Cette ville est plus que vous pensez (this city is more than you think)

Amsterdam took me by surprise! I went to Amsterdam with the impression that the city was overtaken by prostitution and drugs, but that is definitely NOT the case. Amsterdam is incredibly beautiful and one weekend was not enough to see it all.

The train ride to Amsterdam is four hours long. Not so bad because I love the train, but still pretty long. When we got to Amsterdam my first impression was BIKES. Outside of the train station (and everywhere else in the city) there were hundreds and hundreds of bikes. After figuring out the tram system, we found our hostel and started sightseeing!

First of all, like I said, Amsterdam is beautiful. There are dozens of canals that run throughout the city and tons of bridges as a result. The houses are brick and actually reminded us a little bit of the architecture in Adam’s Morgan in Washington DC. Whenever we turned a street corner we were taken aback by yet another beautiful bridge and canal.

Oddly enough, the first thing we went to see was the red light district. For whatever reason I was under the impression that the red light district was off to the side of the city, but nope! It’s right smack in the middle of everything. We went to the red light district to find Indonesian food (Amsterdam has a large Indonesian population and therefore really good Indonesian food) but walked around a little too.

Saturday, we started the day with a three hour, FREE walking tour of the city. One of my roommates, Grete, had recommended this company, Sandemans, to us because she had taken their tour in Edinburgh. The tours can be free because the guides only work on tips. Our tour guide was an American masters student. She was incredibly, incredibly knowledgeable and it was an incredible tour for being free. We walked all over the center of the city and saw things like the red light district, the oldest church, the Royal Palace and famous coffeeshops. A few interesting things we learned:

*Selling marijuana is actually illegal in the Netherlands. However, the authorities in the Netherlands have this philosophy that if someone is doing something illegal but it is good for business and it doesn’t harm anyone than it is ok. Since marijuana is both lucrative and harmless the authorities turn a blind eye. Someone hasn’t been arrested for smoking a joint in 35 years.

*The people in the Netherlands are some of the tallest in Europe.

*Prostitution was made entirely legal in the Netherlands in 2000. The oldest prostitute is around 75 years old…

*The Netherlands was the first Republic in Europe.

She was also great for answering all of our questions about places to see and places to eat. This company has tours all over Europe for those of you who are interested. I would highly recommend it.

Saturday evening a few of us went to the Anne Frank House. It was a sobering experience; however, the museum was so well done and I learned an incredible amount about something I admittedly didn’t know much about. The museum not only had the original diary of Anne Frank, you could walk through the annex where they spent two years in hiding.

Saturday for dinner we ended up eating pretty late at a “pancake” house. No, unfortunately these weren’t pancakes like we have in America (and ever since I have been craving American pancakes…), they were more like crepes actually. We walked in 10 minutes after Sara (of Sara’s Pancake House) had closed her kitchen. She was incredibly nice and accommodating though. She allowed us to stay as long as we wanted and was very patient with us when we ordered dessert after dinner. She was just one example of the incredibly nice people we met in Amsterdam.

Sunday, we got up and went straight to the Van Gogh museum. The museum has a special exhibit right now called “Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night”. The exhibit followed Van Gogh’s influences for painting his famous “Starry Night”. It discussed and gave examples of French painters Van Gogh idealized as well as showed how he studied the night sky. I was fascinated by the exhibit and loved Van Gogh more and more as I walked through. The museum is pretty large so we didn’t see much of the permanent exhibit but we got a good taste for Van Gogh.

We pretty much spent the rest of Sunday eating haha. Amsterdam has great (and very unhealthy) food. Just imagine… a waffle drizzled in hot chocolate sauce with a little bit of powdered sugar on top. How can you resist that?

It was interesting being in a place where they don’t speak French. So many Dutch people speak English so we had no troubles whatsoever getting by, but it was weird walking into a store and just speaking English to the store owner assuming he/she knew English. Just something we’re not used to after being in France for almost two months (ah! Where does the time go??).

When I got back home my host parents had left a big poster of Obama sitting on my desk. It was funny and made me a little homesick. However, I now have a large black and white picture of Obama smiling on my wall :-)

What we saw when we walked out of our hostel...

