LUX/Trier

Some of you already know about this little misunderstanding, but last week when I got back to France, I went into the secretary's office asking for my schedule for second semester, since we were supposed to be starting on January 17th and it was just a few days before.  Well, I was told that the schedules weren't ready, so we weren't going to start school until the 24th.  Umm seriously guys?  Would have been nice to know that before coming back from the States!  I could have stay home another week!  I really shouldn't be complaining because either way I didn't have to work and was still getting paid :)  I had nothing to do all week, so I looked up some cheap train tickets and picked a place to go for a few days. I ended up in Luxembourg, which is a place that I'd never thought to go before, even though I've gone through the train station numerous times and have lived right next door for a few years now. 

The first thing I noticed there was that it was very hilly and also very green!  Luxembourgish people must have some crazy calf muscles, for reals.  The other thing I thought was, what the heck is everyone saying?  I heard a really weird mix of languages going around!  A lot of people were speaking French, but then there was this other weird language that I couldn't get ANY words from.  My whole "learning german" goal last year failed miserably, but I at least can understand some words here and there when people are speaking and I knew it wasn't that.  So turns out, there is a "luxembourgish" language that only like 400,000 people in the world speak, obviously only in Luxembourg.  They have three official languages there, French, German and Luxembourgish, and pretty much everyone speaks English perfectly.  So yeah, everyone from Luxembourg grows up speaking at LEAST 4 languages like it's no big deal.  Jerks!  

I spent my day there just walking around and exploring the city, and of course eating a gourmet tex-mex meal at the local Chi-chi's. Luxembourg is fortified like I've never seen a city before, it's surrounded by a huge valley and walls are built up to make the natural fortification even taller!  There was no getting in this city during war time.  My favorite part of the city was actually the cute little village in the valley underneath, called Grund.  There's actually an elevator that takes you up and down to the main city and the little one underneath, because if you don't have a car, that's a tough walk.  After exploring the old part of the town and finding an old castle that was built in the 900's, I decided to go to the "history of Luxembourg" museum to learn a little bit more about the city.  I won't bore you with the details, but I thought it was very interesting!  I also met some really nice Frenchies who were staying in my hostel room (oh and my hostel was also in the valley, with no elevator provided.  that was a fun hike).  So I ended up going out for a few drinks with a really nice French girl, and then turned in early since I had a big day ahead in Trier, Germany. 

Trier is somewhere I've wanted to go for a long time, I heard it was really picturesque and cute, and I realized that it was just a half hour train ride away from Lux.  I did the same thing there, just kind of walked around, chilled out, ate some delicious German food, and visited a random toy museum (big let down).  It turns out that I really loved Luxembourg, and was just kind of so-so about Trier!  It definitely is very cute, but there wasn't enough to do there considering that I was traveling solo.  The one cool thing is that there's a Roman monument there, that originally was a door to the city, and it was built around 200AD!  It's hard to even fathom how old that is.  Both towns really were my favorite kind of cities, really pretty, calm cities.  Luxembourg was especially beautiful since it was overlooking the valley, there are some really nice views from the city onto the surrounding area.  If I had a better camera I could have captured it but the pictures didn't justify it!  Here's what I did get a chance to take: 

The only way to get good tex mex in Europe

My bunk in the hostel

walking around the city walls in Lux

963

Looking over the Grund, the small village under Lux

random statues

what's left of the castle from the 900's

walking into Grund

the elevator!  europeans are just as lazy as americans at times

Trier, Gemany

GERMAN FOOD. soo good. and as gross as it is I actually finished all of this and didn't regret it

really unique organ in the chuch in Trier

Porta Nigra, built by the Romans around 200 AD

Sushi Night

For starters, I looove sushi.  I would eat it more often if sushi restaurants weren't so expensive!  I don't eat the weird looking stuff but I love the maki rolls. I got really into it when I moved here.  I don't know why or how, but sushi here is 10x better than in the States. Thibaut learned how to make sushi from a Japanese friend when he was living in Australia, and we've been talking about making it forever.  The problem was always that we needed a rice cooker to make the rice the right texture!  For Christmas, his sister gave him a rice cooker, FINALLY!  So we finally got around to making our sushi!  He found all the "tools" required at an asian store in Paris, even the chop sticks and little bowls for the soy sauce, and we were ready to go.  It's really not hard to make, and it's so much cheaper making it at home!  I think the reason it's so expensive going out to get sushi is because we both eat like 4 rolls instead of just eating a few like you're supposed to.  At least we can eat as much as we want at home, and it was just as good! I made a bunch of extra rolls too to impress my guests that I am having over tonight :)

The Ingredients!  Salmon, tuna, cucumber, avocado, mayo, cream cheese

Step one: the seaweed leaves for the outside

add a thin layer of rice

and the ingredients

roll it carefully

the results!  

the tuna rolls

my favorite: salmon, cream cheese, cucumber and avocado

Time to eat! 

Finally connected to the rest of the world!

I know this seems like a normal thing to most people, but I finally got the internet/cable TV and a land line this past week! I haven't been this excited about anything in a long time! I've been too cheap all year to do it, so I was sharing wifi with my neighbor and giving him a little bit of money each month. I finally realized that I'm an idiot, because I could have had unlimited free calling to the US and all over the world for the past 3 years and never did it. I'm so dumb. Their phones are connected to the internet here, so you can call all over the world, unlimited for FREE! Not to mention I can now Skype with a better connection, and an added bonus : TV. My landlord had an old TV that he gave me, I'm pretty sure this thing is from 1970 but I'm just happy it works! I can even get some shows and movies in English, including the GOONIES! my favorite childhood movie, which I'm watching right now :) It's the little things that make me happy!

The Galette des rois tradition

The Galette des Rois (King Cake) tradition is one of my favorite traditions that I've done every year here and I never thought to tell everyone about it! I usually do this with Thibaut's parents, but since I'm not in Alsace anymore I had to have my own little party for it. King cake is sold in bakeries and stores just a few weeks out of the year, in the middle of January. It's a flaky cake with a filling, usually something called frangipane or sometimes chocolate or apple. There is a trinket or charm (called une fève in French) baked inside of every cake, and when you buy the cake it comes with a crown. When it's time for dessert, you heat up the cake, cut it evenly for as many people are there are, and you choose someone (usually the youngest, or in this case Thibaut since it was for his birthday) to go under the table and call out names for every plate. The person that finds the little charm inside of their piece becomes king or queen for the day, and gets to wear the crown.

I swear we didn't cheat, but we had 2 king cakes this year, and Thibaut and I both got the charms! So we were the "king and queen" of the day. His charm was a little loaf of bread and mine was a random character from Narnia. The charms can really be anything. I have a little collection that I've kept from the past couple of years!

Unfortunately it's not possible to find these cakes in the States, except for in New Orleans. The tradition there is that you have to find the little baby that's baked into the cake, and whoever finds it has to buy the next cake. Not very fun! One of my friends won it once and hid it in her pocket because she didn't want to buy the next cake! I think I prefer the French way.