Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
I haven't traveled in a while, so I haven't written anything in a while either. Just wanted to write a little
I went with John yesterday to find a park his family found when they were here in Nantes earlier this summer. It was a really sweet park. And it was in an area of Nantes I've never been in. It made me realize how little of Nantes I actually know. Even though I lived here for 4 months, I still don't know my way around most of Nantes. I know where the trams take you, but there's so much more to see in Nantes, away from the tram lines. The park was on the island on the river, all the way on one end. The island seemed to have a lot of commercial buildings and office space where a lot of people seemed to work. Then as your walking towards one end, all of a sudden there is a park. The park is really nice and large. It has large open spaces to throw frisbee, play soccer and whatever you want to do. It also has some cool playground stuff like a small zipline, so it's even fun for college kids to play on. Hopefully I can go back there next weekn in the 2 days I have before my last final and when I leave for home.
Also on Sunday I went with David (a french guy I hang out with on the weekends) and we went over to Cecil's (french girl) apartment. It was great because I was the only native English speaker there (even though everyone there spoke quite a bit of English). I really wish I could stay here longer because I'm just now starting to hang out with the French more. I'm excited to go home but it would be nice to become better friends with the people here. I'll miss them.
I went with John yesterday to find a park his family found when they were here in Nantes earlier this summer. It was a really sweet park. And it was in an area of Nantes I've never been in. It made me realize how little of Nantes I actually know. Even though I lived here for 4 months, I still don't know my way around most of Nantes. I know where the trams take you, but there's so much more to see in Nantes, away from the tram lines. The park was on the island on the river, all the way on one end. The island seemed to have a lot of commercial buildings and office space where a lot of people seemed to work. Then as your walking towards one end, all of a sudden there is a park. The park is really nice and large. It has large open spaces to throw frisbee, play soccer and whatever you want to do. It also has some cool playground stuff like a small zipline, so it's even fun for college kids to play on. Hopefully I can go back there next weekn in the 2 days I have before my last final and when I leave for home.
Also on Sunday I went with David (a french guy I hang out with on the weekends) and we went over to Cecil's (french girl) apartment. It was great because I was the only native English speaker there (even though everyone there spoke quite a bit of English). I really wish I could stay here longer because I'm just now starting to hang out with the French more. I'm excited to go home but it would be nice to become better friends with the people here. I'll miss them.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Thanksgiving Break
Warning, the following post is real long.
So here's the recap of my Thanksgiving Break. The trip went through Venice, Florence, Rome, Sicily, and London. The group members were myself, John Easlea, Dan Huber, Alex Burkhardt, Shaun Yasaki, Lizzie Falknor, and Barbara Denlinger.
To start off break, SNCF, the French rail organization was on strike the week we left. This was a problem because we were counting on a train to get to Paris for our flight from there to Venice. Our flight was on Friday the 16th but we just needed to make it to Paris sometime for the flight, so we went to the train station on Thursday... and yada yada.... turns out we could go on Friday morning so that's what we did. After finally arriving in Venice and ridding ourselves of French socialistic idiocy, here's what happened:
Venice - wow what a beautiful city
Friday: after our flight arrived late in the evening, we bused into the heart of Venice: the island. We met up with our landlord for the next 2 nights. Let me tell you what, our accommodations in Venice were phenomenal. I'm sure they beat out any one else's in our entire group here in Nantes for the whole semester. We rented an apartment, and it was cool to get to 'talk' to the landlord, a real Venician as we checked in. I say 'talk' because he only spoke Italian and none of us did. That's probably why it was so fun. So after he left, we took a short walk around Venice at night to get ourselves acquainted with the city a little bit before we went to bed. Of course we were able to find an open Kebab place. Kebabs = greatness. After getting a bite, we headed back to the apartment and slept.
Saturday: Dan got up early in search of eggs for breakfast. When he finally returned, he let us know how easy it is to get lost in Venice. It's quite true. Walking in Venice makes you feel like a lab rat walking in a maze. There are no roads, just alleys in between buildings, so it's often hard to tell where you are at all. He also said he saw a house fire while he was lost, walking around. Anyways he returned, and we cooked eggs. A much better breakfast than the usual piece of bread hostels usually call breakfast. After breakfast, we made our way over to Saint Marco's Piazza (St Marks Sq) which is the main tourist area of Venice. There's a large, beautiful church there and a palace beside it with a large, open piazza beside them, which is rare in Venice. Most of Venice is houses, alleys, and of course canals. We walked around Venice all day, which is the best thing to do in Venice. It's a great city to get lost in because you can't get very lost on an island. We eventually made our way back to our apartment, and cooked pasta for dinner. After dinner we headed towards the start of the Grand Canal, the main canal, and hopped on a public transport boat for our night cruise. We could have taken an gondola ride, but public transport is just a bit cheaper :) After a beautiful night cruise, we headed back once again, chilled, and went to bed.
Grand Canal with gondolas
Our night cruise
St Marks Square at night
Florence - another beautiful city, not as beautiful as Venice though
Sunday: we took a train to Florence. Funny story: as we were getting off the train, there was a Canadian group of people about our age that were planning on going to Florence too. They were really loud and obnoxious. When we pulled in to Florence (Firenze in Italian) and one girl said, "we should be there by now". They were debating whether this was Florence or not, before they could see the city sign. When they saw Firenze, the one girl said, "See! I told you this wasn't Florence. There's not even a L in the name!" We just chuckled and headed towards our hostel. This place turned out to be another apartment, but without a kitchen. Regardless, it was still pretty nice. We first walked a little bit to get oriented with the city a little. After a little debating, we went into the Uffizi gallery, Florence's best art gallery. It was pretty nice, but I wasn't terribly impressed. As time wound into the night, we went to a lookout point where we could see the whole city at night. Florence is a really beautiful city. Then we went back to our room, and traded a round of backrubs, to help with the pain of carrying backpacks.
