a last hurrah

an elaborate farewell would be fitting, but i'm afraid i've lost my creative blogaristic spark since returning to the states. instead, i close this chapter of my life, and subsequently this blog, with nothing more than a whisper and a tear.

hehe, that was super cheesy. or shall i say, très frommage.

cheers. i'll miss you all.

-k.

the top photo of the chateau was taken by james hill, photographer extrodinare.

the hills are alive

(so, i've been home for a few weeks now, but lack of motivation and internet access has kept me from finishing my blog. here's what i wrote for switzerland.)

i can’t help but think of how my friends back at school are killing themselves over finals. me? i spent my final weekend in europe relaxing in the swiss alps. don’t remind me that i’ll be returning to reality in two days.

what a wonderful way to end my time in europe. we left at the crack of dawn on friday morning for a three hour bus ride to lucern, switzerland. when i woke up towards the end of the ride, the alps came into view for the first time. they seem so much more impressive when they’re spotted in snow. i’ve been to switzerland before, four years ago on my people to people trip. but for some reason, i don’t remember being quite as awestruck at the sheer beauty of the swiss landscape as i was this weekend.

we spent a few hours in lucern. first, a guided tour. i think our group is pretty much past their limit on guided tours, because i don’t think anyone was really listening. of course we visited the lion and the covered bridges, as picturesque as ever. we also had time to meander through lucern’s christmas markets. the best thing about visiting local christmas markets is discovering what kind of new tasty treats are special to each area. hands down, the best of these discoveries was in lucern. their special thing is to slice apples, then batter and fry, topped with cinnamon and sugar. it’s delicious because it’s fried, but still not as heart-attack inducing as american fried things, like twinkies. mmm. i had a little trouble with the conversion of euro to swiss franc. first of all, i often forget that i speak not a word of german. at least with french i can understand enough to get my point across. i tried to buy some apple cider from a woman who didn’t speak anything but german. i paid in euro but couldn’t understand her as she tried to explain that my change would be in francs. in the end, i think i ended up making money on the deal because she gave me 29 francs change for my 20 euro note. at least it worked well for me.


anywho, we left lucern for the trip to engelberg. engelberg is a tiny village nestled the mountains, below the 10,000 ft. mt. titlus (hehe, funny name for a mountain). we checked into our hotel, appropriately called the edelweiss. they had scheduled a two-hour walking tour of the city, but it ended up being rather ridiculous because the town was only really two streets. we had dinner at the siu “campus”, fortunately the home base of their culinary program. it was delicious.



this weekend was the official opening of the winter sport season in europe. to go along with the obvious action on the mountain, there’s a huge party in engelburg that we had admission to. we went, we danced, we partied with those crazy germans, oktoberfest style. i love that the germans are happiest when dancing to cheesy wedding-reception music. yes, we danced the cotton eye joe. where did you come from, cotton eye joe?


when leaving the party, we discovered that it had started to snow. already a solid four inches was on the ground, and it didn’t stop until the wee hours of sunday morning. a group of us decided to ride the lifts to the top of mount titlus (hehe). first, i bought a sweet hat. then we hoofed it to the bottom of the mountain. it took four different lifts to reach the summit. the first two were enclosed gondola-style that carry six people. and yes, i could not look out the window, nor let go of the death grip i had on robyn, my fellow fear-of-heighter. the third lift was more of a suspended tram, holding thirty-ish people, all standing. the final lift was pretty crazy; it rotated as it ascended the mountain so, piled in to this thing, standing, with forty other people and their skis and boards, they spun us around. surprisingly i handled it rather well. it was a little disorientating to be moving upwards and lateral at the same time, but not crippling. the top of the mountain (at 10,000 ft) was actually kind of disappointing. sure, it was cool to be on a glacier (the top of the mountain is a glacier.), but it was snowing so much still that visibility was next to nothing. it felt like we had taken the lifts straight into a cloud, but couldn’t get out. and it was frigid outside. there was a restaurant at the top, so i enjoyed a delicious lunch of some sort of wurst and pomme frites. then it was back down the mountain.





