Une Journée à Paris

Sup yo y'all.  So just got back from Paris, no big deal.  Since Fridays are yet another day that I have off, I decided to take a little day trip to Paris!  The high speed trains go from Colmar to Paris in 2 1/2 hours, so I woke up at 6 this morning and I was in Paris by 9:30.  Seriously, how is this the first time I have done this so far?  

First of all let me just say that I was soo lucky with the weather.  It was 50's and nothing but blue skies all day.  The misery that is winter has finally ceased. When I arrived I headed straight for the area where Notre Dame cathedral and the Sainte Chappelle are.  I have been to Notre Dame before, but it is something that never gets old.  The stained glass in there is so beautiful!   Then I saw Sainte Chappelle for the first time ever.  This is a chapel that was built during the 13th century, it's purpose was to hold important relics, including the crown of thorns.  This thing was built in SIX years.  Just for a comparison, I think the Notre Dame took over 200 years to build.  Sainte Chappelle is mainly stained glass, and I seriously cannot imagine how it was built in that short of a time period.  But anyways, there was a group of school children getting a guided tour, so I kinda eavesdropped and learned about all the stories from the bible that the stained glass tell, and how the glass was made, etc.  Since he was explaining it to a group of 5th graders it was right at my comprehension level.  So here's what it looks like inside: 

And here is some of the stained glass from Notre Dame: 

Next I walked down to the Luxembourg Gardens, but not until after I found a LEGIT AMERICAN DINER called "Happy Days." Oh, happy day is right.  So for the past 3 weeks, about 5 times a day, all I say to my friends is "I want a milkshake."  I don't know why, I just really wanted a damn milkshake, and France doesn't have them.  Except for McDonald's, which doesn't count.  So I got myself a genuine Oreo milkshake and I was on my way.  I walked around these gardens which were packed.  It was a beautiful day and all of the french university students were out!  This is something that I unfortunately don't see in Colmar, which is seriously lacking the student scene.  

Next stop.. my favorite of the day.  I went to le Musée de l'Orangerie.  I was just saying to my mom when she was here how I knew that there was a museum somewhere that had 2 rooms full of Monet's water lilies.  Well I was reading through my book on Paris, and came across this.  You walk into the oval shaped rooms, and each wall is covered with HUGE canvases of water lilies, and each one is different.  I sat in the rooms for over an hour just staring at these paintings.  I wasn't quite awake yet when I left my apt this morning so I forgot my camera, but below is a picture of just one of the canvases (ya and I stole the rest of the pics off the net too).  Each room had 4 of them total that cover almost all of the wall space.  You can't even really tell from the picture how big the painting actually is!  It was definitely my favorite stop of the day.  

Now finally the last stop of the day, you can't go to Paris without doing a little bit of shopping.  Well, actually you can.  I went to Galeries Lafayette, which is a 10 story apartment store.  There were so many people there I was seriously overwhelmed.  I think it was better off that way, because most of this store is extremely overpriced.  Here's a pic of the inside of the store.. and in the U.S. we think that Saks is fancy.. this place makes Saks look like the Family Dollar. 

yep, thats the inside of a department store..

The Land of Drugs and Hookers..

Yep those are actual hookers where the red lights are..

Amsterdam!  Now I didn't experience first hand any drugs or hookers but I hear that's what this city is all about.  During my last vacation I spent about 6 days in Amsterdam, a city I have wanted to visit for a long time.  The first couple of days there were spent with two of my friends who I also was in Cologne with.  When we were planning our trip we were having some trouble finding a decently priced hotel or hostel, and the only thing we could find were 10 room dorms with bunk beds.  I like to stay at hostels to save money, but I really didn't feel like staying with 8 people that I don't know.  So we were looking online and came across a houseboat in one of the canals, where we could have our own room, and it was the same price as the dorm rooms we found.  Sounds cute and different, right?  Hmm that's what I thought too.  So the first day I get to the hostel (I was by myself because I took a different train) and when I got to the houseboat, I was seriously at a loss of words.  I'm sure most of you know that this is not something that happens very often, but literally.. speechless.  The room was so small that it was pretty much impossible to have 2 people standing in it at one time.  And the bunk beds were pretty much the exact length of my body.  Oh, and did I mention that it actually was built in 1913??  It got to a point where I was just laughing.. it was literally something that would have happened in a National Lampoons vacation movie.  Not in real life.  Well on the bright side, the people that owned it were super nice.  And I did hastily find a new place to stay the following night, which was about 10x worse.  Thank god my mom was on her way and we could stay in nice hotels from that point on!

The first couple of days my friends and I wandered around the city, saw the beautiful canals, did some shopping, ate lots of french fries, and even some Argentina steaks, which is apparently a "specialty" in Amsterdam according to the number of restaurants there.  The thing that I noticed there almost right away is the CRAZy amount of bikes everywhere.  People there seriously do not own cars, and there are special roads just for bikes.  You have two toddlers to put on your bike with you? No problem,  lets not even put helmets on them.  Ask a girl out on a date?  She hops on the back of your bike.  People carry their heavy groceries on the handlebars like they're not even there.  I mean I have problems even balancing myself on a bike... these people have some serious skills, for reals.  