Monday: we first went to Duomo Cathedral, my favorite cathedral so far, and I've seen a few. Pictures really can't show how beautiful it is. We went up to the top of the dome, and saw yet another great view of Florence, this time in the day. It was cool to see all the red roofs of the houses. We ran into a few guys from our GCC group who were doing a similar trip through Italy. We decided to meet up later for dinner at our place. After splitting up and seeing another church, Brancacci chapel, we met up and had takeout for dinner. We chilled, relaxed and rested up for the next day.
Tuesday: We kind of wandered around a bit in the morning, just seeing some parts of the city not yet explored, then went to the train station for our train to Rome..
Duomo Cathedral
Florence at night
River running through Florence
Rome - a relatively old city
Tuesday: after getting to our amazing 10euro/night hostel (with included breakfast and dinner) we walked around Rome a bit, even though everything was already closed. We saw the Coliseum and the Pantheon. We got to the Pantheon before it closed, and got to see the amazingness of Roman architecture there. We walked around quite a bit more, saw a few fountains, and walked all the way to the Vatican to meet up with Shaun's friend. Turns out she couldn't come, so we ate dinner, had some gelato (simply amazing) and walked back to sleep.
Wednesday: we got up early to head to the Vatican, this time going into the Vatican Museum. We didn't walk though, cause it's quite a long walk :) The museum is just phenomenal. It has a great blend of history with art together. I saw a mummy, lots of other Egyptian artifacts, Greek sculptures, tapestries and many other things. Then the end of the museum culminated into the Sistine Chapel, probably Michaelangelo's greatest work. It was mindblowing how much he had to paint, and just how good it looked. We then sneaked out into a side exit to go into St Peters, the largest church in the world, by far. It is just super massive. The church itself is 6 acres, and has the largest dome in the world on top. It's pretty humorous that they have markers on the floor just to show where other churches would come to if you were to put them inside the chapel. After leaving, we headed to get more gelato. Me, John and Dan went together and bought a kg of it, cause you gotta go big, or go home. So we went big. If you're ever go to the Vatican, to go Old Bridge Gelateria. They load it on. We were completely satisfied, although I don't know if it's possible to ever not want more gelato. We bused back to the Coleseum to see it in the daylight, and half went inside, while I went with the other half to the Roman Forum. This is the area right next to the Coliseum where they are excavating ancient areas of Rome. It's neat to see remnants of ancient buildings, and some that are still partially standing. We then went back to the hostel for our free dinner. Afterwards me, Dan, and Lizzie went to a lookout point to see all of Rome at night. It wasn't as good of a view as Florence, but it was a nice relaxing activity to do. It's a lot harder to find everything in the Roman skyline, because Rome is just massive in comparison to Florence. We went back to the Old Bridge, because we were "in the area" :)
The Coliseum
St Peters, largest church in the world
Our kilo of gelato
Sicily - wow
Thursday: The next day we left for Palermo, Sicily. This was probably the longest day of the whole trip, considering the train ride was over 12 hours. Our train actually went onto a ferry to cross from Italy to Sicily. We were on the train all 12 hours. That was a long time. When we finally got off our train and bused to our hostel, we were pleasantly surprised with the amazingness of it. It was right on the Mediterranean, and was a super hostel. We went to sleep from exhaustion..
Friday: we woke up and were amazed at our view. In front of us was the Mediterranean and all around us were small mountains that cam up almost straight from the coast. It was yet another beautiful place. It's really hard to describe without pictures. So look below. The guys needed to get some hiking done, so that's what we did. It was quite an experience, considering it was part rock climbing, part hiking. Luckily, none of us died. We even got to see a wild board come storming down the other side of the hill and disappear around the corner. I got a video of it. We then went back to the hostel to meet up with the girls. We went out for Sicilian pizza, good and real cheap. Then we played cards by the ocean for a while, got invaded by a 6 year old Sicilian boy selling roses, and ended up playing a round of cards with us. The guys then headed to our caampground, the girls back to the hostel.
Saturday: we went to the beach. This is November 24th. After Thanksgiving, and we were at the beach. It was probably close to 70 degrees too. John actually swam. The water is so incredibly blue. So much bluer that I've ever seen. We chilled, walked around to some shops, then bused back to the airport to head to London.
The view from the hostel
A view from our hike
Look at how blue the water and sky are
London - a lot nicer than I thought it would be
Saturday: we flew into the airport around 11pm and we slept in the airport. It would have been too much of a pain to get to a hostel from Stansted, a 1.5 hr ride fron the city, so we just slept there. It was the worst night of the trip, but it wasn't too bad.
Sunday: We left at 8 for our hostel. After checking in, we started exploring the city. We first walked by Buckingham Palace, at the time of the changing of the guards. This was a mistake, there were people everywhere. We didn't even want to see the changing of the guards, but we ended up weaving our way through crowds and crowds of people go get through. We were heading to Mr Wu's Chinese buffet. I heard about Mr Wu's from talking to a guy in line for the airplane boarding. An all you can eat buffet for only 5 pounds. That's expensive, but not for London standards at all. It was a grand decision. I was full. We then walked around and saw all the major sights: the London Eye, Westminster Abbey, Parliament and Big Ben. It was hilarious to listen in on other people's conversations in other languages. They'd be rambling on and on, me of course not understanding anything, but then I'd hear "Beeg Ben" in the sentence. We walked by the sights, then headed to the hostel to regroup. After talking we decided we all had different ideas on what to do so we split up, I headed out on my own. I first went to Westminster Abbey for a free Organ recital, which was very, very good. It got me into the Abbey, which is otherwise closed on Sundays, plus there was great music. I then headed to the London Eye. I turned out to be the only person from our group that went on it, but I'm real glad I did. London was yet another great city to see at night. I headed up the river a bit to see St Paul's Cathedral from the outside, ended up chatting with a hobo, then started back towards the Hostel. I changed my path to see a few more sights on the way back, but eventually made it back. We played cards again before bed.
