Tuesday, December 16, 2014

That weekend in Marrakech - where we blessed the rains down in AAAAAFRICA!!!

Weekend 18! Marrakech, Morocco
Saturday, December 13th
                We woke up nice and early and took the 7 o’clock flight to Marrakech. After thinking we were late, a 3 hour flight, and a long line to get through customs, we made it into the city! We took the bus right into the main square (or Medina/old part) of town then wandered a little bit to find our hotel was just around the corner. We dropped our stuff off then we were off to brunch!
                As the hotel was right on the main square of town (Jemaa El Fna or Djemma) we explored the square and found a nice terrace restaurant to observe the hustle and bustle of the square. For breakfast we had some fresh squeezed orange juice, a cheese omelet and some traditional eggs and dried meat smoked in a tagine pot (like a little steamer clay pot), and of course some mint tea. This café also had a lot of really cute kittens roaming around. Little did we know – the rest of Marrakech was swimming in cats…
                After breakfast we walked around the square and saw some of the stands and ventured into the souk (flea market) a little bit on our way to the Badi Palace. The Badi Palace is the remnants of the Saadian king’s home from 1578. It had originally jail cells in the gardens but now there are just orange trees being farmed there. There was also a nice little FLOCK of storks that guarded the tops of the castle (they made a really interesting sound with their beaks clashing). There was also a neat underground tunnel system with rooms. It was pretty creepy, but felt like you were walking into a movie set or something. We also saw a nice view of the city from the terrace of the palace. Pretty much this palace looked like you walked into the sultan’s palace courtyard in Aladdin.
                After that we headed to the Saadian Tombs. The tombs were attached to a really large and beautiful mosque. The tombs were made during the era of Ahmad al-Mansur (1578-1603), but were discovered in 1917. They have been restored and are really beautiful celebrations of life – except no one has a name on the tombstones. The Saadi Dynasty rests in the main mausoleum or basically a really decorated crypt /church thing (pictures are definitely worth 1000 words here).
                After this we tried to find the church we were going to go to this weekend, but had the wrong address and ended up in a not-so-nice part of town that lined the one of the main gardens of the city (Jardin de L’agdal).
                After this minor detour through the city, we went to the Bahia Palace. This palace was smaller than the other one, but a lot more modern and well decorated. It was made in the late 1800s (intended to be the greatest palace of its time). Apparently the rooms that lined the main courtyard were intended for the concubines of Si Moussa (grand vizier of the sultan). Again check out the pictures for better details.
                After that we went back to the hotel through the souk (market) to drop off the camera and go to church. We found the correct address an hour before church so we grabbed a snack at a pretty fancy Pizza Hut (some of us missed American pizza/breadsticks…ok both of us did). We then went to probably the only catholic church in the town of mosques to celebrate the third week of advent with about 20 other people. 
                We made our way back into town where the main mosque in the center of town has beautiful and tall minaret (La Koutoubia) so we stopped to get some pictures of it lit up at night. The town was also having an international film festival where there was a huge projector in the square playing a movie. Unfortunately it was sprinkling that night so the people had to stand getting a bit muddy.
                We decided not to watch the movie (13 Assasins, in French as French is the main language of Marrakech next to Arabic). We found a cute upscale and authentic Moroccan restaurant called La Marrakechi to have a quiet meal. There was no one on the second level of this restaurant (which was a bit weird, but very nice and quiet). The scenery was so cute with all the Moroccan designs and candles. The waiter then told us that we should move upstairs to enjoy some traditional music, so we did. Dinner was SO GOOD and we enjoyed some nice music with a room full of people. Stuart had some chicken kabobs with rice and I had some beef stew type thing that was delicious with a side of couscous and veggies topped with onions and chickpeas sautéed in cinnamon (so good!).
                We were ready for bed after that large meal!

Sunday, December 14th
                We checked out of the hotel to go get some Moroccan breakfast! We walked into the souk only to get turned around and cut across it and back track a little (<that is very easy to do). We stumbled upon a recommended café for breakfast (Café des Epices) in the spice market area of town. We got a huge Moroccan breakfast with mint tea, fresh orange juice, a fruit salad, and an assortment of three breads and three dipping sauces. The sauces were olive oil, a homemade chocolate peanut butter thing (so good!), and a cinnamon sugar honey. The breads were batbout (or pita), harcha (pan fried flat dense bread), and msemen (pan fried pancakes, similar to crepes, but crispier).
                After that meal we were definitely ready to take on the day – even if it rained off and on all day. We made our way over to the Marrakech Museum only after getting lost in the souk (we even asked for directions!). We finally made it to the museum after a cute little school boy lead us to the museum (of course we gave him a nice Moroccan tip of some dirhams). The museum was a little small with all the rooms branching off of a main indoor courtyard. It was a beautiful place with detailed architecture and modern Moroccan artwork. The museum is housed in the Dar Menebhi Palace which was restored in 1997.
                After that museum we went to the Ben Youssef Madrasa or the old Islamic college. The college was found in the 14th century and was reconstructed in the 1560s or so. The college was closed in the 1960s and is now a historical site. The college has 130 dormitory rooms (super creepy and small, but some were quite quaint – must have been the senior rooms). There was also as many as 900 students at one time at that school…talk about roommates. This school was one of the largest theological colleges in North Africa.
                After the school, we walked through the souks to buy some souvenirs. Stuart perfected his bartering skills after some awkward encounters with some scarf salesmen. I’d say 70% off of the first asking price is pretty good for a first bartering experience!
                After the souvenirs we got our backpacks and headed to the airport.

We just want to say that we did bless the rains down in AAAAAAAaaaafrica.
Next adventure on the agenda: exploring Paris with Joan, Mitchell, and Bradley for Christmas!!! Then it’s off to Italy!

Joyeuses fêtes! Happy Holidays!
Love,

Stevie and Stuart

Monday, December 8, 2014

Castles, Clocks, and Crashes: Our weekend in Prague

Weekend 17! Prague, Czech Republic
Friday, December 5th
                We got into Prague about 8 pm and took the bus into town. Once we got into town we found our hostel just off of the main Old Town square. We dropped our stuff out then went to find some dinner. We also noticed that the CHRISTMAS MARKET was going in the square, so that was pretty at night with all the lights. Also there were a lot of lit up devil horn headbands…a St. Nicholas tradition that we will explain later. We found a cozy little touristy Czech restaurant not too far. For dinner, Stuart got the beef in a creamy sweet sauce. I got a nice little kettle of Czech style goulash with some dumplings to go with it. All the main meals in the Czech Republic were a lot of pork and meat with a gravy sauce and potatoes dumplings. After dinner we got a dessert at the Christmas Market, some trdelník  bread. Basically it was dough rolled on a metal rod and roasted rotisserie style then rolled in cinnamon sugar with some almonds. SO GOOD, fresh and warm too!
               
