Czech! I finally found my way to the metro and then followed the instructions to get to Sir Toby's which was the hostel where we stayed.

I spent most of Thursday walking around Prague and getting lost -- I know I walked in lots of circles. Pretty circles! But circles none the less. I ended up visiting the Old Jewish Cemetery and that ticket included visits to the main synagoges and a few small museums as well -- it was a lovely way to spend the afternoon.

Cemetery.

That afternoon, my friend Nick arrived -- and so we headed back downtown to wander around and had a delicious dinner -- I had meat in this sweet gravy with bread dumplings which seem to be quite q specialty there. Food was incredibly cheap -- for our two dinners plus 2 beers each, it was only 25 euros. After that, we went back to our hostel and ended up going to a bar for a bit with a group of people from our hostel which was really fun! The place was practically empty -- but we had a great time getting to know each other.

Friday, Nick and I went up to Prague Castle and walked around for a bit. I bought two really pretty little watercolors from a street artist which will be great fun to have as momentos! We continued to walk around down in the Mala Strana district which was a great area. We stopped for lunch, and I ordered what was called a potato "dumpling" which turned out to be like a fried potato pancake that was stuffed with some bacon pieces and blue cheese. It was absolutely delicious. The rest of the day wasn't overly exciting -- I mean, besides the fact that we were exploring Prague!

A lovely view of Prague!

Saturday morning, I took my time getting up, and then went to the bus station around noon for my bus to Vienna at 12:30. The bus was actually great -- very comfortable, free wifi, tvs on the back of each seat with a large selection of movies and tv shows! Quite a nice ride! We were a little late because we got caught up at the Austrian border, but my friend Peter (Grassl -- who I played saxophone with for forever) met me right at the bus station! We had a wonderful dinner of sauerkraut and pork at the wine bar in his town, Langenzendorf, and then we turned in for the night!

Sunday, we woke up early and went to the train station to go to SALZBURG! We got a deal with the Westbahn train that was only 9 euros each way -- and the trains were gorgeous and new and also had free wifi! Hard to beat that. Despite the bad weather, we had a lovely time in Salzburg -- saw all of the Sound of Music sites that we could, walked around the whole city, and it's such a beautiful place! We headed back to Vienna later in the afternoon and went to a free organ concert at 8 at one of the churches near St. Stephan's -- nice way to end the day!

Salzburg skyline!

Me in front of Mozart's house.

Monday -- we spent the day touring around Vienna! Peter's friend Matthias was nice enough to drive us into the city and accompanied us! We literally walked all the way around the city -- saw all the main things -- St. Stephan's, the Parliament building, city hall, St. Charles' church -- all so pretty. And the city is incredibly clean!! We stopped for lunch at this restaurant near where we had parked the car -- Peter and I each had homemade "green noodles" in this cheese sauce with pieces of ham -- absolutely delicious (but pretty heavy).

From there, we drove a ways out of the city to one of the mountains where we could get a view of the whole city and the surrounding towns. It was incredible!! We went home for a little bit and played some piano, and then Matthias picked us back up to drive us back to the city. We walked by Schonnbrun palace and then took the metro to city hall which was all lit up and had an ice rink right by it and like a whole food fair! It was wonderful! We got some sausages and homemade potato chips which were SO GOOD.

Me and Peter overlooking Vienna.

City Hall at night!

Tuesday, we took a little adventure to SLOVAKIA -- crazy, right? The train trip to Bratislava (the capital of Slovakia) was only an hour each way and was only 14 euros round trip! We got up early and got the 8:03 train -- and arrived in Bratislava just after 9am to very snowy and slushy weather, which soon turned into rain that lasted all day long....We started to walk to what we thought was the center of the city, and after quite some time, we asked a nice looking girl for help -- she was very nice and helped us buy student tickets for the bus and told us which bus to catch. We got almost to the end, when the bus "police" got on to check tickets. We were pretty relaxed -- because we had tickets, right? WRONG. Apparently, we had to be Slovakian students in order to use the student passes. The "police" were really unpleasant about the whole situation and didn't really speak any English at all -- and even though some of the people getting off the bus were telling us to run away, we ended up getting fined 40 euros each. Bummer.

We wandered around the old city for the rest of the day -- it's a nice place! Very Eastern European -- and it was very wet and chilly. But we saw some cool things! Mostly churches and old buildings and supposedly the skinniest house in central Europe!

Bratislava street

The skinniest house in central Europe!

Later that night, we went to the cemetery in Vienna which was very cool -- saw the graves of Beethoven, Mozart, Shubert, etc. After that, we headed to the Grinzing neighborhood which was so beautiful! It's apparently where all of the hoity-toidy people of Vienna live -- and I can definitely see why!!

I ended my trip with a proper visit to Schonnbrun - in the daylight! Beautiful place as well. It was all beautiful!

Castle Pretty Fountain (apparently that's the translation)

One of the pretty fountains!

Alrighty -- well I think that about sums it up! Quite a busy week -- I'm going to need the weekend to recover! If you're interested in my full album of pictures -- you can click this link:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2909549422476.2124704.1372800318&type=1&l=b2ac89a989 -- it should work even if you don't have a Facebook account!!

 

Can't believe that it's already MARCH -- WHERE IS THE TIME GOING!!

 

A bientot!