Mom comes to Paris--volcanos erupt

Two Mondays ago, my mom arrived in Paris for a two week visit. The first week she stayed in Paris and the second week, which was my spring break, we were supposed to spend in Mallorca, one of the Balearic Islands off the coast of Spain. The second week didn't go as planned, but I'll get to that part later.

Monday around noon I met my mom at her hotel in Republique, a 2 stop metro ride from my school. We were both a little teary-eyed when we saw each other--it had been almost 3 months since we said goodbye in the

Philadelphia International Airport. Soon enough though it felt like we had only been away from each other for only a few days. We had a great lunch at the hotel and then she decided to take a nap. Later that night we met up with Libby, my best friend from college, and her parents, who had flown over to Paris a day earlier than Mom. I had gone out to dinner with them the previous night nearby the Eiffel Tower but it had been too cold to go up the parisian landmark that night. We went back to the Eiffel Tower and ascended it, much to the dismay of my mom and Libby's. They reached the top, looked out for a second, and quickly went back to the elevator to go down. Libby, her dad, and I took lots of pictures and gazed into the sunset and the beautiful view we had from the summit of the 324 meter structure. Afterwards we went back to

place de Republique and had a delicious Alsatian meal at Chez Jenny, which I highly recommend to anyone going to Paris who wants authentic food from Alsace, the area of France close to Germany.

The next few days we did some sightseeing, including an open air double decker bus, which was great because the route of the bus took us to every major landmark in the city. We also went to Versailles one day with Libby and her family, which was utterly breathtaking. On Thursday, I actually went to class for the first time since early Monday morning, so my mom and I did a little shopping in the morning and then met up with two of my friends for falafel at our favorite place. My mom went shopping by herself while I was in class and we met up later at her place.

Now this is where things go awry. I got to the room and my mom was watching SkyNews, a british news station. They were reporting the shutdown of UK airspace, as well as those in Norway, Sweden, and Ireland. What was the cause of the shutdown? A volcanic ash cloud from Iceland was hovering over Northern Europe 30000 ft up in the air. Of all things that could have happened, no one would have ever thought that a volcanic eruption could cause the cancellation of thousands of flights. Initially we thought that this all would blow over, literally. Libby and her parents had a flight back to the US the next day so we were still hopeful things would go as plan--but they didn't. Paris shutdown all its airports around 9pm Thursday night. They begin to open back up til midday Tuesday and all flights did not resume until Thursday.

My mom and I were supposed to be on a plane to Mallorca Saturday, which was cancelled. I booked a flight for the next day, Sunday, and it was also cancelled. Iberia's next available flight for us was Wednesday night. So we had an extra five days in Paris, not so bad. We were disappointed that we would have to shorten our trip to Spain but we made the most of our time together in Paris. Saturday we went shopping in Galeries Lafayette, the biggest department store in Paris--it's similar to Harrod's in London. We also shopped at the boutiques nearby.

Sunday we took it easy, just walked around the area near the hotel and watched some movies.

Monday was the best of our extra days in Paris because we went to Disneyland! My mom and I

felt like little kids as we walked into the park. The excitement was contagious and it made us feel like we were home in the US. The park is smaller in comparison to Disney World, but it definitely takes the best aspects of the American parks and also adds some of its own things to make it more European, yet still very true to the Disney way. The funniest thing about the park was that the characters in the rides spoke in both english and french! Seeing Buzz Lightyear yelling in french made my mom and I burst out laughing while waiting in line for the ride. I was pleasantly suprised to see popcorn vendors and fountain soda dispensers at the park as well--things very odd for the french to have.

Tuesday, a day after our magical time at Disneyland, we did not do much. Most of the day was spent walking around the area we live in, getting my clothes from my apartment, and going to see "Remember Me" at the cinema (I highly recommend this movie!). We were eager to hear good news about the re-opening of airports and were delighted when we saw on CNN that most flights were operating once again. Wednesday we packed our bags, had a leisurely lunch, and headed to the airport to catch our late-afternoon flight to Madrid where we would connect to Palma de Mallorca.

Well that's all for now. I'll leave Spain for another entry.

Au revoir :)

Prague--escape to Central Europe

This post is long overdue, but you will understand why I haven't had time to write it after you read the next two postings.