Monday: last day of the trip. We got up and had a pretty good breakfast, by hostel standards. Then we walked around a bit more and headed back to the bus station to head to the airport to head back home. And here I sit, tired, sore, ready for bed, ready to recover from the trip, and not a bit ready for schoolwork...
The London Eye
The London Eye at night
Parliament and Big Ben from the Eye
So here's the recap of my Thanksgiving Break. The trip went through Venice, Florence, Rome, Sicily, and London. The group members were myself, John Easlea, Dan Huber, Alex Burkhardt, Shaun Yasaki, Lizzie Falknor, and Barbara Denlinger.
To start off break, SNCF, the French rail organization was on strike the week we left. This was a problem because we were counting on a train to get to Paris for our flight from there to Venice. Our flight was on Friday the 16th but we just needed to make it to Paris sometime for the flight, so we went to the train station on Thursday... and yada yada.... turns out we could go on Friday morning so that's what we did. After finally arriving in Venice and ridding ourselves of French socialistic idiocy, here's what happened:
Venice - wow what a beautiful city
Friday: after our flight arrived late in the evening, we bused into the heart of Venice: the island. We met up with our landlord for the next 2 nights. Let me tell you what, our accommodations in Venice were phenomenal. I'm sure they beat out any one else's in our entire group here in Nantes for the whole semester. We rented an apartment, and it was cool to get to 'talk' to the landlord, a real Venician as we checked in. I say 'talk' because he only spoke Italian and none of us did. That's probably why it was so fun. So after he left, we took a short walk around Venice at night to get ourselves acquainted with the city a little bit before we went to bed. Of course we were able to find an open Kebab place. Kebabs = greatness. After getting a bite, we headed back to the apartment and slept.
Saturday: Dan got up early in search of eggs for breakfast. When he finally returned, he let us know how easy it is to get lost in Venice. It's quite true. Walking in Venice makes you feel like a lab rat walking in a maze. There are no roads, just alleys in between buildings, so it's often hard to tell where you are at all. He also said he saw a house fire while he was lost, walking around. Anyways he returned, and we cooked eggs. A much better breakfast than the usual piece of bread hostels usually call breakfast. After breakfast, we made our way over to Saint Marco's Piazza (St Marks Sq) which is the main tourist area of Venice. There's a large, beautiful church there and a palace beside it with a large, open piazza beside them, which is rare in Venice. Most of Venice is houses, alleys, and of course canals. We walked around Venice all day, which is the best thing to do in Venice. It's a great city to get lost in because you can't get very lost on an island. We eventually made our way back to our apartment, and cooked pasta for dinner. After dinner we headed towards the start of the Grand Canal, the main canal, and hopped on a public transport boat for our night cruise. We could have taken an gondola ride, but public transport is just a bit cheaper :) After a beautiful night cruise, we headed back once again, chilled, and went to bed.
Grand Canal with gondolas
Our night cruise
St Marks Square at night
Florence - another beautiful city, not as beautiful as Venice though
Sunday: we took a train to Florence. Funny story: as we were getting off the train, there was a Canadian group of people about our age that were planning on going to Florence too. They were really loud and obnoxious. When we pulled in to Florence (Firenze in Italian) and one girl said, "we should be there by now". They were debating whether this was Florence or not, before they could see the city sign. When they saw Firenze, the one girl said, "See! I told you this wasn't Florence. There's not even a L in the name!" We just chuckled and headed towards our hostel. This place turned out to be another apartment, but without a kitchen. Regardless, it was still pretty nice. We first walked a little bit to get oriented with the city a little. After a little debating, we went into the Uffizi gallery, Florence's best art gallery. It was pretty nice, but I wasn't terribly impressed. As time wound into the night, we went to a lookout point where we could see the whole city at night. Florence is a really beautiful city. Then we went back to our room, and traded a round of backrubs, to help with the pain of carrying backpacks.
Monday: we first went to Duomo Cathedral, my favorite cathedral so far, and I've seen a few. Pictures really can't show how beautiful it is. We went up to the top of the dome, and saw yet another great view of Florence, this time in the day. It was cool to see all the red roofs of the houses. We ran into a few guys from our GCC group who were doing a similar trip through Italy. We decided to meet up later for dinner at our place. After splitting up and seeing another church, Brancacci chapel, we met up and had takeout for dinner. We chilled, relaxed and rested up for the next day.
Tuesday: We kind of wandered around a bit in the morning, just seeing some parts of the city not yet explored, then went to the train station for our train to Rome..
Duomo Cathedral
Florence at night
River running through Florence
Rome - a relatively old city
Tuesday: after getting to our amazing 10euro/night hostel (with included breakfast and dinner) we walked around Rome a bit, even though everything was already closed. We saw the Coliseum and the Pantheon. We got to the Pantheon before it closed, and got to see the amazingness of Roman architecture there. We walked around quite a bit more, saw a few fountains, and walked all the way to the Vatican to meet up with Shaun's friend. Turns out she couldn't come, so we ate dinner, had some gelato (simply amazing) and walked back to sleep.