by the time we got back, it was time for dinner. we were reunited with the snowboarders of the group and were regaled with stories and adventures of that expedition. after dinner, a group of us made use of the hot tub on the terrace of our hotel. ashley made a joke about jumping into the foot and a half of snow that had accumulated on the deck in our bathing suits, but was taken seriously by yours truly. so we collectively hopped out of the hot tub, frolicked in the snow for a few frigid moments (attempted a snow angel, but ended up looking more like a vaguely katie-shaped snow plop), and then scurried back to the hot tub. invigorating. brisk. unfortunately some pictures were taken during this adventure, but lucky for me, i am perfectly camouflaged in the snow with my pasty winter white skin.



i stayed in saturday night with some other people. there was a piano by the bar. i sat down to play one of the three songs that i know and was handed a book of christmas music. surprisingly, after eight years of not taking lessons, i was the one in the group that had any sort of musical skillz, and ended up playing christmas carols as the others played cards by the fire, with a view of the snow falling on the mountains out the window. lovely.



instead of spending money on new-fangled snow boards and the like, a group of got some cheap thrills by sledding down a dinky hill behind the hotel. it’s quite amusing to watch half a dozen twenty-somethings frolic in the snow like eight year olds, i’m sure. we did this both saturday afternoon and sunday morning, so you know it was good. also, some old fashioned snowball fights took place. as it turns out (which of course i knew before), i am terrible at the offensive side of snowball fights; i cannot hit anyone with a snowball. but apparently i’m pretty easy to hit, because i got destroyed. and these people would not let up.



on sunday, a group of ten decided to go ice skating. despite being a midwesterner, i had actually never been ice skating before. still, i know how to rollerblade, so i was pretty much a natural. i tried to gracefully skate by some people in our group that weren’t skating, and do a trick. but the trick didn’t go as planned so i ended up falling, rather purposefully. and then i did it again and again. those didn’t hurt too bad, but it opened up a pattern because i fell twice more, not on purpose, and jacked up my knee kind of bad. it doesn’t hurt anymore, but i had a sweet bruise.




switzerland was a very laid-back, relaxed weekend, but one of my favorites. it was so beautiful, the perfect way to spend the weekend after finals and our final weekend in europe.

cheerio.
-k

dance in my pants

paris seems like so long ago, perhaps it’s time i update my loyal readers with the latest installment of katie’s travels. (well, it was when i wrote this. but i never got around to posting it because i was busy doing other things. so this is really talking about two weeks ago. a post about switzerland is still to come.) starting the night before thanksgiving, i came down with a nasty bit of some sickness. basically i didn’t leave my room for four days. it happened to be our second open weekend, so i was thankful that i hadn’t gotten around to planning a trip anywhere, because i don’t think i would have made it. my friend karissa was sick at the same time i was, as well as my roommate lisa.

when i finally emerged from my room sometime that week, we decided to head into town for the christmas market. i was impressed. all sorts of merchants set up shops selling various goods, from cookies and candies to gifts to decorations. i think that this outdoor market takes the place of selling holiday goods in regular stores. instead of bringing in special merchandise for the season, starting at halloween, they lump it all into one temporary, self-sustaining christmastravaganza. it’s quite festive.

entrance to christkindelsmarik

i thought i would hear a lot of different christmas carols being played at the market. surprisingly, 95% of the songs played were typical american songs, sung in english.

in the market. i call these "amputrees"

shruti, jessica and i got hungry, and stopped to buy a bretzel from one of the vendors. it was funny how one of the guys spoke english, so he was called over whenever one of us ordered so we could understand. i wanted to tell him that we were used only pointing as a means of communication, but decided against it. i think that this particular venue is used to the idea of tourists coming in who don’t speak that much french. however, i was embarrassed when he asked how long we were saying, and shruti truthfully responded that we had already been here for two and a half months. he made some comment about us not speaking french. it felt like the sizeable crowd around us was all staring, which is not a feeling i enjoy.