Saturday, December 6th
                St. Nicholas day! A big deal to any Christmas loving Christian population and Prague was no exception. Our tour guide later explained to us that the people with devil horns represented the Krampus, or the devil that accompanied St. Nick. According to tradition, if the Krampus were to scare children and they did not sing a Christmas carol (or were particularly naughty), the Krampus would kidnap them and then later eat them of course. So Friday night we saw people dressed as St. Nicholas and the Krampus wandering around the main square partaking in this frightening tradition.
                We started the day with some nice pastries from the bakery just next door to the hostel then observed the astronomical clock tower in the square chime. The clock was installed on the tower in 1410 and on every hour, four little puppets start moving and doors open up on the top of the clock to show the 12 Apostles waving to the people in the square. The puppets represented the four fears that people back in the 1400s feared – vanity, greed, death, and the Ottomans (<the Czech people were taken over by a lot of other people throughout their history – the Ottoman Empire was around the 1400s for Czech). We wandered around a little before we met up by the clock tower again for a free walking tour.
                The tour guide we had was a Romanian International studies master student who just stayed in Prague, for three years…The first stop of the tour was observing the Church of Our Lady Before Týn. This was the main old church on the old town square. It also took awhile to build and the drawings were lost so the two towers were different widths. Also on the square is St. Nicholas’ church and the tour guide told us about the old conflicts between the Catholics and Protestants. A couple religious skirmishes actually ended with people getting thrown out windows or the bell tower.
                The next stop on the tour was the Rudolfinum or the concert hall that houses their philharmonic orchestra. The tour guide told us about the history of the Reinhard Heydrich or Hitler’s right hand man that took over Prague. The concert hall had a Jewish composer statue on the top of it and Heydrich’s henchmen were told to destroy it, but instead they destroyed Hitler’s favorite composer. Their lives were quickly ended.
                After the concert hall we saw the “Old-New synagogue” or Staronová synagoga, where the guide told us the legend of the Golem that was locked up in the attic of the synagogue. The next stop was a statue of Franz Kafka as portrayed in one of his books. The Czech people didn’t really celebrate Kafka until recently as he wrote in German and Germans took over their city in WWII. After the statue we saw this old church (Church of St. James) that had the forearm of man. There was a story that the famine in Prague was so bad one year that a man tried to steal the necklace off of a statue of Mary to sell for food, but she caught his arm. The priests found him in the morning hanging from Mary so they slowly cut his forearm off and Mary then let go of the arm. The church was destroyed in a fire soon after that, but a new forearm was replaced. You can see the shriveled up old forearm hanging from the ceiling of the church warning any other thieves.
                After that nice image of the shriveled forearm hanging from the ceiling we walked towards the “new town” and the Powder Tower, one of the 3 remaining old towers from Prague’s old wall. This tower used to hold the city’s gun powder. Next to the tower was the beautiful municipal house of the city. After that we walked to the concert hall where Mozart conducted Don Giovanni for the city in the Estates Theater. Mozart was offered to stay in Prague but Vienna offered him more money and more musical opportunities.
                For lunch we got a nice kebab and sausage baguette sandwiches from the Christmas market then met up for another tour of the Castle district of Prague. We made our way across the river and took a tram up to the top of the hill where the castle was located. We walked across this really cool old stone bridge over a stream then saw the interior of one of the courtyards in the castle. Apparently the Prague Castle is the biggest medieval style castle in the world, but some wife of a nobleman wanted it to look more modern so she had a façade put on the castle. The Cathedral of St. Vitus next door to the castle looks more authentic with its Gothic architecture. The cathedral was started in the 1300s and the construction just ended in the 1929, over 600 years after it was started. The final four architects put their faces in the main façade of the cathedral to be remembered forever. Some other neat things that we saw in the courtyards of the castle were an obelisk, a balcony where Hitler once spoke, and a misspelled gate to the castle due to a stingy old king.
                After checking out the castle courtyards and cathedral, we watched the changing of the guards then headed towards a nice place to have a view of the city. Prague has a mini Eiffel tower in its main park (not really sure why) but we got to see that and the city. After the view, we went to this old monastery that made ‘holy beer’ or some of Prague’s best beer from a really old recipe.
                We walked backed towards Old Town over the Charles Bridge which was also built in the 1300s. After the flood of Prague in 2007, the mortar of the bridge was tested and was found to have raw eggs, beer, and wine in the mixture.
                We took a quick break at the hostel as we were frozen! It had been drizzly and cold all day and two walking tours made for some grumpy tourists…After a nice warm up we went out to dinner and had some more Czech food. Stuart got a pork steak and I got a quarter of a roasted duck with the traditional red cabbage and dumplings. The night was complete with some hot mead, cider, and watching some Christmas carolers at the Christmas market (as well as seeing the Krampus again!).

Sunday, December 7th
                Sunday morning we went to church at the Church of Our Lady Before Týn, and then got a nice sit down breakfast at a café around the corner. We tried to go see the old Jewish cemetery (which had 12 layers of graves on top of each other), but the line was just too long. We then walked to Wenceslas square and saw another mini Christmas market. We made it back to the square and got a nice view of the town from on top of the bell tower. After that we tried to use the rest of our Czech Korunas on snacks at the Christmas Market (fresh potato chips and ginger bread!). We also enjoyed some cute kids dancing in traditional Czech costume.
                After that it was time to catch the bus to airport. Good thing we left in plenty of time, because our bus got in an accident with another tour bus. The other bus was in the wrong lane and tried to cut off our bus at a left turn. Our bus ended up clipping the other bus and losing its right side mirror. Two of the windows were broken in the other bus. I hope no one was hurt on the other bus. We had to wait for the police to spray the areas were the buses were in the accident then we pulled over to the side of the road, as there were 4 city trams lined up that we were blocking. A new bus driver was called in and drove us the rest of the way to the airport (without a side mirror!). But we made it home safely, so that was good.

It was quite a fun, tour filled, cold, but delicious weekend in Prague!
Next stop:  Marrakech Morocco in AAAAAFFFFFRIIIICAAAAAAAAAAAA!
À plus (later!),

Stevie and Stuart

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Madrid, Evian, and Anniversary!!!

Weekend 12 and 13! Madrid and Evian-Les-Bains

Friday October 31st – Madrid, Spain
                We got into our very nice hostel room right off the center of Madrid at about midnight or so. Just in time to get ready to go out! ;-) The streets and metros were filled with people celebrating Halloween with and without costumes! But it was a long day, so we enjoyed the sounds of the city from our hostel and then went to bed.

Saturday, November 1st – Madrid, Spain
                We slept in then went to San Gines for the churros and chocolate! We got a nice hot fresh order of 6 churros and really thick, dark, syrup-y, hot chocolate to dip the churros in. A classic Madrid drunk food.
                After our nice breakfast we started a nice little walking tour through town on our way to the Reina Sophia modern art museum. I (Stevie) never got to tour that museum while in Madrid, so it was fun do something new in Madrid. However, the museum was for modern art…so we saw some interesting things along with Picasso’s Guernica while we were there.
                Next on our home-made walking tour through the center of town was the Town Hall where the Kilometer 0 mark is (all roads in Spain start there so the kilometer markers on the highways show how far from the country’s center you are). This is where the center of Spain is, or Puerta del Sol.
                Making our way across town, we saw the Plaza Mayor, Plaza de España, the Palacio Real, the Cathedral, and ended at the Temple de Debod (an Egyptian temple that Egypt donated to Spain for helping to save the Abu Simbel by relocating it up the river).
                We ended the first half of our day with a snack at Cien Montaditos in Madrid. Worth it. They’ve got a menu with hundreds of cute little sandwiches for only a euro each.
                We went back to our hotel room for a quick siesta before our night out on the town.
                After a mini siesta, we went a street over for a Flamenco show!!! There was a large flamenco group (9 or 10 people) that rotated dancers throughout the songs. Orlando Bloom’s cosmic Spanish twin was there too. We had some nice Spanish red wine and sangria while we watched the show.
                After the show we got some more red wine and a tapa down calle Cava Baja – a street known for its tapa bars. We found my (Stevie’s) favorite old place from study abroad. This tiny bar only had wine and a toaster oven! We got a nice big piece of toast with some Spanish ham/chorizo type sausage on it. Delicioso!