Wednesday: we got up early to head to the Vatican, this time going into the Vatican Museum. We didn't walk though, cause it's quite a long walk :) The museum is just phenomenal. It has a great blend of history with art together. I saw a mummy, lots of other Egyptian artifacts, Greek sculptures, tapestries and many other things. Then the end of the museum culminated into the Sistine Chapel, probably Michaelangelo's greatest work. It was mindblowing how much he had to paint, and just how good it looked. We then sneaked out into a side exit to go into St Peters, the largest church in the world, by far. It is just super massive. The church itself is 6 acres, and has the largest dome in the world on top. It's pretty humorous that they have markers on the floor just to show where other churches would come to if you were to put them inside the chapel. After leaving, we headed to get more gelato. Me, John and Dan went together and bought a kg of it, cause you gotta go big, or go home. So we went big. If you're ever go to the Vatican, to go Old Bridge Gelateria. They load it on. We were completely satisfied, although I don't know if it's possible to ever not want more gelato. We bused back to the Coleseum to see it in the daylight, and half went inside, while I went with the other half to the Roman Forum. This is the area right next to the Coliseum where they are excavating ancient areas of Rome. It's neat to see remnants of ancient buildings, and some that are still partially standing. We then went back to the hostel for our free dinner. Afterwards me, Dan, and Lizzie went to a lookout point to see all of Rome at night. It wasn't as good of a view as Florence, but it was a nice relaxing activity to do. It's a lot harder to find everything in the Roman skyline, because Rome is just massive in comparison to Florence. We went back to the Old Bridge, because we were "in the area" :)
The Coliseum
St Peters, largest church in the world
Our kilo of gelato
Sicily - wow
Thursday: The next day we left for Palermo, Sicily. This was probably the longest day of the whole trip, considering the train ride was over 12 hours. Our train actually went onto a ferry to cross from Italy to Sicily. We were on the train all 12 hours. That was a long time. When we finally got off our train and bused to our hostel, we were pleasantly surprised with the amazingness of it. It was right on the Mediterranean, and was a super hostel. We went to sleep from exhaustion..
Friday: we woke up and were amazed at our view. In front of us was the Mediterranean and all around us were small mountains that cam up almost straight from the coast. It was yet another beautiful place. It's really hard to describe without pictures. So look below. The guys needed to get some hiking done, so that's what we did. It was quite an experience, considering it was part rock climbing, part hiking. Luckily, none of us died. We even got to see a wild board come storming down the other side of the hill and disappear around the corner. I got a video of it. We then went back to the hostel to meet up with the girls. We went out for Sicilian pizza, good and real cheap. Then we played cards by the ocean for a while, got invaded by a 6 year old Sicilian boy selling roses, and ended up playing a round of cards with us. The guys then headed to our caampground, the girls back to the hostel.
Saturday: we went to the beach. This is November 24th. After Thanksgiving, and we were at the beach. It was probably close to 70 degrees too. John actually swam. The water is so incredibly blue. So much bluer that I've ever seen. We chilled, walked around to some shops, then bused back to the airport to head to London.
The view from the hostel
A view from our hike
Look at how blue the water and sky are
London - a lot nicer than I thought it would be
Saturday: we flew into the airport around 11pm and we slept in the airport. It would have been too much of a pain to get to a hostel from Stansted, a 1.5 hr ride fron the city, so we just slept there. It was the worst night of the trip, but it wasn't too bad.
Sunday: We left at 8 for our hostel. After checking in, we started exploring the city. We first walked by Buckingham Palace, at the time of the changing of the guards. This was a mistake, there were people everywhere. We didn't even want to see the changing of the guards, but we ended up weaving our way through crowds and crowds of people go get through. We were heading to Mr Wu's Chinese buffet. I heard about Mr Wu's from talking to a guy in line for the airplane boarding. An all you can eat buffet for only 5 pounds. That's expensive, but not for London standards at all. It was a grand decision. I was full. We then walked around and saw all the major sights: the London Eye, Westminster Abbey, Parliament and Big Ben. It was hilarious to listen in on other people's conversations in other languages. They'd be rambling on and on, me of course not understanding anything, but then I'd hear "Beeg Ben" in the sentence. We walked by the sights, then headed to the hostel to regroup. After talking we decided we all had different ideas on what to do so we split up, I headed out on my own. I first went to Westminster Abbey for a free Organ recital, which was very, very good. It got me into the Abbey, which is otherwise closed on Sundays, plus there was great music. I then headed to the London Eye. I turned out to be the only person from our group that went on it, but I'm real glad I did. London was yet another great city to see at night. I headed up the river a bit to see St Paul's Cathedral from the outside, ended up chatting with a hobo, then started back towards the Hostel. I changed my path to see a few more sights on the way back, but eventually made it back. We played cards again before bed.
Monday: last day of the trip. We got up and had a pretty good breakfast, by hostel standards. Then we walked around a bit more and headed back to the bus station to head to the airport to head back home. And here I sit, tired, sore, ready for bed, ready to recover from the trip, and not a bit ready for schoolwork...
The London Eye
The London Eye at night
Parliament and Big Ben from the Eye
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Valencia
This past weekend I went to Valencia, Spain with John Easlea, Shaun Yasaki, Nate Rodda, Barbara Denlinger, and Lizzie Falknor. We flew out of Paris, and took a train to Paris on Friday morning. The time schedule was really close, leaving around 10 minutes to get from the tram to the train. So if anything went wrong, we were probably not going to make the train. On the tram ride towards the train station, the tram seemed to not be working right because it was accelerating really slow, but it turns out the guy was probably just taking his time because we were a little ahead of schedule. In the end we got to Valencia just fine.