The red light district at dusk!

Me and Jackie in Dam Square before the tour started on Saturday.

Can you tell that these houses are leaning forward? And do you see the hooks hanging from the top of the houses? Our tour guide explained to us that the Dutch use the pulley system to move large furniture from the top floors down to the street since the stairways are so narrow. However, they realized that the things they were lowering down would bang along the front of the house on the way down. Therefore, they built their houses leaning forward to prevent this. Why they didn't just make the pole with the pulley on it longer, I don't know...

A beautiful courtyard outside of a Protestant church. The Netherlands has been historically protestant and, as a result, the Catholics had to have secret churches all around Amsterdam for many years.

The narrowest house in Amsterdam! (the pinkish brick house in the middle) Apparently, the man that lives there is taller than the house is wide. Therefore, when he lays down to sleep he can only sleep longways in his house.

Yet another beautiful canal.

The girls I traveled with.

A pretty ridiculous picture of me in front of the most famous fry shop in Amsterdam... like I said, we experienced Amsterdam's food.

A flower stand in the flower market.

One of my favorite pictures from the trip.

My friends in the "am" of the "I amsterdam" sign!

:-)

La Semaine des Arts (The Week of Arts)

Jackie deemed this week (starting yesterday) the week of arts because of all of the artsy things we seem to have been doing/will do.

Yesterday was full of sightseeing and attempting to check things off of my list of things to see in Paris. Jackie and I went to the Cité de la Musique (a museum on music) for a saxophone concert in the morning. The saxophone player, Dave Liebman, is a pretty famous jazz saxophone player. He has played with big names like John Coltrane. I was excited to go see him because my sister plays saxophone and I thought she would like it if I went. The concert was meant to be a little bit of a lesson on jazz as well as showing off his talent. He played with the in-house orchestra that was fantastic. The style of jazz wasn’t my favorite (very, very free form) but he was remarkable! It was also very much a cultural experience for us because he spoke very little French so the director of the orchestra translated for the French speakers in the audience. It was interesting to hear how she translated what he said into French. The concert hall itself was nice and I’m excited to see the actual museum exhibits at some point while I’m here.

After the concert we met some friends at the Musée de la Mode (Fashion Museum) and saw an exhibition on the famous Parisian designer Sonia Rykiel. Later on in the day we went to another concert. There is a small magazine here called Pariscope that is put out every Wednesday. Pariscope has all of the movie times of every movie at every theater as well as listings on concerts, performances and museum exhibits. I had read about this free brass band concert where they were going to be playing music by John Williams. We went to the auditorium not really knowing what we were getting into. We saw a bunch of kids outside and thought we might have ended up at a high school concert but decided to go in anyway. Luckily for us, it was an adult brass band that was pretty good.

After experiencing two concerts yesterday, I have a confession to make. My high school band was lucky enough to take a trip to Germany and Austria the summer after I graduated. Our director, Mr. Leach, proudly told all of us after one of our concerts that if Europeans applaud in unison it means they really really liked you and wanted an encore. We all thought he had no idea what he was talking about and still kind of joke about it today. Well everyone, I hate to admit it, but it is true. At both concerts I went to yesterday the crowd clapped in unison at the end wanting an encore. I literally laughed out loud when I heard this (as I’m sure all of my friends from band will laugh when they read this). Mr. Leach was right…

I’ve seen two American films at movie theaters in the past 24 hours. Last night my friends and I saw Slumdog Millionaire (which if it is still in theaters in the States and you haven’t seen it, go.) at a theater that was only 3,90 euro for young adult ticket! How incredible! That is less than a movie in the U.S.! Most theaters here are pretty expensive except for on weekend mornings. My host mom invited me to go see Gran Torino with her this morning. I had been planning on catching up on sleep but thought it would be good to spend some time with my host mom. It was so nice of her; she paid for my movie and everything! We had a good time and took a little walk around the huge park by my apartment afterwards.