on wednesday, petra had organized a swing dance lesson for any who were interested. when the instructor came to the chateau, we realized he did not speak english, a minor detail that petra had left out. no worries, though, because dance is a universal language and we were still able to follow what he was doing. petra also invited some french students she taught at the university. two showed up, as well as some guy from texas that is interning at the american consulate. i had a lot of fun learning the lindy hop, but somehow did not understand the concept of being “led” by my partner. that’s more foreign to me than anything french. hehe.

petra and i, not swing dancing.

petra as my partner

friday night was a katie mays first: i went out in strasbourg. there’s a group that goes out more or less every night of the week, but for some reason i’ve never really been interested in strasbourgian night life. i’m much more content to hang out around the chateau and drink two euro bottles of wine with my friends here. but i figured it was the last weekend i’d be in strasbourg, so i might as well see what i’ve been missing. after class, petra drove four of us to a swanky club where she likes to hang out. somehow i didn’t feel like i fit in the with the well-dressed, late 20-something/ 30-something crowd. eric and i left to meet some other people at murphy’s, the local “irish pub” that has become the second home of several art institute students. all and all, i had a good time. i drank a san miguel and thought of spain. and we listened to the guy with a guitar sing all the hits, from mrs. robinson to american pie.

courtney, eric, me and ashley @ murphy's

on saturday morning, we all boarded the bus again for a day trip to heidelburg. in the past couple months, i have been to a variety of german cities. i think that heidelburg was my favorite. it was pretty small, but was a college town so had a very distinct academic/ collegiate feel. we had a guided tour for an hour before free time. i spent most of the time shopping (mostly for christmas gifts) with shruti. ironically, for our dinner in germany, we were served crepes for the first time.

group pic!

karissa and i take a picture on every bridge we cross.

sunday was another active day at the chateau. bernie organized a group to go repelling down the side of an old tower a few minutes from the chateau. despite my fear of heights, i repelled down a four-story building. after repelling, bernie had set up an activity called the “flying squirrel”. basically a rope is suspended between two trees, about 20 feet in the air. a long rope hangs on a pulley, and one person is strapped inot a harness. the person in the harness is attached to the rope, while the other people hold the other end of the rope. the “squirrel” runs in one direction, while the people pulling the rope run the other way. the end result of these actions is the squirrel being launched into the air. it was awesome. funny, i never thought that i would come to europe and do extreme sports. not that repelling down four stories is extreme, but you get what i’m saying.

four stories, yo.

eric and his spiderman impression

all strapped in.

or maybe you don’t. anywho, this ends my recap of miscellaneous activities from the last couple weeks.

la ti da
-k

done and done

can i just say that i have never experienced a finals week as painless and stress-free as the past four days? i didn't even realize it was that time. in fact, i am done a week before you fools at the art institute in chicago. tomorrow morning we're leaving for switzerland. unfortunately, i don't think i'll be snowboarding, mostly because there is no snow. spending 50 euro to fall down a glacier four times doesn't sound like fun.

anywho, this is something i drew for perspective. it's a picture of the salon rouge in the chateau. not the best, but i was still pleased with the way it turned out. goodnight.

-k.

the most boring entry ever

hmm, so it seems that almost all of my posts on this blog have been about excursions and trips to places other than strasbourg. i think it would be interesting to write a bit about my day-to-day life and the french experience, no? probably mostly pictures though, because i don’t think you want to read five pages about the grocery store.

living at the chateau has limited the amount that i am in strasbourg. first of all, it takes some effort to get into town. it’s a mile-ish walk to the bus stop, then a 15 minute ride to the tram, then a 10 minute ride into town. so it’s sort of hard to leave on a whim. more or less, the day-to-day experiences are much the same as in america. the biggest difference is that here i’m in an isolated bubble of non-communication, where i hope that the seven words of french i know will help me, or at least the years of acting will help me accurately pantomime my intentions. it will be strange to return to a city where i can actually understand what people are saying to each other as they walk down the street. i’ve gotten pretty good at interpreting body language.