Sunday, November 2nd – Madrid, Spain
                Time for church! We got up and made our way to the cathedral only to get stopped by thousands of lambs getting led to their slaughter! We have no idea why there were so many sheep running down THE MAIN STREET of Madrid. There are some good pictures of this!
                After this sheep parade, we had a quick Spanish breakfast (tortilla for Stevie and ham and cheese croissant for Stuart paired with the fresh squeezed Valencia-n orange juice) then went to church. We saw the remains of the old church in the city’s streets while going to the new cathedral. This cathedral was only built in the 1900s and St. Pope John Paul II ‘opened’ up the cathedral so there’s a nice statue of him outside the church as well as a relic of his in the church. The microphone system went out during mass so the bishop just decided not to do a homily that Sunday since 2/3 of the church couldn’t hear…
                After church we went made our way to the ROSTRO, one of the biggest open air/flea markets in Europe! It took hours to get to the bottom of the hill. I (Stevie) showed Stuart where I used to live when I was studying in Madrid when we got to the bottom of the hill the Rostro uses.
                After that, we got some very nice and cheap Spanish candy for the ride home and hung around the Plaza Mayor for a bit.
                For lunch, we made our way across town to Retiro, the central park of Madrid. We stopped along the way to see the Plaza de Cibeles (super pretty!). Lunch in the park was very nice and we walked around and saw the Palacio Crystal (an exhibition area for the Reina Sophia museum) and got some ice cream.
                Then it was time to leave L. Coming back to Madrid felt like coming home to Stevie. Although we have almost been in Paris as long as I (Stevie) was in Madrid, Paris just doesn’t feel like home as much as returning to Madrid felt.

Friday, November 7th – Antwerp, Belgium          
                I (Stevie) just had to put this in the Blog. I got to travel for the day to our company’s plants in Antwerp Belgium for some filming for my project. It was very cool to see the size of the plants (there are 4 of our plants on BASF’s site). BASF is HUGE and we got to drive around it. It was pretty much on its own island type thing since there are canals everywhere that link to the North Sea (??).

Saturday, November 8th – Evian-les-Bains, France
                We took a nice 4.5 hour high speed train ride over to Evian France, just across the lake (Geneva, or Lac Leman) from Switzerland to celebrate our 4-day anniversary weekend.
                Upon arriving to our hotel, we got a very nice room upgrade to a ‘junior suite’ with a free gift from the Hilton for celebrating our anniversary (hooray for free champagne, chocolate, and Evian water).
                After settling into our room, we walked around the town and got some snacks at the grocery store. Little did we know that NOTHING opens for dinner before 7pm in that town, so we made our way back to the hotel before dinner.  On our way, we booked our spa treatment at the Evian Les Thermes for Monday.
                We dropped off our long weekend’s supply of snacks at the hotel room then went back out into town to find something to eat. We ended up at a nice Italian restaurant where we got some very fresh and authentic pizza.                
                After dinner, we enjoyed a nice hot chocolate in the hotel’s bar where there was a live band playing music. It was pretty good actually!

Sunday, November 9th - 1 year anniversary in Evian!!!
                We woke up and went to mass at the main church downtown Evian. After that we made our way to the water-bus taxi thing to head over to the town across the lake (Lausanne, Switzerland).
                The whole weekend was pretty cloudy, but on the boat we were able to get a glimpse of sunshine and the mountains that surround Evian.
                After getting off the boat, we got some crepes for lunch with some HOMEMADE SWISS HOT CHOCOLATE. It was no Swiss Miss, but it was pretty good!
                After that we walked down the lake a little to go to the Olympic museum. Did you know that Lausanne is the Headquarters for the International Olympic Committee? Lausanne is officially recognized as the Olympic Capital and the headquarters for the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The museum was really cool, interactive, and new. We were able to see all the Olympic torches used as well as the medals from the revival of the Olympics since 1896 by Pierre de Fredy, Baron of Coubertin. There were also exhibits for the youth Olympics, Paralympics, and the history of recording time (<that was pretty cool!).
                After the museum, we made our way quickly into the old city center of Lausanne. We got to see the cathedral very briefly then made our way back to the dock. On our way back, we stopped at a grocery store to get some ‘swiss chocolate’ as all the chocolatiers were closed on Sunday.
                We made it back to France and got ready for a very nice anniversary dinner at the swanky restaurant that was located at the bottom of the hill of our hotel. The restaurant was very modern and we were able to share a nice bottle of red wine from the Savoy region (the Evian region). Stuart tried some liver (he didn’t order it, but it sure tasted like liver!), and Stevie had some escargot-snails- for a starter. For the main course, Stevie got a fera fish filet from the Lake Geneva and Stuart got his steak and potatoesJ. For dessert, a small pumpkin cake thing for Stevie and pineapple sorbet with some pineapple and papaya for Stuart. It was a very nice anniversary dinner right on the coast of the lake.

Monday, November 10th – Evian
                We slept in today as it was a rainy, spa day. We eventually made it to our Evian spa treatment. The Evian thermal spa was literally in the backyard of our hotel, so that was nice! We got a 20 minute water jet massage in a pool (filled with EVIAN water) with 6 other couples. There were 5 minutes for feet, lower back, and upper back, then 5-10 minutes of all the jets on at once. It was pretty powerful! So powerful our upper backs are still a bit tender to lie on. After the water jet pool session, we relaxed in the sauna for a bit.
                After our nice spa treatment we got some lunch at a local corner café. Stevie got the Alpine regional tartiflette (pretty much cheesy potatoes and gravy with bacon). The Savoy region is known for its cheeses (specifically the three cheeses that go into fondue), mountain comfort food, and white wine.
                We got some more snacks at the grocery (for the train ride home), then went back to the hotel for a very lazy day. We enjoyed the 5 or 6 English channels on the TV then had a quiet dinner at the hotel bar restaurant. 