While on our walk, my host mom pointed out one of the prostitute’s vans I have seen. This particular van is always decked out in something new (today it was rainbow colored umbrellas). It was a little awkward to talk about, considering the subject, but I learned something interesting. Apparently in France it is illegal to have prostitution in houses. Therefore these women have to work out of these vans. That answered some questions I had…

I realized I haven’t talked much about my home life. I normally only interact with my host parents during dinner; we are all busy at other times of the day. Dinner is so different than dinner in the U.S. though. It lasts an hour and always consists of 5 courses. First, we have soup (my host dad is in love with soup). Second, is a salad course. Sometimes this is actually salad, other times we have avocados with a creamy white sauce on top and one time we even had a grapefruit carved out with avocado, walnuts and salmon (weird, very weird, but good). Our main course can be pasta, fish, and these cheese croquets she makes for me and always consists of vegetables (usually carrots, peas, onions, green beans and potatoes). Next, we have cheese and finish up the remaining salad. My host mom explained to me that the French normally eat salad after their main course to help with digestion. However, I think the cheese afterwards counteracts that… Anyway, we don’t eat very much cheese, usually just a few slivers with half a piece of bread. Finally, dessert. Dessert can be the most interesting part of the meal for me… My host family loves baked apples in any form. Anyone who knows my picky eating habits knows that is one of the things I dislike most. Unfortunately, I can’t bring myself to tell them because there are already so many things they have discovered I don’t like and I know it is one of their favorite desserts. But sometimes, we literally have apples from her garden that have been zapped in the microwave with a little bit of sugar on them (peel and all). It’s healthy for me so I just suck it up and eat them but chocolate mousse night and cake night are always better!

This week should be interesting… there is a planned, large general strike on Thursday where transportation is practically going to be shut down. I don’t totally comprehend the purpose for the strike but it has to do with people’s reactions towards some of the recent radical changes Sarkosy has been making in France, as well as the changes to the University system that the students and professors have been protesting for over a month now. I’m not sure if I have to go to grammar class or not but it could potentially be a really far walk. Look for a blog post on the strike; it could be an interesting day! Thursday night is also the ballet we are going to. And Friday I leave for Amsterdam!

Un Voyage à St. Malo et Mont St. Michel

This past weekend me and three friends ventured to Bretagne (or Brittany as it is known in English) for the weekend. Bretagne is the North-West region of France that borders the Atlantic Ocean. I hadn’t planned to visit that part of France initially but one of my friends had heard incredible things from her host family about the region so I decided to tag along. And oh man am I glad I did…

The train to St. Malo only took about 3 hours. We took the TGV (!!!!) to Rennes, the capital of Bretagne, and then a smaller line to St. Malo. St. Malo is hoppin’ in the summer time. It is a very popular destination for the French when they are dying to go to the beach. Although I would have really enjoyed lying out on the beach, I’m actually glad we didn’t go during peak season because we got to experience the town in a much different way.

There is only one hostel in St. Malo. Unfortunately, it is about a 30 minute walk from both the train station and the city center. It is meant more for people who want to go to the beach, which happens to be directly across the street. So, Friday night we spent some time finding our hostel. The hostel itself kind of felt like summer camp. There were tennis courts and bunkbeds and breakfast was served in a cafeteria. When we arrived, the woman at the front desk was incredibly, incredibly nice. When her bosses weren’t around later she explained that she didn’t like them very much so to rebel she gave us free towels, one of the nice maps that was in color and all kinds of tips about where to go. We took one of her suggestions for dinner and went to a creperie in the city center. Bretagne is known for its crepes… let’s just say they were certainly the best I’ve ever had. My dinner crepe (or gallant) had goat cheese and salad. My dessert crepe had a bunch of honey and bananas. Yum!

Saturday, we rented bikes for the day! I have not ridden a bike in years, but luckily I wasn’t the only one. We were all laughing pretty hard at the beginning because of how wobbly we were and how little control we seemed to have over our bikes. But once we got the hang of it we rode down the beach pathway towards the city center and ended up exploring pretty much the entire town. The woman at our hostel had recommended a park to us that was on the other side of town. She said most people don’t go there because it is too far of a walk. On the way there we saw the historic downtown that has a World War II memorial and a very pretty view. We rode our bikes along the beach and found another great creperie for lunch. We finally arrived at the park (after getting a little bit lost) and were stunned at how pretty it was. The chateau that is at the park is abandoned but has a magnificent view. We wished we could have stayed longer and enjoyed the park more but we had to make it back to the bike place before he closed. On the way back we stopped in the city center and I had the BEST vanilla ice cream cone I’ve ever had.