Friday: 5am: leave the house towards the tram to catch a 6am train to Paris. 10:35 : flight leaves Paris and we land in Valencia shortly after noon. We check into our hostel and start walking around, looking for food. We happened upon a kebab place, which is a great meal option in Europe, only costing 5.50 or so. After eating we walked around Valencia and tried to familiarize ourself with the city by just randomly walking around. All in all, the areas to hang out in Valencia for tourists is pretty small, which is nice. Back in the 50's there was a flood that ruined a lot of the city, so they diverted the river around the city. Afterwards all kinds of plan life sprung up on the the fertile former riverbed. Now there is a park all the way through the city with soccer fields and gardens throughout, which is super cool. It's nice for tourists to navigate with that as a point of familiarity throughout the city. We found the soccer stadium and bought some tickets off of scalpers for the following day's game against Murcia. The tickets turned out to be in the visitors section, but they were pretty good seats. Then we found a restaurant with paella, the traditional Valencian dish. It's cooked in a large frying pan and consists of rice, and whatever meats and vegetables you decide to put in it. It's a great tasting meal. We walked around some more then went back to the hostel for sleep.
Saturday: after a short vending machine breakfast (which was pretty good) we headed to La Ciudad de las Artes y de las Ciencias (city of arts and sciences). The architecture of the center was simply mindblowingly amazing. We saw an IMAX presentation on the alps, which was really, really cool. We actually saw in the movie the exact spot where we were last weekend near Grindelwald, Switzerland. The movie was about a mountain that we practically slept under. After the movie, we went to the center of sciences, which wasn't as cool as some other science places I've been (COSI) but was still fun. Then we went to a tapas restaurant (another typical Spanish food). Basically it's a menu full of appetizers. This restaurant had tiny sandwiches which were only 1.20. They had a selection of 100 different types, which is pretty cool. It's a great tasting, cheap, filling dinner. Then we went back to the hostel for a nap before leaving for a 10pm Valencia CF game. They ended up winning 3-0 with their star scoring 2 goals. Afterwards we headed back to the hostel.
Sunday: We first went to check out a market in the morning, which turned out to be a disappointment because there weren't any places to buy food there for breakfast. We ended up going back to the same tapas place for a brunch at around 11am. After that we walked around some more and ran into some traditional Spanish dancing in the streets, which was neat to see. Then in the afternoon, we headed to the beach. It wasn't quite warm enough to swim, but plenty warm to sit there and enjoy the sun we hadn't quite been getting recently in Nantes. In the evening we headed back, walked around the city some more, then headed to another paella restaurant. The next morning we headed home.
Paella in its frying pan
La Ciudad de las Artes y de las Ciencias
Tapas
A soccer field on the park/river. Notice how blue the sky is in the late evening.
Friday: 5am: leave the house towards the tram to catch a 6am train to Paris. 10:35 : flight leaves Paris and we land in Valencia shortly after noon. We check into our hostel and start walking around, looking for food. We happened upon a kebab place, which is a great meal option in Europe, only costing 5.50 or so. After eating we walked around Valencia and tried to familiarize ourself with the city by just randomly walking around. All in all, the areas to hang out in Valencia for tourists is pretty small, which is nice. Back in the 50's there was a flood that ruined a lot of the city, so they diverted the river around the city. Afterwards all kinds of plan life sprung up on the the fertile former riverbed. Now there is a park all the way through the city with soccer fields and gardens throughout, which is super cool. It's nice for tourists to navigate with that as a point of familiarity throughout the city. We found the soccer stadium and bought some tickets off of scalpers for the following day's game against Murcia. The tickets turned out to be in the visitors section, but they were pretty good seats. Then we found a restaurant with paella, the traditional Valencian dish. It's cooked in a large frying pan and consists of rice, and whatever meats and vegetables you decide to put in it. It's a great tasting meal. We walked around some more then went back to the hostel for sleep.
Saturday: after a short vending machine breakfast (which was pretty good) we headed to La Ciudad de las Artes y de las Ciencias (city of arts and sciences). The architecture of the center was simply mindblowingly amazing. We saw an IMAX presentation on the alps, which was really, really cool. We actually saw in the movie the exact spot where we were last weekend near Grindelwald, Switzerland. The movie was about a mountain that we practically slept under. After the movie, we went to the center of sciences, which wasn't as cool as some other science places I've been (COSI) but was still fun. Then we went to a tapas restaurant (another typical Spanish food). Basically it's a menu full of appetizers. This restaurant had tiny sandwiches which were only 1.20. They had a selection of 100 different types, which is pretty cool. It's a great tasting, cheap, filling dinner. Then we went back to the hostel for a nap before leaving for a 10pm Valencia CF game. They ended up winning 3-0 with their star scoring 2 goals. Afterwards we headed back to the hostel.
Sunday: We first went to check out a market in the morning, which turned out to be a disappointment because there weren't any places to buy food there for breakfast. We ended up going back to the same tapas place for a brunch at around 11am. After that we walked around some more and ran into some traditional Spanish dancing in the streets, which was neat to see. Then in the afternoon, we headed to the beach. It wasn't quite warm enough to swim, but plenty warm to sit there and enjoy the sun we hadn't quite been getting recently in Nantes. In the evening we headed back, walked around the city some more, then headed to another paella restaurant. The next morning we headed home.