my daily routine is pretty monotonous. i wake up at 9:45 and head down to breakfast, which they stop serving at ten. apparently our food offerings are more german than french; bread with honey or jelly, some type of meat, maybe cheese. and they always have cereal. sometimes our other meals are served in the dining room, but other times we walk to the restaurant that’s at the entrance to the grounds and have a meal there. the food is okay, but still i am preparing a list of things i want mom to make for me when i get home.

le breakfast

eating breakfast

walking to the restaurant

le restaurant

anywho, i still go to the grocery store for lots of my meals. our nearest grocery store is a block past the bus stop. it’s called atac. some helpful tips for anyone who might be buying your groceries at a french supermarket: when buying produce, you must weigh it yourself and get a barcode sticker for the bag before you go to check out. failure to do so will result in the cashiers developing quite an unfriendly attitude, as well as holding up the line behind you as the stockboys run to weigh your tomatoes. also, make sure you bring your own bag. they charge for every bag that they give to you, something like 10 cents. or you can buy a reusable bag for a small fee, and then bring it back every time, i bought one which has come in handy, plus i can bring it home with me and use it when i go to dominicks. that’s a capitalist approach to saving the environment. well done, french grocery stores. finally, cashiers at the grocery store (and all stores for that matter), sit down on stools as they work. they do not help you bag up your groceries, and they wear obscene amounts of makeup. all of them; it’s rather scary.

attack atac!

instead of a one-stop walgreens for all personal needs, they still have separate stores. the monoprix is good for buying shampoo, soap, and other toiletries. you have to go to a pharmacy for any sort of medicine, but pharmacies confuse me because i can’t read anything on the labels and they rarely have what i’m looking for. i had a really hard time tracking down a bottle of contact lens solution last week, but i finally found it at a store that sold glasses. i didn’t even think of going there.

i mentioned the transportation system earlier. we have a bus pass that lets us onto any strasbourg public transit. just swipe your card as you board and voila! bon voyage! they have buses and trams. the main tram station in the city center is called “homme de fer”. we ride on tram c, towards esplanade to go home, and elsau to head to the city center. our tram stop is called observetoire.

waiting for the bus

on the bus

le tram

almost forgot about classes. the classroom is across the courtyard, so i basically roll into both of my classes wearing my pajamas and holding a coffee cup. the classroom is standard; fine for my french culture class, but difficult when it comes to drawing during my perspective class. i would have really appreciated a drafting table and parallel bar, but we made it work.

le petra in le classroom

i guess that’s pretty much it for the most boring parts of my life in strasbourg. it’s finals week, so this entry is more for my own procrastination. i’ll be home in eight days.

our christmas tree.

over and out.

-k

sweetly sleeping sweeping of the seine

got back from paris on monday night. apologies for the delay in updating this blog, but it takes a while to get back into the swing of things. plus, i seem to have come down with a bit of the flu, so further apologies if this entry degrades into quasi-delusional ramblings lacking cohesion and sanity. so now i’m hanging out, drinking apfelsaft (applejuice), and trying to ignore my fiery-hot forehead and cold feet.

where was i? paris was wonderful. this was the only city i’ve been to so far that i had previously visited on other european trips. before the trip, i was a little hesitant. i didn’t have the greatest impression of the city from my first visit. however, i’ve since realized that my previous dissatisfaction was probably based more in my culture shock slash jetlag slash juvenility slash stupid sixteen-year-old girl than actual negative vibes towards paris. as i’ve mentioned many times before, i appreciate my independence, especially when it comes to exploring new places and seeing the sights that i am interested in. i was afraid at first that i wouldn’t feel as comfortable on the metro as i did in london because i don’t speak french. as it turns out, navigation is pretty universal and i had absolutely no problems at all. well, with the exception of my metrocard ceasing to work for a time, but that’s hardly the point.