The weekend after Easter my friend Kathryn and I flew to Prague, Czech Republic. I had heard great things about this city in Central Europe, but honestly was not sure what to expect. Upon arrival in Prague (Praha in Czech), we met up with Kathryn's friend Alison, and her two friends from Torino, Italy, where she is studying

abroad this semester. The first thing we did once we left the airport was to get money, as in the Czech Republic the currency is the koruna, not the euro. The value of their currency is about 18 koruna to the dollar so the prices of things were pretty inexpensive and the bills we received were 1000koruna bills,

which seemed pretty crazy to us! After we went to the ATM, we tried to figure out how to get to the centre of Prague. We were a little confused about using the public transportation system because everything was in unpronounceable Czech! We finally figured it out and made our way into the city and to our hotel-apartment, near the centre of town.

From our accommodations we were able to walk around the whole city--Wenceslas Sq., the old town, and up to Prague Castle, but first we stopped at Starbucks--you can take us out of America, but can't take the American ways out of us! After a delectable Caramel Macchiato, my first in three months, we headed to get

some lunch at one of the food vendors on the street near Wenceslas Sq.

The food in Prague is amazing--something totally different from the food in Western Europe. I bought a huge hot dog-looking sandwich, which was delicious. Beer is everywhere in Prague, after all the Czechs are the biggest beer drinkers in the world (I know you thought it was probably the Germans). I sampled a few different kinds of beer, my favorite being the Pilsner Urquell light colored beer.

Later we hopped on a tram that took us to the top of the hill where Prague Castle is located. This is where the head of the government lives now, but where the king used to live in the olden days. The castle is magnificent, as is the cathedral next to it. From there we walked down the hill towards the old town, which was very lively.

We tried more Czech foods like Bramborák (potato pancakes) and trdelnik (dough wrapped around a metal bar and roasted then spun in sugar and sliced almonds and then nutella is spread inside it if you so choose). Souvenir shops and stands are abundant in old town Prague. The big souvenir items are hand-painted eggs (I bought six), matrioshki dolls (nesting dolls), paintings, and of course, lots of t-shirts. The rest of the day was spent shopping. For dinner, the group found a wonderful authentic Czech restaurant. I had goulash which was out of this world. It tasted so good! We were exhausted after dinner so we headed back to the hotel and just hung out there.

The next morning we wanted to walk around town some more and see the Charles bridge. We walked across the bridge which is only for

pedestrians. On the bridge there are lots of statues of saints and lots of people trying to sell you souvenirs. On the other side of the river we found a long street full of shops. I found one shop that sold skin products made of wine and beer. I was a bit skeptical at first but I tried them and they were wonderful! I bought a beer body butter and a wine hand cream as well as two kinds of bath salts.

After walking around all day, Kathryn and I felt the need for a spa treatment. We found a nail salon and had a pedicure. It felt so good after walking on cobblestones the past two days! That night we found another Czech restaurant and had goulash once again :) I really want to make it at home because it is so delicious.

Sunday morning we slept in a little and then went to get coffee before heading to the airport to catch our 1230pm flight back to Paris. I really enjoyed my time in Prague and it definitely makes me want to discover more of Central and Eastern Europe!

Au revoir for now :)

Easter in the land of gelato, pizza, and pasta

I started writing this post about three weeks ago, sorry!

So I know I haven't updated in a while, but that just means I'm having

too much fun, right? :)

Last Thursday I left for Italy with my friends Sam, Julie, Jill, Lindsay,

and Sara. We flew Ryanair out of Beauvais, a small (like really small) airport an hr north of Paris. We arrived in Pisa an hour late because of air traffic control issues and managed to get very lost before finally finding our hotel. We stayed within walking distance to the Leaning Tower, the famous landmark located in

the centre of the city. After checking in we headed to dinner for our first italian meal. The pasta was just as good as I had remembered it being.

The next day we took the train to Riomaggiore, the first of the 5 Cinqueterre (translation: five lands). I had been here before, about 3 yrs ago with my family but only for the day. The weather was gorgeous the day of our arrival--sun shining, waves gently crashing into the rocks, seagulls everywhere. We were slightly worried about our accomadations because I had read reviews of the hotel and the majority of them were not good (70% of the customers had NOT recommended it!). We were pleasantly surprised when the owner's son led us down the hilly main street of the town to a seaside apartment. The views were incredible and worth every euro-cent. We walked around town the rest of the day and laid out on the rocks next to the sea. We didn't want to do too much since we would be hiking the next day.