On the third day.. my MOM came to visit :)  Little Carol Ann came made it all the way over to Amsterdam all by herself.  We are so proud.  I met her at the airport in the morning, showed her my NASTY hotel room, and we ventured out to do some sight seeing.  My favorite thing that we did was the Van Gogh museum.  There was a special exhibition going on so we got to see his most famous paintings, including Starry Night.  It was cool to see a painting in person that is so well-known. We also did a tour of the canals, and learned a lot about the city.  And most importantly, we ate lots of good food!  The first night we had dinner with my two friends that were still there, and the second night we had swiss fondu.  

After hanging out in Amsterdam for a few days we decided we wanted to try to see something new.  We went to the tourist office and they made some suggestions for other cities we could go to in Holland.  We ended up spending the day in a town called Delft, which is a little town about an hour train ride away from Amsterdam.  It was so cute!  Just like a smaller version of Amsterdam, but a lot calmer with very few tourists.  We walked around the canals, saw the new and old church, the market place, a windmill, and did some shopping.  I even bought a pair of genuine wooden shoes!  They don't fit very well, but they'll make a nice souvenir anyways.  I was very happy with my trip in Amsterdam overall, and I would highly recommend for anyone to go there!  Don't let the bad reputation turn you away.  If you really do want to hang out in the red light district, I'm sure you can get into trouble.  But besides that the city really is beautiful :)   

Delft, Holland 

OOps.

Ok, ok.  I really suck at this blog thing.  I swear I am going to try to get better.  Hmm where did we leave off.. Ok, so I got back from Berlin, and it turns out, after that week, I happened to have 2 weeks of vacation time.  Seriously, France knows what's up.  A normal person would probably be tuckered out after (barely) sleeping in a bus for 12 hours, but as the french say "il faut profiter!"  So, I slept most of the day on Saturday, and on Sunday morning I got up and drove up to Cologne, Germany with some of my Frenchy friends.   So just the same as we celebrate Mardi Gras in the states in New Orleans, there are a bunch of cities here in Europe that celebrate Carnival.  Cologne is one of the biggest celebrations that there is.  Clearly, the goal of this trip wasn't exactly for sightseeing, it was more to go and have fun for a couple of days.  

The first day we wandered around the city, saw some parades, drank some brews, etc.  Later that day, our 2 american friends, Kara and Debbie met up with us.  We went out that night, which happened to be a Sunday, and you would have thought that it was a Saturday night.  This town was like one big party.  All I know is that we spent way too much time at a club called "Diamonds" towards the end of the night/early morning.  I think we'll leave it at that.  Monday is the day of the big parade.  We got up, put on some "costumes," which were basically just a random assortment of accessories, and headed to the parade.  Lucky for us, my friend Debbie has some German friends, so we actually spent some time watching the parade from a balcony which was cool.  After seeing Mardi Gras in New Orleans last year, this was a pretty calm celebration.  There were a lot of people but nothing ever got out of hand and the crowds were bearable.  Leave it to Germany to have an orderly drinking fest.  Point for the Germans.  

The only thing I really could have gone without during this festival was definitely the traditional music.  German people are crazy.  I love them, but they're crazy.  This song happened to be the theme of the trip, it's called "Viva Colonia."   I still can't get that song out of my head.  I put the link there so I can spread the torture to others, I wouldn't recommend actually listening.  I don't know why but sometimes I just really can't take the language seriously when there are people constantly yelling "WUNDERBAR!" which actually sounds like VUNDERBAR! (it means wonderful, in case you didn't know.)  

Also one of my favorite things about this little trip is the fact that I got to eat German cuisine for 4 days.  A diet of schnitzel and french fries is definitely my cup of tea.  That's fat free, right? I really enjoy the fact that in Germany it is perfectly acceptable to use mayonnaise as a dipping sauce.  I no longer put mayo on my sandwiches because it is so bad for you, yet I think it's ok to use it as a dipping sauce for my french fries.  Healthy, I know.  

Well that's all for now.. next it was onto Brussels, Amsterdam and Heidelberg.  To be continued..

Where do I begin..

Well I have pretty much been on vacation for 3 weeks, so I guess I will start at the beginning.  A few weeks ago, I got a phone call from the school, explaining that one of the teachers took a leave of absence, and the school was desperately searching for someone to chaperone a school trip to Berlin.  Umm a free trip to Berlin and no work for a week?  Sure.  So me and 3 other teachers took a group of 44 seniors to Berlin for about 5 days.  Oh yeah, and we took a bus.  If you look at a map, Berlin isn't exactly right around the corner, it is about 12-ish hours away from here!  It was a long night sleeping in a bus, but it wasn't as bad as I thought.  When we were there we saw Checkpoint Charlie, lots of Holocaust memorials and the museum, the Sans Souci palace in Potsdam, and umm I forget what else?  All I know is it ended up being really fun!  Of course the students wanted to go out, and since they are French, the other teachers didn't seem concerned that they wanted to go out drinking.  We compromised and took them bowling for 2 nights, and then let them go out on the town one night.  The result only ended with ONE barfing girl!  Good job kids, way to hold your alcohol.  No but the trip was really fun, and I got to know a lot of the students a lot better.  They were so cute, they always included me in everything that they did during the trip.  I am so lucky to have such nice students :) 

Checkpoint Charlie

I think this was a church
The entrance to Babylon that they moved to a museum... sorry its facing the wrong way
This was built some year in the BC's...
The whole gang!