Paella in its frying pan
La Ciudad de las Artes y de las Ciencias
Tapas
A soccer field on the park/river. Notice how blue the sky is in the late evening.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Switzerland
So, got back late last night from a trip to Inerlaken and Grindelwald, Switzerland. Trip members: Myself, Dan Huber, John Easlea, Alex Burkhardt, and Shaun Yasaki. Here's the rundown:
We left on a night train to Interlaken on Thursday night at 9pm. Strangely enough, there was another group of people from our GCC group that planned the trip to Interlaken on the exact same weekend. Kind of cool, but I'm pretty sure they stole the idea from us... They stayed in hostels, so they're definitely not hardcore, like us. We arrived in Interlaken at around 1pm on Friday. We weren't sure yet what we were going to do, but we figured it out soon enough.
Friday: after arriving at the train station, we decide to buy tickets to Grindelwald, because we thought we would have the best chances of finding a camping site in that valley. At this time of year, it gets dark at about 5pm so it's important to set up camp before too late. We got off the train in Grindelwald and hiked our way across the valley towards the pass we would later climb. Eventually we found a sweet camping spot and set up. The site was 10-15ft above the road so it was nearly impossible for passing cars to see us, lest the feel the need to turn us in for 'illegal' camping. We had a small stream right next to us too, which is essential in setting up camp. The water from the Alps is simply amazing. You can not taste anything but water. We went to sleep around 730pm because it was dark, and we couldn't really do anything in the dark that wouldn't jeopardize our spot being found.
Saturday: We head for a pass, without too much in mind, but getting high for a view. After making our way to the pass, we find a restaurant to have an amazing breakfast. They brought us a bowl of coffee. It was huge, and delicious. Afterwards, we made our way to our peak, the Lauberhorn. See the view in a pic below. We were quite tired, but also wanted to have a couple hours of daylight at camp, so after we ate lunch up there, we headed back down. The weather the whole weekend was simply amazing. When we made it up to the top of the Lauberhorn, it felt like it was in the 70's, so a couple of the guys in our group even hiked shirtless. That night, we decided we needed to build a fire, even though risking someone outing our camping spot. So we climbed the steep bank which our camping ledge was a part of and went a few ledges up into the woods to a point where we could build a secluded fire. It was strange to see the firewood everywhere in the valley. There were piles all over the place. That came in handy for us :). This night we actually stayed up until 10pm or so, surprisingly enough.
Sunday: We decided we had seen a suitable amount of the Grindelwald valley, so we headed on the train back to Interlaken. We decided to just hike a ways outside of Interlaken and build camp somewhere close to one of the two lakes on either side of the city. So we hiked a couple hours into the woods and set up camp in a lean-to we found that had a fire pit in its corner. So we once again had a fire. It took a while to set up this camp, because we originally planned on not staying there and kept looking for a dry, flat spot in the woods, but they were no where to be found. It turned out to be a pretty good spot. After enjoying the fire for a while, we went to bed shortly after 10pm
Monday: On the last day Dan and I decided to get up early, 6am, and get one last hike in before we had to leave later that day at 1pm. I was real tired, but I definitely did not regret it. Once we reached the ridge, we were greeted with an amazing view of the valleys below covered in clouds. It was breathtaking. See the pic below. We then made the trek down to Interlaken and took the train back to Nantes, arriving after 11pm.
It was an amazing weekend full of not showering, drinking fresh, cold, refreshing, alp water, and growing a beard.
On top the Lauberhorn
View of Grindelwald from the Lauberhorn
Dan Huber and me after our final hike
We left on a night train to Interlaken on Thursday night at 9pm. Strangely enough, there was another group of people from our GCC group that planned the trip to Interlaken on the exact same weekend. Kind of cool, but I'm pretty sure they stole the idea from us... They stayed in hostels, so they're definitely not hardcore, like us. We arrived in Interlaken at around 1pm on Friday. We weren't sure yet what we were going to do, but we figured it out soon enough.
Friday: after arriving at the train station, we decide to buy tickets to Grindelwald, because we thought we would have the best chances of finding a camping site in that valley. At this time of year, it gets dark at about 5pm so it's important to set up camp before too late. We got off the train in Grindelwald and hiked our way across the valley towards the pass we would later climb. Eventually we found a sweet camping spot and set up. The site was 10-15ft above the road so it was nearly impossible for passing cars to see us, lest the feel the need to turn us in for 'illegal' camping. We had a small stream right next to us too, which is essential in setting up camp. The water from the Alps is simply amazing. You can not taste anything but water. We went to sleep around 730pm because it was dark, and we couldn't really do anything in the dark that wouldn't jeopardize our spot being found.
Saturday: We head for a pass, without too much in mind, but getting high for a view. After making our way to the pass, we find a restaurant to have an amazing breakfast. They brought us a bowl of coffee. It was huge, and delicious. Afterwards, we made our way to our peak, the Lauberhorn. See the view in a pic below. We were quite tired, but also wanted to have a couple hours of daylight at camp, so after we ate lunch up there, we headed back down. The weather the whole weekend was simply amazing. When we made it up to the top of the Lauberhorn, it felt like it was in the 70's, so a couple of the guys in our group even hiked shirtless. That night, we decided we needed to build a fire, even though risking someone outing our camping spot. So we climbed the steep bank which our camping ledge was a part of and went a few ledges up into the woods to a point where we could build a secluded fire. It was strange to see the firewood everywhere in the valley. There were piles all over the place. That came in handy for us :). This night we actually stayed up until 10pm or so, surprisingly enough.