Tuesday, November 11th – Evian
                We got up a little early to really explore the Evian town this morning. We had a nice little map with a homemade sort of walking tour of the town. We started out seeing where the Evian water spring source was in the late 1800s as well as the old pump room for the water. It was so funny to see some townspeople filling up their recycled glass Evian water bottles at the fountain for drinking water.
                We also saw an old medieval hospital and castle. After that we saw the market area. Next was the Casino. We had passed by it at night, which was a lot more impressive than in the daytime. Next to the casino was the Theater and the Town Hall. Both very pretty buildings too. Next to the town hall was the “Palais Lumiere”, which was the original bath house of the town that used the mineral spring waters for the baths. Now it’s a congress and cultural center. We also saw the old Funicular Railway Station which, in the early 1900s, served to shuttle people between the Royal hotels that used the mineral waters.
                After that we walked along the lake and saw the marina on the other side of the hotel. It was a very pretty fall walk along the water. The lake’s water was super clear and clean and you could see to the bottom of it very easily.
                We checked out of the hotel then made our way slowly back to the train station. On our way, we were stopped by a Veteran’s Day parade on its way to the war monument in the center of town.  As today was Veteran’s day, or Armistice Day in France (the end of WWI), we got the day off. The local high school and townspeople performed the parade and the mayor of the town spoke as people dedicated flowers to the monument in memorial of people who served France in the different wars.
                We made it back to the train station then on to Paris! (The view from the train was very pretty as we barely touched the Jura Mountains in the south east part of France).

Next on the agenda:…a weekend in Paris…then…Prague!?
à tout à l'heure – See ya later!

Stevie and Stuart 

Monday, October 20, 2014

Beers, Birthdays, and Bar Crawls: Weekend in Berlin

Weekend 10: October 17th – October 19th 2014
Friday, October 17th
                Stevie took a vacation day to fully enjoy her birthday weekend! Woo hoo! So Friday morning, Rachel met us by the river and we took a taxi to the airport. We got into Berlin pretty early so we left our stuff at the hostel then went shopping! A mall was really close to the hostel and it was a chilly day so we (Stevie and Rachel) decided to buy cute warm accessories! Stevie got herself a nice made-in-Germany warm scarf. After that we got a quick pretzel snack and headed back to the hostel for a free walking tour.
                The tour guide was a nice Romanian guy – currently a research assistant at the local university for ecology of political science or something like that working on his PHD. In a former life he studied at Berkeley and worked as a ‘carnie’ around the east coast of the US. We were his first stop on the walking tour so we had to try and find another hostel to get more people. It took us awhile… Finally we made it and joined up with 18 other people and headed into Berlin. Our first stop was walking by the “new” synagogue. It’s a really pretty Moorish styled building that was saved from “Kristallnacht” because a police officer allowed the fire brigade to extinguish a fire after disbanding a Nazi mob.
                The next stop was Brandenburger Tor – the most ‘souvenir’ shot of all Berlin. This gate was built as a sign of peace by the King of Prussia in 1788. Apparently Napoleon rode through the middle arch of the gate as a sign of rebellion to the King of Prussia (only the King was allowed through the middle). Berlin and Paris never got along real well. The gate is located on ‘Pariser Platz’ or Paris Plaza and was named as such for the anti-Napoleon Allies occupation of Paris in 1814. The tour guide also pointed out the silent memorial to the Berlin wall: 2 rows of bricks in the streets where the wall once stood.
                The next place we saw was the Holocaust memorial: 2,711 slabs of concrete in the same direction, but of varying sizes and slightly angled, looking like graves of varying height. The memorial was very impressive. As you walked between the various slabs of concrete towards the center, the ground dipped and the slabs made you feel smaller and smaller. It was like a giant maze and you could have run into anyone at any corner.
                After some reflection while walking through the memorial, we saw the location of Hitler’s bunker where he and his bride committed suicide then were lit on fire. This was not well marked at all (it was a parking lot with one small sign). The Germans know how bad the holocaust was and our tour guide told us here that there are certain phrases in German that are against the law (relating to the holocaust) that will get you in jail faster than murdering someone.
                After seeing the old bunker location we moseyed over to the only Nazi architecture building that Hitler successfully accomplished while in power. It housed the ministry of aviation 1933-1945. It was nice, but had a prison like feel to it with a lot of small windows and gray stone. Today it’s the national treasury building. The tour guide told us that these big monuments (treasury building, Brandenburger Tor, etc.) were not blow to complete pieces because pilots used them in WWII as references to where they were to drop their bombs.
                After the treasury, we stopped by the “Topography of Terror”; a monumental piece of the Berlin wall showing the story of the invasion of Poland and how it “rose from its ashes”. 1933-1945 this location was the headquarters of the Gestapo and the SS (Schutztaffel), or the paramilitary of Hitler. It was a very humbling piece of the Wall.
                After that, we made our way to “Checkpoint Charlie”; one of the three checkpoints into West Berlin when the city was split in half. Pretty touristy with food shacks and sign boards, but still pretty neat to see a living piece of history.
                After Charlie (and grabbing some currywurst) we went to see the twin cathedrals of Berlin. There was a French built cathedral that mirrored a German cathedral in the same plaza as each other. The French Cathedral was built in 1705 by the Huguenot community who were persecuted in France seeking refuge in protestant Berlin. The German cathedral was built directly across from the French and mirrors its architecture. It was built in 1708, and then added a dome in 1785 which was destroyed in a fire in 1945. When they rebuilt the dome – they built it 7 meters taller than the French cathedral.  In this Gendarmenmarkt plaza is also the Konzerthaus (concert house)  - home of the Berlin Symphony Orchestra.  
                After the cathedrals we walked past the Bebelplatz of Humboldt University where 20,000 volumes of books were burned in the Nazi book burning of 1933. There is an empty shelf room that you can see under the plaza to show people how much knowledge was lost from the burning.
                Then we walked over to the Berliner Dom (Berlin Cathedral) to take in its architecture and see the old palace for the King of Prussia getting rebuilt to the original design.
                Finally (after this 5 hours of walking), the tour was over. It really was a great tour and didn’t seem like we walked all afternoon. We went back to the hostel to check in and have a happy hour cocktail in the lounge then headed next door to the Hofbräu München of Berlin where we enjoyed some HUGE portioned Bavarian (southern German) food with a few pints of fresh beer and live music. This place was hoppin’ on a Friday night! People were dressed up in their Oktoberfest/traditional German costumes and partying the night away with friends and family. All the tables were long picnic tables so you got to make friends while you ate. There was also a band there playing what sounded like was traditional German music because everyone kept chanting bar songs or cheers. It was a really fun and traditional dinner.
                In hopes of trying to make it to midnight for Stevie’s birthday, we went up to the lounge of the hostel for some cheap drinks. It was here where the bartender lit up some shots of sambuca for us. That was quite the experience (see the pictures!). Then, it was bedtime – we almost made it to midnight, but not quite.