Saturday was the great hike. There are many hiking trails that begin in Riomaggiore and go all the way to the last village, stopping at the three others in between. The first leg of the trail, from Riomaggiore to Manarola, is called the "Via dell'Amore" (the walk of love). This was an easy hike, more like a walk on a flat, cement path. After arriving in Manarola, we started thinking that this hike wasn't going to be too bad. I had read the entire hike takes 5hrs, but we didn't think it could possibly take that long to get to the last village of Monterosso al Mare. HOW WRONG WE WERE!

Let's just say that we were all misled by the easiness of the first leg. The rest of the hike was pretty exhausting and arduous. My friends Lindsey and Julie, both athletes, hiked together, while my friend Jill and I lagged behind, stopping every so often to breathe. My friend Sara left Riomaggiore over an hour and a half after we had begun the hike and still managed to catch up to Jill and I during the last leg of the hike (to be fair, the four of us stopped at each town be came upon for 15 mins or so, and Sara did not, so we weren't that slow).

The length of the trail was only 11km, but the part that was difficult and scary was the height of the trail. We would climb and climb and climb, only to descend the hills, and then climb back up. It was difficult! The scary part was the fact that the trail, at times, was only a foot or two wide, with nothing to catch you if you fall. Jill slipped twice and grabbed onto the grassy hill to

keep her balance. This was not a trek for the clumsy (apparently, I'm not as clumsy as people say I am!) We made it to Monteresso with minimal injury and feasted on pizzas made by a Californian girl who had married a guy from Italy and moved to Cinqueterre. The hike took a total of 6hrs, maybe a little more. By the end of it we were tired but feeling pretty accomplished and proud of what we had done :) We took the train back to the first village, had a late dinner, and slept like babies.

Easter Sunday we slept in until 11am. We met up with Julie's friend, Alexis, and some of her friends, who are all studying in Greece. We took the train to the last town and shopped around a bit. The villages are very small and full of Americans. The shops were very good--Sara and I found a really cute clothing store and a perfume store. When we had exhausted the shops in Monterosso, we headed for Vernazza, the biggest and , in my opinion, most beautiful of the Cinque terre villages. This is the town I had visited 3 years ago, so I was mildly familiar with it. We did some more shopping and then headed back to our town for nap and later, some dinner.

Monday morning we took in the last hours of our time in Cinque terre. We found a rocky beach and tanned for a few hours in the warm sunny weather. In the afternoon, we made our way back to Pisa to catch our flight, which was around 730pm. We were sad to leave Italy, but were ready to go back to Paris, the city that we now comfortably can call home.

That's all for now. Enjoy!

Au revoir :)

Normandy

Bonjour all! I had a great trip to Normandy this weekend. I left my apartment early Friday morning and met up with everyone in central Paris. We got on our coach bus and met our tour guide who explained to what we would be doing the next two days. The first stop of the trip was Bayeux, a small french town, about 4 hours from Paris. We visited the tapestries museum there, which houses the largest tapestry in the world (at least in my opinion!) It was interesting to look at but not worth spending an hour listening to the portable audio guide we were each given. My friend Kathryn and I opted to head to lunch after quickly viewing the work of art. We found a cute little restaurant near the cathedral. I had a very good Niçoise salad (greens with potatoes, tuna, olives, carrots, and some type of vinaigrette. It was delicious! Afterward, we headed to the cathedral--it was much less ornate compared to the cathedrals I've seen elsewhere in France. The we walked through the town and found some of the other people in our group who were getting gelato, so of course we followed suit and got some as well (mint and cafe for me). By 2pm we were back on the bus waiting for everyone else to arrive. Unfortunately one person did not arrive back to the bus and we were forced to leave a half an hour later.

Next, we traveled 45 minutes to Omaha beach, one of the famous American DDay landing sites. It was something I had been waiting to see since I had learned about DDay in grade school. I am not really into history, especially compared to the rest of my extended family who are all history buffs, but I have always been fascinated with WWII. The beach looked like just a regular resort town beach, but I tried to imagine what it had looked like on June 6, 1944. I constantly was thinking back to the movie "Saving Private Ryan", a favorite of mine. As I turned away from the beach, I noticed the steep hills, something that probably proved to be problematic for the Allies. There was a memorial sculpture built on the sand of Omaha Beach, which commemorated the DDay landing and remembered those who were lost on that day and the days after the first landing.

