Nederland!

As my last big trip (and by big, I mean overnight), I visited my friend Michelle in the Netherlands!  She studies as an international student in Utrecht, which is the 4th largest city in the country...which doesn't really say much.  I took the ICE to Utrecht and it was so pretty riding through northern Germany during the first snow of the season!  When I arrived in Utrecht, I took the bus on my own to Michelle's campus and we had some lunch before heading to Amsterdam for the afternoon!  Amsterdam was really cool with all the canals and whatnot, but it was SO cold!  I got some really delicious Dutch pancake thing covered in butter and powdered sugar called poffertjes!  Then we got some pizza for dinner and headed back to Utrecht.  I know, LAME, but it was so freezing!  That night we went to an awesome party on her campus with free drinks and 4 rooms of dancing!  Because of that, we may have slept in until 11 the next day (that's really late for me, but I guess it's not actually late for a Saturday)!  We walked through the countryside and saw some sheep and farms!  That was cool, but once again freezing and I couldn't even think!  We got some lunch and then toured downtown Utrecht for a bit, which was really cool...and cold!  It was pretty much like a mini-Amsterdam :]  It was rather interesting to visit during the Christmas season, since the Dutch kind of invented Santa Claus; however their traditions are WAY different!  Sinterklaas, as he is called, comes to the Netherlands every Christmas on a steamboat from Spain with his little African slaves called Zwarte Pieten (Black Peters).  He gives good children presents and the bad children get thrown into burlap sacks and get kidnapped back to Spain by the Zwarte Pieten.  It's somewhat scarier than our American traditions.  Also during this time, there are people dressed up as Zwarte Pieten who run around the cities with sacks of candy that they just throw everywhere.  It's rather racist though (and incredibly frightening) to have Dutch people in full blackface running around in public!  Anyhow, we went to a cafe and talked for a while and then walked back to campus, where we had dinner with Michelle's roommates, who were all really cool.  Then we just crashed on the couches and watched Ratatouille on on the English TV channel since it was too cold and tiring to do anything else.  So basically, I didn't do too much in the Netherlands, but it was still fun to see and experience the culture, if only for a little while!

De Dam - the main square in Amsterdam

A typical canal in Amsterdam!

The streets of Utrecht!

Sheep!

Everything was so pretty...and flat!

I loved the little Dutch gables (not to be confused with a Dutch Gable, which looks rather different)!

The Dom Tower in Utrecht!

A canal in Utrecht!

Zwarte Pieten were everywhere...even if they had absolutely nothing to do with the display!

PARIS!

When I found out I was going to be studying in Germany, I knew one place that I was definitely going to visit:  PARIS!  It took a while to actually find the time to fit the trip into my schedule, but my friend Krista and I traveled there from November 12-14!  The train ride from Heidelberg lasted only 3 and a half hours!  How amazing is that?  We left early in the morning, slept on the train, and arrived in Paris Gare de l'Est at around 10:45am!  We immediately locked up our bags at the train station and took another train to Versailles, the 17th century palace of the French royal family!  It was incredible!  Everything everywhere was just ornate and over the top, but it was still beautiful without being gaudy.  My favorite room was definitely the hall of mirrors, in which we spent a half an hour or so!  The gardens were unfortunately not in season, so I would definitely love to go back in the summer or something since they are massive and worth seeing at their peak!  When we got back to Paris later that day, we got our stuff and headed to the 11th arrondissement to our ho(s)tel...which was interesting.  It was definitely not the plush accommodations I've associated with Paris, but it was good enough for the price, I suppose!  We had dinner in the 10th arrondissement and I had escargot and duck in honey sauce!  It was incredibly delicious!!!  Probably one of the best meals I've had in Europe!  Then we walked to the Seine and I had my first view of the Eiffel Tower!  We walked to Notre-Dame and enjoyed the city lit up by night before taking the metro back to our ho(s)tel.