Saturday, October 18th
                Happy birthday Stevie! J! We slept in a little bit then headed out for some pastries for breakfast then we were on our way! First stop of the day, wandering along the river while searching for the Eastside Gallery. We stumbled upon a really cool statue of St. George and the Dragon while we walked along the pretty riverside. Finally we made it to the gallery. This 1.3 km part of the Berlin wall houses really neat graffiti and art work reflecting on the times of the Wall.
                After walking along the wall, we took the train into the city a little bit then walked past the Jewish Museum. We didn't go in, but the outside was very cold and modern with the Star of David on the side of the steel walls. There were very little windows and the aerial view looks very bleak too – an exploding Star of David.
                Then we made our way back to Checkpoint Charlie for some pictures with the “American” soldiers. We walked inside the fence of the small history museum devoted to the checkpoint then got some lunch across the street.
                After that we went up in a ‘hot air balloon’ to see Berlin! It was just a helium balloon with a cable connected to the ground. We went up 150 meters and got to see most of Berlin. It was kind of a hazy day, but we still saw everything that we walked on the tour the day before (A LOT OF WALKING).
                When we got down from the balloon we headed towards the Reichstagsgebäude or the Parliament building of Berlin. It’s a neat old building with now a glass dome where people can go up it and walk around it. Unfortunately we didn't know we needed tickets a day in advance so we just looked at the building and moved on because we just saw Berlin from the balloon.
                We then walked back to the hostel to get ready to party!!! Stevie had a nice google hangout with her family then we all got ready to go out. Rachel found a nice pub crawl online so we meet up with 120 other young adults to go celebrate the birthday! We made our way to four different bars which had specials for our group. We met a nice group of girls from University of Dallas who were studying in Rome and stuck with them most of the night. We also met some nice Israeli boys who managed to get half the bar to sing happy birthday to Stevie at 3 of the 4 bars (twice at one bar – thanks Rachel). The whole group got on a metro then made their way over to the other side of East Berlin to get free entrance into the Matrix club. It was a pretty neat club considering it was built under the tram/metro railway close to the very pretty Oberbaum Bridge. After the 7 hour crawl/clubbing celebration, it was time to call the birthday festivities to an end.
               
Sunday, October 19th
                Sunday morning we (Stevie and Stuart) got up to go to mass in the Berliner Dom cathedral. However, we found out quickly (with the entrance of a female priest) that this was not a Catholic cathedral. We stayed for the service though. This service included 4 or 5 small readings, lots of singing, a sermon from what seemed like the female bishop from a tall fancy enclosed podium that looked like an egg, a communion service, and a really nice pieced played on the huge organ.
                After that we went back to the hostel to pick up Rachel and made our way to the Mauerpark flea market. This place was huge! Rows and rows of jewelry, bags, stuff, and more old stuff. The center had a lot of food stands where we got some fresh juice, fresh cut potato chips on a stick, and some lunch. We stayed there exploring for a couple hours then headed back to the hostel to get our stuff. It was time to leave Berlin L.

Overall, it was a very fun, sobering, un-sobering, long weekend!
Up next: Paris for this weekend and Madrid for the next!!! (<Stevie can’t wait to show Stuart Madrid J)
Gros bisous (big kisses),

Stevie and Stuart

Monday, October 13, 2014

Castles, Beer, and Bratwursts! Our weekend in Stuttgart, Germany.

Weekend 9: October 10th – October 12th 2014
Friday, October 10th
                Stevie took a half day at work so we were able to meet up with Ed and Carol in Stuttgart Germany Friday night. It was about a 4 hour high speed train ride from Paris over to Stuttgart with 2 other stops along the way. We got in a little late then took the commuter train over to the hotel
                For dinner, the hotel worker suggested we go to the Brauhaus of Schönbuch in Böblingen to kick off our Oktoberfest weekend in Stuttgart! We got some very large beers and typical pork sausage dinners. Stevie had a lentil and weiner meal called linsen and spätzle while Stuart got the schnitzel. The brauhaus was so hoppin’ that we had to sit outside, but it was still nice out and fun to be in the beer house atmosphere. Since the brewery was 20 feet behind the brew house restaurant, the beer tasted very fresh and the bar had a HUGE tap (we’re talking like 1 foot in diameter pipe header here!). There were also a lot of big old copper kettles used for brewing.

 

Saturday, October 11th
                We got up at a decent time and had a fantastic breakfast at the hotel. We then jumped on the commuter train with about half of Germany dressed in their lederhosen and dirndl dress all ready for Oktoberfest. It’s actually the second largest beef festival in the world and it’s called Cannstatter Volksfest in Stuttgart. We stopped one stop after the beer festival to see the Mercedes museum.
                The museum was really cool and actually a history museum as well as a car museum. The building was arranged in the peace sign Mercedes logo so there were three sections of the museum. You started on the top (7th) floor and worked your way down a spiral along the three different sections of each floor. As you went down to the next floor there were pictures of newspaper articles and big moments in history that guided you into the next era of car stuff that was about to come. The favorite section of the museum for Stevie was probably the top and oldest section that told the history of Karl Benz. Benz is known as the inventor who first patented the flat engine and is generally regarded as the inventor of the first automobile powered by an internal combustion engine. There were a lot of his first models of engines and transportation devices. Since he made engines for a lot of stuff, the Mercedes logo is made of three pieces for engines for land, air, and water.  Stuart really enjoyed how the museum paralleled the evolution of the automobile with the history of the world.
                After the museum, we made our way over to the beer festival! It was pretty much a HUGE carnival. There were five or six huge beer halls  with carnival rides and German carny-food such as pretzels (bretzels), bizarre valentines type gingerbread cookies where you could get different sayings iced on them, roasted candied nuts, and of course, bratwursts and all sorts of sausage/hot dog stuff! We stopped at a beer tent for some local beer and a bratwurst/hot dog thing in a large roll for lunch. After that we explored this very oddly placed flea market that accompanied the festival as well as got some candied nuts.
                After we had enough of the drunken costumed festival, we made our way into central Stuttgart. We found the “Old Palace” or Altes Schloss, home of the newly renovated castle and Landesmuseum Württemberg. This old castle has parts from the 10th century. The ‘state’ that Stuttgart is the capital of in Germany is called Wurttemberg, so the museum tells the history of the region starting from the stone ages! The museum was filled with artifacts such as weapons, jewelry, and pottery from various time periods throughout the region. There was also a glass exhibit from 4 centuries, a clock collection, and the crypt that holds Queen Olga, King Karl, their niece Wera, her husband Duke Wilhelm Eugen and their son Carl Eugen buried under the Palace Church.
                After the museum we all shared a nice bottle of red wine while we observed the people passing by on their shopping rounds. We sat in the town’s main shopping area square (Schlossplatz) that was lined by “the new castle” (Neues Schloss) where Duke Carl Eugen von Wuerttemberg lived during the winters.
                We made our way back to the town the hotel was in and has a nice Italian dinner as we were all sausage-ed and beer-ed out then had a nice sleep to get ready for the next day!

 

Sunday, October 12th
                We got up and had breakfast then made our way in the rental car to Liechtenstein Castle, just about an hour or so drive from Stuttgart. Inspired by the book “Lichtenstein”, Count Wilhelm of Wurttemberg built the castle based on the castle in the book in 1840. We were able to get our own private tour of the castle where we saw his hunting/drinking room, chapel, and great ballroom. The castle has a great view of the cities in the surrounding valley. This castle was Wilhelm’s summer home and the castle still belongs to his descendants. There are a lot of interesting myths surrounding this castle and the various shot marks and broken statues in the castle. There’s also a champagne glass as tall as Wilhelm given to him by his bride on their wedding day. Champagne was his favorite drink and three bottles of it could fit in the glass!
                We were able to walk around the “gardens” or surrounding fields of the castle as well as see the church, smaller chapel and little armory in the castle’s property. It sure was spooky with the all the fog in the valley surrounding the castle in the morning.
                After that castle, we made our way to an older, more ruined castle of Hohenneuffen after a minor detour on the way up the hill. The drive between these two castles was gorgeous! Germany is so green and was starting to change colors for the fall. There are a lot of rolling hills and trees in the area making it look similar to Brown County Indiana.
                Once we finally got up the large hill to the castle, we had a great panoramic view of the little neighborhood/cities below. The castle was built before 1140 and it eventually became a military stronghold. But people don’t come to this hill to see the castle, they come to eat and see the falcon show! There’s a restaurant and a hot dog and fry stand in the castle ruins as well as a small company that puts on a falcon show three times a day on the side of the castle. People also bring picnics and just sunbathe or lay around the castle’s green areas enjoying the local billy goats and view.
                We got some lunch up on the castle (hot dogs and something that Stevie can’t pronounce but it was like processed meat and herbs in a potato pasta wrap that looked like ravioli sitting in French onion soup). We also got some local apples from a guy selling them on the way down from the castle. They were pretty good, and he was very nice to let us know which apples not to pick because they had “würmen”.
                We made our way back to Stuttgart where Ed and Carol dropped us off at the train station in time to grab a snack for the train and head back to Paris. Overall it was a very fun, eventful yet relaxing weekend with family!