Following our visit to Omaha, we drove to the American Cemetery, which is located on a hill next to the water. As we drove up to the cemetery, the gloomy weather seemed to only get worse, and it began to rain. The rain seemed fitting--it would have been strange to be there in beautiful weather. The walk from the parking lot to the cemetery seemed as if it took forever. When I finally got there, I couldn't believe my eyes. Thousands upon thousands of white crosses and stars laid before me. All of the men (and a few women) had died in either WWI or WWII. Some were brothers, some were fathers and sons, and some were unknown. Our tour guide had given us the plot numbers of famous Americans who were buried here, like the sons of Teddy Roosevelt and the brothers who inspired the movie "Saving Private Ryan, but the cemetery was too overwhelming for me to navigate and figure out who was buried where so I just started walking around, looking at names, where they came friend, when they died, etc. At the two end of the cemetery stood beautiful memorials. On the backside of the memorial in the front was a courtyard enclosed by a wall. The wall bore the names of all those who were never found.

After this emotional visit, we headed to Arromanches, where Gold Beach, a UK DDay landing site, is located. The "caissons" are are retaining walls that were used to create a harbor during the war. Some of these caissons are still in the sea, as well as on the beach. After a short stop there, we traveled to the town where we would be staying the night, Trouville. Trouville is a seaside town that is very busy in the summertime. Many people come to Trouville from Paris just for the day to go to the beach. The hotel we stayed at was much nicer than I had expected. We had dinner together as a group and then were free to do as we pleased. Some people headed to the casino across the street from the hotel, but Kathryn, Michael, and I decided to walk around town. It was raining pretty hard outside, so we didn't stay out too long but I got to see a lot of the town.

The next morning we had breakfast at the hotel and then headed to the Chateau Breuil, a calvados distillery. This region does not produce wine, but it is known for its calvados. Calvados is a very strong alcohol made with apples. We toured the distillery and then tasted a drink called pommeau, which only had 17%alcohol in it. I like it a lot--it had a very apple-y taste to it and the alcohol was not overbearing. The second tasting was a calvados aged for 15yrs. This was 40% alcohol and it tasted like it. The look on everyones' faces as they tried the drink was priceless. It was very very very strong. I barely could take a sip of it. After the two tastings, we walked over to another building where we sat down and had some water or apple cidre. The staff brought out apple pie, a Norman speciality. This apple pie was out of this world. I have had some excellent apple pies back in the States, but this was incredible. I could have eaten the entire pie, it was that good.

Our next stop was the city of Caen. Caen was almost completely destroyed during the battle of Normandy. The castle of William the Conqueror still stands today, despite some missing sections. My friends and I walked around town and grabbed something light to eat at a cafe. Later, we

drove to the Caen Peace Memorial, which is a museum that has exhibits on the DDay invasion, the events leading up to WWII, and the aftermath of the war. There is also an exhibit about the Nobel Prize. The museum is regarded as the best WWII museum in France. The movie that is played in its theatre describes the events of DDay with video footage which was incredible to see. It also featured speeches from Charles de Gaulle, Winston Churchill, FDR, and Hitler.

The museum was our last stop of the trip. We raced to the bus after the movie so that we could leave as soon as possible in order to miss traffic in Caen and Paris. We got back to Paris late that night. I was exhausted from everything we had done and slept very well that night.

So far this week, nothing major to report on. This Friday I am going to the Selon de Vins (Wine Fair) with my Oenology class. I will make sure to report back on my findings next post. Au revoir!

-MEP

Brugge

To continue on with my trip to Belgium this past weekend, I will pick up with Saturday.

We all woke up early and got to the train station by 9am. There are trains leaving for Brugge every 30 mins or so, so we did not need to worry about trying to find one to get there. Tickets to Brugge are €13 round trip on the weekends which is a steal! We arrived in Brugge around 1030am and made our way to the centre of town on cobblestoned streets lined with small houses. The village (I can't really call it a city), is considered at UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is considered a more medieval-looking Venice. I was definitely glad we chose to check it out because we only really needed one day in Bruxelles.