We were getting a little tired of crepes… so Saturday night we had pizza :-) (crepes and pizza were really the only food options in the city center; I don’t know how people can live off of those two things). We also tried out this bar that had 300 different types of beer! I had one that was made in Bretagne called Duchesse Anne. We were pretty exhausted from our day of biking and I was still feeling a little sick from my strep throat so we didn’t stay out too long on Saturday.

Sunday, we took the bus from St. Malo to Mont St. Michel. Mont St. Michel is East of St. Malo, closer to Normandy. Mont St. Michel is the site of a famous and very old abbey. It sits on an island that is surrounded by water only when the tide comes in (when we arrived around 12 people were walking around the entire island because the tide was out, by the time we left at 5 the island was practically surrounded by water). I believe our guide told us the abbey is the oldest Christian establishment still left standing. It first started to be built in the 9^th century. In this abbey, like many abbeys, monks spent entire days in silence copying manuscripts. The abbey is built on a point and it is amazing how they were able to engineer this heavy stone establishment onto the tip. It is also incredible that there was no damage done to the abbey whatsoever during World War II, considering how close it is to Normandy. I was happy we made Mont St. Michel a day trip because there really isn’t anything to see other than the abbey. The town that is built up around the base of the island is just for tourists and is very, very touristy.

We had incredible weather the entire weekend, as you will see in my pictures. However, half an hour before we were going to leave Mont St. Michel a huge storm hit. I swear it was like a hurricane. The winds were really strong and the rain was coming down in pellets. It must have dropped 20 degrees too. JUST before it started to rain we had decided to get ice cream. We found shelter in the main gate of the town and watched the people running through the rain with their umbrellas turned inside out from the wind. We thought they looked pretty funny but I’m sure we looked even funnier eating our ice cream in the middle of a “hurricane”.

Just a side note: I realized that this past Friday was my one year anniversary of being a vegetarian! (and no... please don't cook me meat as a present, it's already been asked)

**Bon Anniversaire Andrea!!!!**

La Grande Plage! This view is on our way from our hostel to the city center (which you can see in the background).

I went a little picture crazy on the beach...

The downtown of St. Malo is Intra-Murs (or surrounded by a wall). The wall dates back to Medieval times. Because St. Malo is located on the water, it was frequently being attacked by invaders. Alors (so), they built this beautiful wall that still stands today and that you can actually walk around.

Jackie, me, Lauren and Kavita on our bikes in front of the bike shop! Good thing this isn't a close-up... I look pretty ridiculous in a helmet.

The boardwalk/walkway that lines La Grande Plage and leads to the city center. Check out the really cute houses!

Ok, so it has been decided that a jumping picture will have to be taken during every trip ;-)

The view of the city center from the historic downtown. I loved the marina and all of the sailboats.

Lauren, Jackie and Kavita at the Memorial for World War II that sits in the historic downtown park.

The view from the creperie we ate lunch at on Saturday.

The chateau at le Parc de la Briantais.

The view of the ocean from this chateau... needless to say we all want to live here someday...

More of the park... I love the groupings of people walking together.

The busiest we saw the city center of St. Malo.

The view of Mont St. Michel from afar. The abbey sits on top and the houses on the bottom have a lot of shops and restaurants.

Apparently we climbed something like 350 steps to get to the top of the abbey.

Me and my roommate from AU, Jackie, at the entrance to the abbey.

The awesome view from the abbey. You can see what I was trying to describe where the island is surrounded by sand until high tide.

A courtyard in the abbey.

One of the rooms. You can see the heavy stone that was used and the Romanesque/Gothic architecture of the abbey.

An island not too far from Mont St. Michel. I love the lighting in the picture and how only the island seems to be lit.