i can’t say that i’ve picked up that much french since being here. but i do think that i absorbed more language in the four days in paris than the rest of my time in strasbourg. if anything, i can now pronounce the names of parisian landmarks with a convincing french accent. so i guess i have that going…

we left the chateau on thursday afternoon for the train ride to paris. it took about four hours on the conventional train. apparently they’re building high speed tracks for this part of western europe, so next summer it will only take two-ish hours to reach paris from strasbourg. that would have been super fun; i’ve always wanted to ride on a high-speed train. maybe they’ll install one from quincy to chicago. or maybe i’ll just come back to europe next summer. dad and dan, i blame you for instilling a geekish fascination with transportation in general and trains in particular. i tried so hard to ignore you. sorry, that’s the fever talking.



at approximately 7:00 we rolled into the gare d’est station in paris. our tour manager, annettee, was waiting with our coach to take us to our hotel. first of all, annette was the best tour manager we’ve had thus far, and that is saying something. she even made mix cds for our time on the bus. i can appreciate that effort. after dropping our things off at the hotel, we went to dinner. normally i wouldn’t mention something as boring as dinner, but it was the most delicious meal i have had in nearly three months. we ate at a lebanese restaurant. hummous and baba ganusch and a whole bunch of other delicious delicious things. mmmm, i’m hungry just thinking about it.

the next morning, we woke up for our customary bus tour of the city. i still think it’s the best way to orientate yourself upon arrival, and quite interesting to boot. plus, then i didn’t feel guilty about not visiting landmarks such as napolean’s tomb or any of the shopping areas, because technically i did see them. after the bus tour, we got lunch. karissa and i grabbed a sandwich somewhere, then ate it on a bridge crossing the seine. as we were enjoying our picnic, some crazy woman started dancing on the bridge. clearly, it was her own style, but i might describe it as a cross between classical ballet, t’ai chi, and something that i might bust out at a party. as we were laughing at this spectacle, a different parisian pastime was happening to our right. we witnessed a fashion shoot in its full glory. the model walked gracefully in her designer suit and too much makeup, as photographers snapped and hairstylists touched up the look. i think we were interfering with their shots, but gosh darn it we were there first.



after lunch, we visited the museé d’orsay to see the impressionist. my favorite part of traveling with a bunch of art students is that our guided tours of museums do not mess around. almost all of us have taken some sort of class in art history, so we can put together a pretty decent context for the works of art that we visit. we can ask substantial questions, and also shown the less-appreciated works of art that sometimes get overlooked. plus, we would probably rather spend more time at these museums than visiting tourist traps such as the moulin rouge.




after the museé, we had free time to do as we wished. a group of us walked down the seine to visit notre dame. i was amazed (again) by notre dame. cathedrals across europe all seem to blend together sometimes, but i can’t get over how impressive notre dame is. my only regret is we arrived too late to climb to the top, which is something that i really wanted to do. hmm, perhaps a reason to return to paris.




friday night was really fun. a group of us got our cameras and decided to visit monuments at night so we could take pictures. i got a few cool shots of the eiffel tower, but then my battery died and i was pretty much out of luck. oh, you should really visit my friend james’ blog. he takes amazing pictures which put mine to shame. here’s the address: http://web.mac.com/thirdjh





saturday morning we had a visit at sacre coeur. this cathedral i think is quite mystical. perched high above paris on a hill, its brilliant white domes look stunning contrasted to the bright blue sky. it doesn’t seem like a catholic church, but would fit in much better somewhere in india or something. we had an introduction and brief lecture of the history of the cathedral from a benedictine nun. i think most of the group slept through what she had to say, but i was quite interested. the cathedral was build as a symbol of paris pulling itself out of the sinful life it was living. it took many years and great sacrifice, but sacre coeur is a testament to the spirit and faith of many parisians.




we wandered around montmartre for a while, then had dinner at a hilarious “french interpretation of american culture” theme restaurant. it was called buffalo bill’s or something like that, and filled its décor and menu with references to cowboys and the wild west. i had some delicious onion rings.