In Brugge, the locals speak Flemish because it is located in West Flanders, a northern province of Belgium. Flemish is similar to Dutch, the language spoken in the Netherlands. Fortunately, almosteveryone there speaks English. I am so used to speaking french in France that I didn't even use english until I realized that a lot of people did not know french! I have to admit that it did feel good to use my english and speak with others who didn't mind speaking in my native tongue (I try not to speak in english in France because I don't want to offend the locals).

Once again, the main attractions of the day involved food and eating. We first went to a bakery to get some pastries since we had not eaten breakfast before leaving Bruxelles. Then we walked to the main square, called Markt, where we saw the Belfry, a bell tower. After seeing the tower, we walked around some side streets, off of the main square. We noticed that there was a chocolate museum nearby, so we quickly made our way there. Belgium is famous for its chocolates so we knew this was something we couldn't pass up.

Inside the chocolate museum, called "Choco-story", were 4 stories, each filled with information about the history of chocolate, dating back to the Incas, Aztecs, Mayans, and Olmecs, of ancient Latin America. There were lots of artifacts and videos. Normally, it might be boring to me to just be constantly reading information about the invention of chocolate, but this museum made it fun and interesting. I just kept wanting to read more. One of my favorite sections of the museum was at the end, when we got to see a chocolate making demonstration. A woman spoke to us from a test kitchen and showed us how she made chocolates filled with a

hazelnut cream (hazelnuts are VERY popular in Europe apparently). After she was through with her lecture, we all received a piece of freshly made chocolate as we exited the test kitchen.

Afterward, we searched for a place to have lunch--yes, we were still hungry despite eating a handful of chocolates. I noticed an Irish pub on a street near the museum and suggested we try it. The food was delicious! I had an Irish breakfast: eggs, bacon, sausage, baked tomato, and toast, along with some authentic irish tea. Midway through our lunch we noticed a crowd of people moving into the bar area near us. Apparently there was a rugby match on television that everyone wanted to watch. It reminded me of going to a bar/restaurant at home and everyone coming in to watch the Eagles play!

By the time we were finished lunch it was almost 4pm. We decided to head back to the train station to go back to Bruxelles. We were all very tired and desperately needed a nap before we went to dinner. After napping, we headed out to find a restaurant that served mussels, a specialty of Belgium that my friend Sam desperately wanted to try before we went back to Paris. We were successful in finding a restaurant that served us mussels, fries, bread, and a beer or wine for only €12! The mussels were out of this world. We were quite sleepy after dinner so we headed back to the hostel and slept very well.

The next morning we checked out and went over to the chocolate store once more. We also had our last waffle in Belgium--this time I had strawberries with powdered sugar, yum! Libby needed to get to the train station to catch a bus to the airport in Charleroi, which was an hour away from the city. We walked towards Gare Midi and stumbled upon a Muslim open air market, which caught the attention of Sam. After saying a sad and teary goodbye to Libby, Sam and I walked back to the streets near Grand Place, where I knew I could find some souvenir shops. After buying some souvenirs, I saw an escargot vendor down the street. I really wanted to try some but I was a little nervous to buy them from some guy on the street. There were lots of locals eating them though so I figured it was safe. Sam and I split a container of them, 5 for each of us was surely enough. They were awesome! The only issue we had was that there was a small snail sculpture looking right at us as we ate the escargot, which made us feel a bit weird. As if escargot, waffles, and chocolates were not enough, we went to the chocolate shop again and I got my friend in Paris some chocolates.

Godiva happened to be across the street from the chocolate shop, so we stopped in and had some delicious hot chocolate (mine was dark hot chocolate!). Since we had basically eaten all there was to be eaten in Bruxelles, we decided to head to the train station, hoping to exchange our tickets for an earlier train.

At Gare Midi, the Thalys customer service (a term I use lightly, as there is not much "customer service" in Europe) told us we had to call a number to change our tickets. The number did not work so we planned to take the train we had tickets for. When the train finally arrived it was missing cars 1-11. My seat was in car 7 and Sam's was in car 5. The conductor said that they were going to connect the trains so we would have to wait a bit. Our train pulled away and another one came, so we figured it was ours. We got on the train and after 10 minutes Sam called me to say that it was not our train. I immediately got off, fearing the train would pull away at any second and I would be stuck going God knows where!