On Saturday, we got up bright and early at 9am and headed to the Louvre!  We had planned to spend 3 hours there, but we were there for 4 - and even that was not enough time!  We saw so much!  From Greek and medieval European sculpture to Italian, French and Spanish paintings to Mesopotamian and Egyptian artifacts!  It was pretty amazing!  I of course made my way around to the famous must-sees, like the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo and Code of Hammurabi, but I think I found more pleasure in discovering paintings and works I had never seen before!  There is so much beautiful art that is not "famous" but should be!  I really enjoyed myself there, though I was a bit weary after walking around there for so long.  After grabbing lunch, we headed to Notre-Dame!  The interior was nice, but definitely not the best cathedral I've been to (if that doesn't sound too snobby!).  I really wanted to climb up to the bell tower and look for Quasimodo and his gargoyle pals, but it was raining and late and the line was SO long.  So that will have to wait, I suppose :/  Instead we decided to walk along the Seine, which was rather cold and windy actually!  We then continued through the Jardin des Tuileries and Place de la Concorde before heading down the famed Champs-Elysees!  It really reminded me of Michigan Avenue in Chicago with all of the stores and people out and about, but at this point the weather had really taken a turn for the worse with strong winds and rain.  The Champs-Elysees ended at the Arc de Triomphe, which was cool to see all lit up with all the traffic in front of it.  I oddly found the Parisian traffic to be charming - I know, that makes absolutely NO sense!  After another delicious dinner not far from the Eiffel Tower, we finally we made our way over to see it!  It was simply magnificent!  Seeing the tower lit up for the night was so incredible that it made me forget about all the frustrations with the weather and whatnot.  It easily became my favorite thing in Paris (aside from the duck in honey sauce!).  To end the fun day, we went to a bar not far from our ho(s)tel!

On Sunday morning, we awoke at 9am again, checked out of the ho(s)tel -thankfully - and locked up our bags at the train station again.  We then took the metro to Sacre Coeur, the hilltop cathedral in Montmartre.  It was really nice, but again...just another cathedral at this point!  It actually was pretty cool since we were there during mass!  I was shocked that tourists were just allowed to walk around the cathedral during mass, but it was very cool to admire the inside while listening to nuns and the congregation singing in French!  It was a unique experience!!  Afterwards, Krista and I went our separate ways.  I really wanted to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower (obviously, I mean who wouldn't? ...besides Krista...) and Krista went to the Musee d'Orsay to see the impressionist art.  The Eiffel Tower was just as incredible by day as it was by night!  I walked up the steps to the 2nd floor (670 steps) and then took the elevator all the way up to the top!  The view from the top was not good due to the intense wind, rain and clouds, but the 360 degree views from the other floors were perfect!  I could see everything!  It was definitely worth it and was an experience I will always remember!  I then bought a crepe (just because I felt like I should) and walked along the Seine.  Crepes on the Seine...what a surreal moment for me!  It's then that it actually sunk in that I was in Paris and the dream was a reality!  I pretty much walked from the Eiffel Tower to the Musee d'Orsay, stopping at interesting things along the way, like the beautiful Pont Alexandre III and Place de la Concorde, where I saw where Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were beheaded by guillotine in 1793!  Krista and I met up at the museum and then walked to Montparnasse, an artsy southern neighborhood of Paris.  We visited the famous cemetery, which was cool to see all the old gravestones and rusting mausoleums!  Unfortunately the catacombs were closed, so we ended up just walking around the area, stopping for macaroons and whatnot before finally heading back to the train station to catch our train at 7pm, which ended up being delayed and hour!!!

Overall, Paris was a great city.  The weather really kind of ruined it for me while I was there, but looking back on it, I saw and experienced so much in so little time and I'm really grateful for those experiences.  There's just SO much that was still left unexperienced there!

Palace of Versailles!

Hall of Mirrors

Gardens of Versialles!

Louvre

Mona Lisa - not THAT great!

Murillo - a new favorite Spanish painter!

I love portraits!

Catedrale de Notre-Dame

Rose window in Notre-Dame

Walking down Champs-Elysees in the rain!

Le Tour Eiffel :]

It sparkles for 5 minutes every hour!

Sacre Coeur!

The famous Parisian Metro stops!

Still gorgeous by day!

View of Paris from the 2nd floor of the Eiffel Tower!

My beloved tower and Pont Alexandre III

A look down the Champs-Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe!  Isn't that traffic lovely? ...seriously!

Place de le Concorde - former site of revolutionary bloodbaths!

Trees along the Seine

Getting artsy in Montparnasse...how fitting...

Gare de l'Est - the cool train station!