i think if i had come to paris expecting a stereotypical experience, filled with romantic strolls through the streets and sketching over a cup of coffee in a café, i would have been disappointed. instead, i visited all sorts of museums and wasn’t afraid of tainting my parisian experience by eating at such cheese-fests as buffalo bill’s café.

my new-found streak of exploring random parts of the city in search of obscure attractions remained unbroken. saturday afternoon, jessica and i went in search of architecture by le corbusier. we’re making a presentation on him for our french culture and civilization class, so we took this opportunity to do some firsthand research and field trips. it wasn’t as hard to find as the temple in london or as random as the pub in dublin, but still it was an adventure. we found it eventually, toured the villa, took lots of great pictures and did some excellent research.



saturday night was our visit to the top of le tour eiffel. standing in line, i felt a tinge of nervousness within me. ok, more than a tinge. for a moment i considered not venturing to the top for fear that my newfound aversion to heights would prevent me from maintaining consciousness or provoke another panic attack. but then i thought of you, my faithful blog readers, who so enjoyed reading about my experience on the london eye. if anything, i could rename my blog “katie mays has panic attacks on top of famous european monuments of great heights”. still, i ventured upward. as it turns out, i was fine. there was a touch of nervousness as i got close to the edge, but overall i was completely able to handle it.

sunday was our visit to versailles. i was interested in going back to versaille because we studied this castle extensively in my architectural history class. but i ended up being pretty apathetic to the whole situation, perhaps due to my total exhaustion and crummy weather. adding to my disgust were the throngs of asian tourists who had absolutely no manners or tact. they would literally bowl you over in order to snap a picture in front of something famous. and they would take pictures of each other, completely expressionless. they didn’t seem to care about what they were looking at, but instead wanted proof that they were there. quite an extreme cultural difference. i guess if you stepped back it was pretty amusing. i even took a picture or two in their style.



i was most interested in seeing the gardens of versailles. but it was cold and rainy, and i was tired. when we walked outside i spotted some golf carts that were for rent. what could be a more perfect solution to my hesitations of exploring? jessica, shruti, karissa and i got really pumped for renting the cart. however, our dreams were shattered when the lady informed us that a 150 euro deposit was necessary for people under 25, and they didn’t accept credit cards. honestly, 25 is the new 21. you still can’t do anything cool until you’re over 25.



so we went back to paris, completely exhausted. we ended up taking a nap for most of the afternoon, but then went to the latin quarter for dinner. mmm, mexican food. after dinner we walked around a bit, and stopped in a bar/club for a drink. when i got back to the hotel, i turned on cnn international for the greatest surprise of the trip: the daily show with jon stewart! broadcast for some reason on cnn. now that i got my fix, i could stay here another three months. kidding, mom!

monday morning we went to the louvre. it was amazing, as you might expect. saw the mona lisa and venus de milo, as is required. it’s hard to grasp the idea that so many masterpieces of art are under one roof. also, it’s impossible to understand how enormous the museum actually is. there’s some statistic that observing every artwork in the louvre for 5 seconds would still take a really long time to complete. hmm, that statistic might be impressive if i actually tried to find what it said, instead of hinting at something cool. once again at the louvre, asian tourists were all over. our tour guide actually yelled at a couple of them, which was pretty amusing.

:



monday afternoon was our train ride back to strasbourg. i had a great time in paris, but still really want to go back. even riding on the bus to the train station, i looked out the window and saw all sorts of places that i didn’t get to visit but really want to go to. paris, i’ll be back.

in other news, i’m completely addicted to the new damien rice cd. i encourage any and all to download it immediately. i only have three more weeks left in europe. eeek! back to the real world. finally, tomorrow is thanksgiving. i have class in the morning. we’re having a “traditional american thanksgiving dinner”, but i can’t imagine what we’ll actually be served. if it’s funny, i’ll write about it.

over and out.
-kate