When I got off I saw Sam and we started laughing in the middle of the station. We didn't know what to do so we just waited around, hoping that there would be some sort of announcement. An announcement did come and we got on the correct train. I figured that we would be leaving shortly so I got comfortable and began to eat the piece of pizza I had purchased at the station (it was from Sbarro's, I had to get it!) I felt my phone vibrate, checked my messages, and read a text from Sam saying that there was smoke in her car and she, with everyone else in the car, had evacuated the train. As I read the text, an announcement was made by the conductor, telling us that there was smoke in one of the cars and that the train was being cancelled. It was said in french first, but I understood that whatever it was, this was not good because the Frenchman next to me was cursing a lot.

Once again I got off the train, saw my friend, and this time began hysterically laughing. What were we going to do? We talked to some other Americans who told us to wait for an announcement.

Nothing was ever announced so we went down to the customer service desk and were told we could take the next train to Paris. We got on the train and realized that we didn't have seats. The train was basically full of both the passengers from the cancelled train and those who had seats on this one. It was packed to say the least. Thank goodness the train trip was only 1 hr, 22mins. We stood in the narrow cavity between two cars, where the bathrooms are located, with 8-10 others. Sam and I could not keep from laughing, so at least we made the best of it. When we finally got back to Gare du Nord in Paris, we said goodbye and went home. I went to bed shortly after I got home, exhausted from such a fun weekend.

Belgium is a very beautiful country and I am so glad I got to see it. Until the next time! Au revoir!

-MEP

Bruxelles--eating at its finest

Bonjour! I have a lot to report on with regard to the past week and weekend so I will probably split it up into two, focusing on the week and Bruxelles in one and Brugge in the other. Wednesday my International Business class met at "Breakfast In America", the best diner I have ever been to; it was better than in the USA. I had dark chocolate chip pancakes that were absolutely divine along with a bottomless cup of coffee, something that is non-existant in Paris. The whole atmosphere of the diner made me feel as if I were at home. The staff was friendly and the class thoroughly enjoyed our time there.

Thursday I went to the Musee Carnavalet with my fashion class. Our professor gave us a guided tour of the museum, which is located in the heart of Le Marais, a neighborhood of the city that is close to my school. The tour was wonderful and I got to see lots of paintings, sculptures, and other works of art.

Late Thursday evening, my friend Sam and I headed to Gare du Nord, one of several Paris train stations, to catch our train to Brussels (Bruxelles in French). The train was not crowded, so we were able to sit together comfortably spread out. The train, a TGV, only took 1 hour and 22 minutes to get to Bruxelles. When we arrived in Bruxelles, we immeadiately could tell we were not in Paris anymore. People were actually coming up to us, attempting to help us figure out how to get to our hostel--this would never happen in Paris. We finally found our way to the right metro and made our way to the hostel. Upon arrival, I found my roommate and best friend from Pitt, Libby, sitting in the lobby. We ran to each other and hugged--we were both so happy to see e a familiar face,I'm pretty sure we both were on the verge of tears. After checking in and putting our luggage in our hostel room, we walked towards Grand Place, a huge plaza where the Hotel de Ville (city hall), is located. We met up with Libby's friends from Spain (where she is studying) and headed to dinner. And so the eating began...I tried my first Belgian beer, very tart and powerful, and had a light dinner of aubergine gratinee (eggplant that has been baked with melted cheese over it). By the time we were through, it was nearly 1230am! We walked home and immeadiately fell asleep.

Friday, Libby, Sam, and I walked around the city for about 7 hours! We walked through Grand Place again, saw Manneken Pis (Bruxelles "mascot"), Palais de Justice, Palace Royal, Notre Dame du Sablon, and a few parks. We also had a self guided tour of the last brewery still located in Bruxelles. It was very interesting to see people working in the factory making beer. The whole process was very cool; we saw the barrels of beer, the containers that it ferments in, the area where the bottles are filled, and how they place the labels on the finished product. At the end of the tour we were told to sit at the bar and the woman who worked at the front desk gave us two different beers. I am

not a huge fan of beer, I prefer wine, but I must admit that both beers were delicious. The first one was very yellow and had a strong taste of lemon. The second one was a pinkish-red color and tasted like red fruits (raspberries, strawberries, ect.). What I liked most about this place was that we were the only tourists there and it was not very commercialized, so it was like finding a hidden treasure; it's definitely something I would recommend others do if you ever get to chance to go to Bruxelles.