Up next weekend: Stevie’s birthday in Berlin!!!! One of the best night life cities in Europe J
Plein de baisers (lots of kisses),
Stevie and Stuart

Monday, October 6, 2014

Pot, Prostitutes, and Pancakes: Our weekend in Amsterdam

Weekend 8: October 4th – October 5th 2014
Saturday, October 4th
                We got an early train and made our way to Amsterdam! Once we got in, we stored our luggage and got a map, woo! Amsterdam is pretty small actually, so it was really easy to just walk around the city with the canals as your guide.
                Our first stop off the train was a quick stroll through the center of town and then over to the Anne Frank House. MAJOR TIP NUMBER 1 FOR AMSTERDAM TRAVEL: Don’t go to the Anne Frank House on the very day of Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year for Judaism. So, as it was the holiest day of the year for Jews, the Anne Frank House was closed. This was pretty much the only day of the year that the house was closed, and we picked this weekend to go to Amsterdam….
                After a failed attempt at the museum we wandered around the city and got a nice little Dutch lunch of half a sausage and mini pancakes (poffertjes). We sat through a free organ concert (<this was somewhat of a struggle for us) at the Westerkerk church (one of the first purposefully built Protestant churches in the Netherlands and is still the largest Protestant church there). Rembrandt was buried there.
                After that it was time to stroll the canals en route to the Bloemenmarkt – the world’s only floating flower market, founded in 1862- or so Wiki tells us. It was pretty neat, but mostly sold tulip bulbs – go figure. We decided to head down to the huge street market on Albert Cuypstraat. On our way to the market we saw the Heineken brewery. At the market we bought some nice fresh smoothies and waffles while perusing the unique and not so unique goods along the street. Too bad we were all full on chocolate covered waffles to get the traditional Dutch raw/pickled herring sandwich.
                After the market it was time to head to the museum area of town. We saw the newly renovated Rijksmuseum as well as the Van Gogh museum. The “I Amsterdam” letters were outside of the museums as well as a nice park to have a picnic. We saw some interesting street performing break dancers around the “I Amsterdam” letters.
                After taking a small break outside the museums we walked around the large Vondelpark (similar to a Central Park) and did some people watching. There was a wedding reception, some girls barbecuing shrimp in a bucket, and a whole bunch of other people smoking who knows what (but really I think we all know what they were smoking….).
                We took a nice little canal tour back to the central train station and saw the Anne Frank House and some other neat canal tour-y things. There were a lot of cute little house boats docked along the canals and we even got into a little traffic jam at a “4 way stop” in a canal.
                After getting off at the central station we walked around that area of town. We saw the sailor café inside the tower of Schreierstoren or “Weeper’s Tower” where women would say goodbye to their sailors back in the good ole 1500s. It is said that Henry Hudson set sail from this tower. The café inside the tower is called the VOC café or Dutch for East India Company because sailors went to the “East Indies” from here. Unfortunately the café was closed for a private event when we wanted to get some real sailor’s genever (gin).
                After our wanderings we finally found a quaint little restaurant for dinner. In order to digest, we took a very interesting stroll through the Red Light District. There is definitely a NIGHT and DAY difference in this part of town. Being right in the CENTER of old town Amsterdam, the Red Light District was super crowded and literally glowing red from the red tube lights lining the windows of the brothels (<that’s probably not a politically correct term anymore). To be quite honest, we were a little surprised at first to see women standing in their lingerie in the windows waiting for their next customers. The Red Light District also has “coffee shops” that are very clearly marked that they sell more than coffee (ex. Reefer Café, Green Day Café, High Time Café, The Grass Hopper Coffee Shop). Sorry, no pictures from experience, you’ll have to see it for yourself. We didn’t feel comfortable at all really in this historic neighborhood of Amsterdam after dark. We were done after a quick stroll through the center of town, so then it was off to the hotel.

 Saturday, October 5th
                Sunday morning we got up for mass and headed to the Basilica of St. Nicholas. Unfortunately we didn’t get any pictures because it was mass time, but it was a dark church inside (painted stone) with the story of St. Nicholas just under the stained glass windows lining the main corridor of the church.
                After mass, it really was time to see the Anne Frank House. Due to Yom Kippur, there were twice as many people in line. We waited for 2 and a half hours as the house is small and the museum filters people through it. We waited in the (freezing) line outside and around the corner. As we waiting we chatted with the older Australian couple behind us. The museum was pretty worth it though. Although the secret back house (annex) was kept barren due to Anne’s father, Otto’s request, the walk through the back house was very humbling. 8 people had lived in secrecy in the back house of Anne’s father’s company’s warehouse for almost two years. After walking through the house, the museum had a lot of Anne’s diaries on display and quotes and pictures along the walls. Unfortunately the front of the house was getting renovated, but we got a picture from the back. I don’t think it was the “back house” or annex, but it gives you the feel of what the front of the jam warehouse would look like.
                After the museum we got some huge pancakes and Dutch pea and sausage soup then made our way to the “Cheese Museum”. The museum was really just a cheese store that had a lot of free samples, but it was pretty good. Amsterdam cheese is a lot less pungent then French cheese. The museum had a lot of gouda on display.
                After our little cheese tour we wandered away the last couple hours of the day by walking to the NEMO Science Center museum as well as the “Scheepvaartmuseum” or Shipyard museum. That was pretty cool because they had a replica three masted “Amsterdam” ship of a Dutch East India Company ship from 1749. We also saw a nice windmill from the Shipyard museum area. That about wraps it up for our weekend in Amsterdam.

The agenda for next weekend: Stuttgart Germany with Ed and Carol for Mercedes and Octoberfest (Cannstatter Volksfest – the world’s second largest beer festival).

A très bientôt (see you very soon),

Stevie and Stuart

Sunday, September 28, 2014

Oh no, not another shoe store...