Sunday: We decided we had seen a suitable amount of the Grindelwald valley, so we headed on the train back to Interlaken. We decided to just hike a ways outside of Interlaken and build camp somewhere close to one of the two lakes on either side of the city. So we hiked a couple hours into the woods and set up camp in a lean-to we found that had a fire pit in its corner. So we once again had a fire. It took a while to set up this camp, because we originally planned on not staying there and kept looking for a dry, flat spot in the woods, but they were no where to be found. It turned out to be a pretty good spot. After enjoying the fire for a while, we went to bed shortly after 10pm
Monday: On the last day Dan and I decided to get up early, 6am, and get one last hike in before we had to leave later that day at 1pm. I was real tired, but I definitely did not regret it. Once we reached the ridge, we were greeted with an amazing view of the valleys below covered in clouds. It was breathtaking. See the pic below. We then made the trek down to Interlaken and took the train back to Nantes, arriving after 11pm.
It was an amazing weekend full of not showering, drinking fresh, cold, refreshing, alp water, and growing a beard.
On top the Lauberhorn
View of Grindelwald from the Lauberhorn
Dan Huber and me after our final hike
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Misc Things
So 2 things of interest happened to me this week
Since we're heading to Switzerland this weekend, I bought a tent to sleep in while backpacking. I decided to put it up so I knew how to put it up for when we're there. So I decided to sleep in it to prepare for sleeping in it in Switzerland. I set my alarm, but somehow I slept through it and didn't wake up until I heard people talking. I realized it was people talking right before class started. So I needed to go to class. The only problem was, I had to go through class to go to my room to change into clothes, to get to class. So as I enter the classroom from the back door I'm greeted lots of laughter. Mind you, at this point, I hadn't even cleared the stuff out of my eyes yet, so I couldn't really see. So I went to my room and put clothes on and came down to class, only 7 minutes late or so. It was quite funny
I also learned how to solve a Rubiks cube. One of the guys here taught me how to do it, and it's a great study break. So... yay for me.
This weekend: Switzerland. Trust me, you're gonna be real jealous after this weekend.
Since we're heading to Switzerland this weekend, I bought a tent to sleep in while backpacking. I decided to put it up so I knew how to put it up for when we're there. So I decided to sleep in it to prepare for sleeping in it in Switzerland. I set my alarm, but somehow I slept through it and didn't wake up until I heard people talking. I realized it was people talking right before class started. So I needed to go to class. The only problem was, I had to go through class to go to my room to change into clothes, to get to class. So as I enter the classroom from the back door I'm greeted lots of laughter. Mind you, at this point, I hadn't even cleared the stuff out of my eyes yet, so I couldn't really see. So I went to my room and put clothes on and came down to class, only 7 minutes late or so. It was quite funny
I also learned how to solve a Rubiks cube. One of the guys here taught me how to do it, and it's a great study break. So... yay for me.
This weekend: Switzerland. Trust me, you're gonna be real jealous after this weekend.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Fall Break - Paris
So while all the little noobs still at GCC were bored and not doing anything all that cool, we took a trip to Paris, that GCC paid for :) (I say 'noob' because it was a word that came up often this past weekend) There is a lot to see in Paris. A whole lot. We were there from Wednesday to Monday, and didn't get to see half of it. Not even close. The Lovre itself takes forever to get through. That being said, I was ready to come home. Here's a short summary of what went down.
Wednesday:
Left the house at 6am for the train, got to the 'hotel' shortly before noon. Then for the rest of the day Dr Reuber paraded us around Paris and we saw the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triumph, the Louvre and the general area around the Louvre. Then at night I went with a group of a few up to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Great view, and was fun to do at night. We walked a lot this day, but we were soon to walk more...
Thursday:
We were supposed to actually go into the Louvre, but the French pansies decided to strike today, so the subways weren't running. So we walked to the closest tourist stuff. We first walked to the Pantheon. This is a cool building and we came back to it on Monday, which I'm glad we did. Of course it wasn't open on Thursday though because, as I said before, the French are pansies. We were then given a couple of hours to eat and see what we wanted. We had kebabs (why aren't there any in America?) then walked to Notre Dame. After that we met up with the rest of the group for a guided tour about France and it's involvement in WWII. After this, walked around a lot of Paris before having kebabs again (yum) and then proceeding to walk all the way back to our hotel. I'm sure we walked more than 25 miles that day...
Friday:
Today the subway system is kind of running, just not as often so the trains are all packed. We first go to Les Invalides, which is the place where Napolean is buried. It's a really decorated building with a shiny gold dome roof. Next to it is the War History museum, which had quite a few interesting war artifacts. My favorite was the pistol with an axe on the bottom instead of a bayonet. "You're charging me with a stupid bayonet? Well let me show you what an axe does." We then went to the Louvre for a little bit before going on another tour. This one was about the French Revolution. I liked this tour better, because it was really interesting to learn about the revolution of a country who was already established, unlike the revolution of our country. Then that night we went back to the Louvre to look at more things because it was open until 9:30, later than usual. My favorite thing of all of the Louvre was Napolean III's apartment. This was an extremely decorated area of the Louvre that just allowed you to imagine the luxury the French kings lived in before the Revolution.
Saturday:
We started the day off early by heading straight to Versailles. This is an amazing building, it's just too bad that most of it isn't open to the public. I was kind of rushed out of the place though, because we had other things to look at. I hear the gardens behind the building are simply magnificent, but sadly I left before I got to see them. We went from there to the worlds largest flea market! It's actually not that exciting, because there was really nothing good to be bought. The only interesting stores were the 'army surplus' shops, but I didn't buy anything anyways. Straight from there we went to see the Basilica du Sacre Coeur. This basilica is located on the highest point in Paris, which provides quite a nice view. It's also a beautiful building located in my favorite part of Paris. Nearby, there is a small square where painters do there work, and you can walk around and watch and buy some of their stuff. There was a small pizza joint with a guy playing live piano, but we weren't, eating at the time. I'd really love to go back there some day and have a pizza there. That night we watched the Rugby World Cup final, and South Africa beat England. We were probably the only people cheering for South Africa.