One of the highlights of the day was seeing the American flag. I noticed it and then

paused for a second before truly realizing what it was. We all started walking towards it and then realized that we had stumbled upon the American Embassy. We all began taking pictures and then guards started to yell at us from across the street, saying that no pictures were allowed. We stopped taking pictures and began walking towards the metro but a policeman ran after us and asked to see our cameras. He told us,

in french, that we had to delete all pictures of the embassy, as the American Embassy cannot be photographed. We were a little confused, but followed orders and were on our merry way soon enough. By the time we got back to the hostel we had been walking around for 7 hours and had consumed chocolates, waffles, and fries. We topped off the day of calorie-laden food with dinner at Chi-Chi's--a wonderful Tex-Mex chain that was thrown out of the USA after it made half of America sick with salmonella poisoning. It was outstanding. By the time we were done with dinner it was past midnight, so we headed back to the hostel and got some sleep because we knew we needed to get up early for Brugge the next day.

The weekend and Champagne

On Friday, I spent most of the day relaxing and at night I went to Hotel de Ville (City Hall) to ice skate. I must admit that it was a lot more difficult than I remember. The little children ice skating made it look like a piece of cake. It was not. I did not last long and decided to give up before I got hurt (only fell once!). A few friends weren't skating so I watched the others skate with them. I also had an encounter with a french guy who attempted to invite me to coffee, though I declined. French men are extremely forward and do not hesitate to tell a girl they like her or to ask her out but this method of dating is a bit much for me. If a guy did that in the States, I'm pretty sure he would either get slapped in the face or be cursed off. Later, I went to dinner with my friend Amy. We both had delicious French onion soup! So good!

Saturday I had to wake up at 645am because we were all meeting at the Bastille Opera House to get on the bus to go to Reims. Reims is located in the Champagne Ardennes region of France. It's about a 2hr bus ride from Paris...plenty of time to get a good nap in :) The first thing we did in Reims was go to the cathedral. Cathedral Notre-Dame de Reims is beautiful. It looks very similar, architecturally, to Notre-Dame de Paris. Inside it had beautiful stained glass windows and an astrological clock, similar to the one I saw in Strasbourg. This church was very exciting to visit because my great aunt and uncle were married there during WWII.

After touring the cathedral, we all headed to find a cafe for lunch. We stumbled upon a restaurant that served some alsatian specialties as well as lots of seafood. I had poulet supreme (chicken) with a champagne-mushroom sauce and rice. It was so good. The desserts were extraordinary. A bunch of people got sundaes while I got creme caramel (similar to flan).

Following lunch we got back on the bus and headed to the Pommery estate. Pommery is a huge champagne maker in the region and we toured the cellar where champagne is made and stored. The bottles ranged from typical size of .75 litres to 1.5 litres to 9 litres. The 9 L bottles were gigantic and made the regular size bottles look tiny.

Later, we had a champagne tasting of extra brut Pommery champagne. I then went to the boutique where everyone had gathered to purchase some bottles. There were many choices available to us and I had decided I wanted to buy at least one bottle. I bought a bottle of "Brut Royale" and two bottles of "Pink Pop" (it's in a cute pink bottle!). I decided to save the bottle of Brut Royale for my 21st birthday because is supposed to be good for the next 2-3 years (and I won't be 21 for another 15 months).

Afterward we headed to Hautvillers, the town where Dom Perignon, the father of champagne, lived. We visited his grave, located in the town's church. The village has breathtaking views of the valley, where all you see is green pastures and lots and lots of vineyards. By this time it was

nearly 430 pm and we were all very exhausted from the long day we had. We got back on the bus and got to Paris around 715 pm.

Yesterday I spent the day doing work. For some reason I had so much homework and did not realize it until yesterday. I had a presentation on Airbus today for my International Marketing class as well as a marketing plan outline on Brazil and water filtration systems for the same class. I'm leaving for Brussels on Thursday night with my friend Sam. I'm so excited! I get to see my best friend from Pitt, Libby, and we

haven't seen each other since December...it's been way too long! It will be great to see a familiar face because it is tough not having someone to talk to about people and things from home.

Well that's all for now. I'll be sure to post something after my trip to Belgium!

Au revoir!

-MEP