Weekend 7: September 27th – September 28th 2014
Saturday, September 27th
                Spoiler alert- It was a pretty quiet weekend for us as we did not plan any train trips or out of the country trip. Just a weekend in Paris J. So if you chose to stop reading – we don’t blame you.
                The other co-worker that came with us to Paris wanted to go shopping so we slept in then met her on Rue de Rivoli for some shoe shopping! We didn’t end up finding shoes (as Stevie’s co-worker was looking for shoes for a wedding she was in next weekend). Nevertheless it was fun just to go shopping in Paris (for Stevie and Rachel, that is) for the afternoon. Stuart didn’t have as much fun as us, but he was quite the trooper!
                As we were shopping along the street we saw the Tour Saint-Jacques. A lone bell tower from the 16th century church was all that remained from the church that was there. The French Revolution destroyed the church.
                Also along this street is the Hôtel de Ville or Town Hall of Paris. The building is quite impressive and the location has been used since 1357 (or so Wikipedia says). After checking out the building we kept walking down the street into the neighborhood known as Le Marais – also known as the gay neighborhood. It has some more shopping but more unique vintage type boutiques. We did stop for a small little butter cake that is known to Normandy (Kouign Amann) at a nice boulangerie.
                After shopping we went home and took a nice little powernap before our evening. Another co-worker of Stevie’s that works at the research facility and has been in Paris for about two years invited the three of us to a show. She bought the three of us some tickets to a light and fun comedy show at the theater La Grande Comédie. The show was “Le clan des divorcées”. It was about a divorced woman looking for roommates and ends up with two other divorced women as roommates. One of the roommates was supposed to be from England and played “the dumb blonde” while the other woman was played by a man and was the star of the show. The women put an ad in the paper to get some dates and the woman played by the man was the only one who actually got an honest date but turned it down to stay with her/his friends. It was a cute show regardless of the language barrier. Even in quick French we were able to get the gist of the play. It’s probably a lot funnier actually knowing what they were saying!
                After the show we got some dinner at a nearby brasserie then headed back towards the city center. We were able to see the Assemblée Nationale (National Assembly or House of Representatives) all lit up on our way to the river. We then watched the Eiffel tower glitter and waited for a friend of a friend of Rachel’s to hang out. While we waited along the river, we were able to do some serious people watching. There is a lot of seating right along the river and hundreds (no joke- hundreds) of people were just enjoying bottles of wine and hanging out with their friends before they were off to the clubs or whatever people do after midnight in Paris. There are a lot of bars and restaurant boats along the river too that were extremely popular. We didn’t stay out with the others too late, but we did wait around to see the tower glitter again then it was off to bed for us!

 Sunday, September 28th
                Another unplanned day in Paris. This weekend was very nice with sunshine and warm weather so we tried to stay outside today. We got up and went to the English speaking church 10 minutes away from us then headed towards the Champ de Mars for breakfast and people watching around the Eiffel Towel. We also passed the Paris aquarium on our walk to the tower from church. Anyway - the park (Champ de Mars) is big and was extremely crowded, even on a Sunday morning. We got some crepes nearby and found a bench to peoplewatch. This peoplewatching included viewing some sort of square dancing in the park led by an American with men and women dancing. The women had on very rufflely skirts- not exactly your jeans and cowboy boot sort of attire you would think to wear when square dancing.
                After breakfast we made our way to another huge park in the north side of Paris, Parc La Villette. This park houses the Cite des Sciences et de l’Industrie (City of Science and Industry – museum). The museum has a geode that looks like a giant mirrored golf ball but it’s actually a theater inside. There was also a submarine outside the museum as well and the rest of the park had a lot of play area for kids and adults! It was a great day for a picnic or just sitting in the park. There’s also a music museum and a concert hall in the park. After exploring around the park, we walked along the canal (Canal de l’Ourcq) that runs through the park. Apparently there was a sort of utopian recycling festival that was going on that we walked through. There were interesting pieces of art made of cardboard and plastic bottles as well as a bunch of pamphlets on different organizations that stood for recycling or public education on some sort of environmental or social issue.
                We took a stroll through the festival alongside the canal then made our way to the metro, stopping for a fresh baguette to buy for dinner.
                We didn't do much after that as Stuart was a little bit sick this weekend so we took it easy.

Next weekend though….AMSTERDAM!
Bien amicalement (sincerely),

Stevie and Stuart

Monday, September 22, 2014

Chocolate, Waffles, and Fries (aka Belgium)

Weekend 6: September 20th – September 21st  2014
Saturday, September 20th
                We took not the first, but the second train to Brussels at 6:30 this morning. We were able to see the sun rise on the train ride to Brussels, Belgium. Once we got to Brussels we hopped on the next little train to get to Bruges, a super cute medieval town near the coast of northwest Belgium. We stored our backpacks at the train station and took a bus right into the city center. Once we got to Bruges (~9:30 in the morning) we walked around the Markt (main square) and realized that nothing was open until 10AM at least…so  we got some breakfast!
                After a nice warm café au lait (and orange juice for Stuart), we started to wander around the city. This tiny cute city was really fun to just wander (and get lost multiple times). The next thing we did was go to the Historium history museum to get some free wifi and a free map from the tourist office. By then it was time for chocolate. After that we did some more wandering. As it was Saturday morning, there were a lot of little flea market type tents selling all sorts of chatchkie, but we were in search of chocolate. There were chocolate shops all over the place, but we found a really good one for a nice little treat.
                After our chocolate fix (for the hour) we went to the Basiliek van het Heilig Bloed (Basilica of the Holy Blood). Legend has it that the relic that is housed in this Basilica (a vile of old blood) is some of Jesus’ blood. It was carried through the crusades and every so often it turns from liquid to solid then to liquid again. Regardless of the legend that is associated with the relic, it was a very awe inspiring experience. The church was well decorated too!
                After the basilica we went on a boat tour of the canal. People call Bruge the Venice of the North. It really is too! It was a nice canal ride up and down the town. (Pictures explain better than words.)
                Then, it was time for lunch. So what did we do…we got some frites!!! (French fries! Which aren’t really French, they were invented in Belgium! Get your facts straight America!) Frites are served with mayo here in Europe so I (Stevie) got a curry-mayo sauce and Rachel and Stuart…well, they got ketchup.
                To walk off our hot delicious frites, we climbed up the bell tower (Belfort or Belfry) in the main town square. It was 366 steps and had a really neat clock and mechanical bell ringing system inside.
                After that we went back to the Historium for a small beer tasting (Duvel) and got to see the town square from above. After the tasting we wandered the town a little bit more, got some more chocolate (bacon and wasabi flavored chocolates!), got a super delicious waffle (wafel!) in the Belgian fashion – not the lighter more square Brussel fashion waffle that we all know as Sunday morning breakfast. These waffles tasted like crescent dough pressed in an iron with sugar so they were hot, buttery, and sugary. Of course we had to add whipped cream and more chocolate on top of our waffle too (no regrets!).
                Back to Brussels for the evening! We got back and ate at some touristic restaurant near the center square of the town. Not too exciting. But then – we got some more chocolate (ginger and cinnamon flavors for Stevie and a s’more type chocolate for Stuart).

Sunday, September 21st
                We all got up and went to the Cathedrale des Saints Michel et Gudule (<anyone know of Saint Gudule?) to see it and celebrate mass there in French and Dutch. Belgium has three parts to it, the French speaking part, the Dutch speaking part (like the Netherlands/Holland), and the German speaking part. Most of the country speaks French AND Dutch and the news channels are offered in both.
                After mass we met up with a friend of mine (Stevie’s) that I met in Spain. She was in one of my classes and in a group project with me. Marjolaine was able to show us the city (it’s not very big, but it is the seat of European Union!!!). Brussels is one of the most popular conference spots for Europe.
                First we walked to get some breakfast then to St. Catherine’s church. Today was a day without cars in Brussels so the bus, metro, and trams were all FREE!!! There were a TON of flea market shack things and mini festivals going on throughout the city. Outside of St. Catherine’s was a medieval themed little festival thing with people dressed in their middle aged garb.
                After seeing the church we went into an old market building turned into a bar/exhibition area. Then we wandered to try and see the Manneken Pis. Yes, it’s exactly what it sounds like. Legend has it that when Brussels was at war (they were in a lot of wars), a little boy came up to a bomb and peed on it thus saving the city from destruction. So, there’s a tiny little statue downtown Brussels commemorating the little boy. This statue has clothes made for it and when he’s done wearing them; the clothes are put in the city’s main museum on their main square, the Grand Place. There was an unveiling of his clothing and way too many people to wait for him to be unveiled, so we left.
                We wandered through the city then got some typical Belgian lunch. Meatballs and fries for Stuart, beef stew and fries for Stevie. After that we went to Delirium, which has the 2004 Guinness Book of World Records record for the most beer held there (2004 types of beer counted in 2004). The beer menu was like a telephone book! Stuart got a cherry flavored lambic and Stevie got a mango flavored beer. We’re not beer drinkers, but these beers were made in Belgium, so it counts!
                After that we went back to Manneken Pis to get a picture, then we walked through a gallery type mall. We then went to the Museum of Musical Instruments. This building was SO COOL! The museum was neat because we had an audio guide that played the old instruments as we walked by them. We only got to be in the museum for an hour as it was closing, but we saw traditional instruments of the world, instruments of the west, then an exhibit on Adolphe Sax (guess what he invented).
                After the museum we walked around by the King’s Palace and saw the festival that was happening near the big park by the Palace and got a free Belgian apple. We kept walking in that neighborhood which had a lot of antique stores and old buildings. We made our way up a hill to see the Palais Justice. The building was huge and had a great view of the city and the Atomium. Built for an exhibition, the Atomium replicates the crystalline structure that iron forms naturally (times 165 billion in size), as the statue is made of iron (stainless steel).
                We made our way back to the Grand Place after observing a very bizarre beach party happening outside the Palais Justice. The party was apparently for the birthday of the European lottery. There was free champagne, bananas, jet skis, sand, and cabanas on roundabout in front of the justice building. Quite entertaining.
                On our way to the Grand Place we got some more chocolates (as souvenirs and free tasters!) and of course, another waffle, but this time with ice cream. Marjolaine had to leave us then, but she was a very good tour guide and showed us all over Brussels! After that we moseyed over to the train station then made our way home.
Best. Weekend. Yet. J
On the agenda for this coming weekend: Paris (including a comedy show?, shopping!?, more exploring of different neighborhoods!)
A bientôt! (See ya or talk to you soon!),

Stevie and Stuart

Monday, September 15, 2014

Loire Valley: Home of 71 Castles and Châteaux

Weekend 5: September 13th – September 14th 2014
Wednesday, September 10th
                I (Stevie) just wanted document my work experience in Frankfurt Germany from Wednesday, the 10th. I had the opportunity to film some of the FIRST EVER meeting where engineering and operations electrical experts gathered from around the world. It was a great experience and will definitely help in one of my projects I’m working on. We were able to fly to and from Germany in the same day. It was a  long day,  but I got to meet a lot of really experienced people at the very new and modern Frankfurt Global Engineering and Construction Solutions center, so that was neat! By the way, the flight attendants gave out croissants (TWICE!) on the flight to Germany. It was pretty legit.

Saturday, September 13th
                Well, there’s not TOO much to say about today…We ended up on trains for the majority of the day trying to get to the Chenonceau castle/chateau just outside of Tours France in the Loire Valley. The Loire valley is known for its castles as there are 71 along the river Loire. (We definitely want to go back with a rental car so we can get to more castles!) The castle itself had 5 large gardens and multiple kings/royal people have lived in it including Catherine de Medici (<that woman has her name on a lot of stuff all over France). This chateau wasn’t nearly as extravagant as Fontainebleau, but it was staged like people still live there. The castle staff gathers fresh flowers from the gardens every day to decorate the rooms, so the whole place smelled like death (to Stevie), or flowers to people.
                Anyway, we eventually made it to the castle after a very very minor detour in Tours to check out the cathedral there. That cathedral is definitely one of the best ones that we have seen! We got back to our hotel in Orléans (the original Orleans!) then had a nice dinner at a pizzeria in the old part of town.

Sunday, September 14th
                We wanted to visit another castle today (Sully-Sur-Loire), but the bus schedule was not in our favor. Stuart and I got up early to go to mass nearby then we set out for a nice French breakfast (croissants, pastries, and coffee). After breakfast, we went to check out the ‘Maison de Jeanne d’Arc’(house of Joan of Arc). It actually wasn’t ever Joan’s house, but she stayed there with the town’s treasurer during her heroic battle where she (successfully) saved the town of Orleans. The house was just a 15 minute video interactive room. The video was pretty cool with statues, tapestry, and walls getting projected on or lit up. No one actually ever drew Joan of Arc while she was in sight. The best drawing of her that there is in the world is just a sketch from a guy who was in Paris while she was in Orleans (it looked like an 8 year old drew it).
                After the museum we went to the cathedral in the center of town. The cathedral had stained glass windows devoted to the life story of Joan of Arc. It was a very well preserved cathedral with cool flags with a different coat of arms on each one lining the main worship space.
                After the church we made our way across the street to Hotel Groslet, a 16th century mansion where a lot of the Mayors of Orleans had an office. Francois the second died there...The building was pretty cool with more Joan of Arc memorabilia and old stuff.
                We made our way over to the Museum of Fine Arts next and saw some art. There were four or five stories of paintings, sculptures, old plates and stuff. Not much to say here…I (Stevie) am not much of an art museum person, but I did have the camera during the museum, so I only took pictures of really funny or awkward pieces of art. I hope you enjoy those pictures!
                Moving from museum to museum, we went to the Museum of Archeology next where we saw an exhibit of Joan of Arc original pieces of art. The museum also had some old terra cotta, metal pots, and statues and stuff.
                After the museum we got a late lunch/early dinner at an American style diner. They did a good job trying to capture the typical American (steak and shake) type menu. This was also one of the only places open because France (a lot like Spain) closes up shop on Sundays.
                After dinner we got our stuff from the hotel then went to a free concert in the Cathedral with the Symphonic Orchestra and Choir of Orleans. We sat near the back but had a great view of the giant front door of the church. There was stage lighting on the sides of the door and columns near the orchestra which changed color for each song according to the mood of the song. It was a very good free concert! I (Stevie) was expecting a dragon to bust thought the front of the church (like in Shrek) because it really looked like something that would be in a movie.
                After the concert we got an aperitif (happy hour cocktail) then made our way to the train back to Paris.

That was pretty much the weekend! Up next weekend: BELGIUM! Chocolate, waffles, a medieval town and Brussels with an old study abroad friend of Stevie’s from Spain who is from the Brussels area!
Chaleureusement (with warm regards),

Stevie and Stuart