Sunday:
First thing was mass at Notre Dame. Very boring, but cool to attend a service in such a large, beautiful cathedral. After church we walked across the road to visit another church, Saint Chapelle. This church's auditorium had the most stained glass of any church, probably ever. The walls were pretty much made of stained glass. We then went to Musee d'Orsay, the museum of impressionistic art. This was a nice museum, and I especially liked seeing the van Gogh pieces. That night we did a boat tour of Paris, which was kind of pointless. It just pointed out all the stuff we already knew was in Paris, and it was quite cold on the boat. Good experience though.
Monday:
After breakfast we went to see the Pantheon, this time while it was open. We went inside and saw just how beautiful and large it was on the inside. In the basement are all kinds of tombs, where the still bury people. Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo are both buried there, along with many other people I've never heard of. We went up to the top as well, which provided a nice view of Paris. Afterwards we went to the Louvre again and I browsed through the large collection of Italian and French paintings, including the Mona Lisa. It was pretty funny how many people were crowded around the Mona Lisa, so I took a picture of them looking dumb.
Anyways, that's the condensed version of what went on in Paris, even though it's quite long in itself. Here are a few pics. Remember to click them to get full resolution.
Me by the Eiffel Tower
The Louvre
The Pantheon
Wednesday:
Left the house at 6am for the train, got to the 'hotel' shortly before noon. Then for the rest of the day Dr Reuber paraded us around Paris and we saw the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triumph, the Louvre and the general area around the Louvre. Then at night I went with a group of a few up to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Great view, and was fun to do at night. We walked a lot this day, but we were soon to walk more...
Thursday:
We were supposed to actually go into the Louvre, but the French pansies decided to strike today, so the subways weren't running. So we walked to the closest tourist stuff. We first walked to the Pantheon. This is a cool building and we came back to it on Monday, which I'm glad we did. Of course it wasn't open on Thursday though because, as I said before, the French are pansies. We were then given a couple of hours to eat and see what we wanted. We had kebabs (why aren't there any in America?) then walked to Notre Dame. After that we met up with the rest of the group for a guided tour about France and it's involvement in WWII. After this, walked around a lot of Paris before having kebabs again (yum) and then proceeding to walk all the way back to our hotel. I'm sure we walked more than 25 miles that day...
Friday:
Today the subway system is kind of running, just not as often so the trains are all packed. We first go to Les Invalides, which is the place where Napolean is buried. It's a really decorated building with a shiny gold dome roof. Next to it is the War History museum, which had quite a few interesting war artifacts. My favorite was the pistol with an axe on the bottom instead of a bayonet. "You're charging me with a stupid bayonet? Well let me show you what an axe does." We then went to the Louvre for a little bit before going on another tour. This one was about the French Revolution. I liked this tour better, because it was really interesting to learn about the revolution of a country who was already established, unlike the revolution of our country. Then that night we went back to the Louvre to look at more things because it was open until 9:30, later than usual. My favorite thing of all of the Louvre was Napolean III's apartment. This was an extremely decorated area of the Louvre that just allowed you to imagine the luxury the French kings lived in before the Revolution.
Saturday:
We started the day off early by heading straight to Versailles. This is an amazing building, it's just too bad that most of it isn't open to the public. I was kind of rushed out of the place though, because we had other things to look at. I hear the gardens behind the building are simply magnificent, but sadly I left before I got to see them. We went from there to the worlds largest flea market! It's actually not that exciting, because there was really nothing good to be bought. The only interesting stores were the 'army surplus' shops, but I didn't buy anything anyways. Straight from there we went to see the Basilica du Sacre Coeur. This basilica is located on the highest point in Paris, which provides quite a nice view. It's also a beautiful building located in my favorite part of Paris. Nearby, there is a small square where painters do there work, and you can walk around and watch and buy some of their stuff. There was a small pizza joint with a guy playing live piano, but we weren't, eating at the time. I'd really love to go back there some day and have a pizza there. That night we watched the Rugby World Cup final, and South Africa beat England. We were probably the only people cheering for South Africa.
Sunday:
First thing was mass at Notre Dame. Very boring, but cool to attend a service in such a large, beautiful cathedral. After church we walked across the road to visit another church, Saint Chapelle. This church's auditorium had the most stained glass of any church, probably ever. The walls were pretty much made of stained glass. We then went to Musee d'Orsay, the museum of impressionistic art. This was a nice museum, and I especially liked seeing the van Gogh pieces. That night we did a boat tour of Paris, which was kind of pointless. It just pointed out all the stuff we already knew was in Paris, and it was quite cold on the boat. Good experience though.
Monday:
After breakfast we went to see the Pantheon, this time while it was open. We went inside and saw just how beautiful and large it was on the inside. In the basement are all kinds of tombs, where the still bury people. Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo are both buried there, along with many other people I've never heard of. We went up to the top as well, which provided a nice view of Paris. Afterwards we went to the Louvre again and I browsed through the large collection of Italian and French paintings, including the Mona Lisa. It was pretty funny how many people were crowded around the Mona Lisa, so I took a picture of them looking dumb.
Anyways, that's the condensed version of what went on in Paris, even though it's quite long in itself. Here are a few pics. Remember to click them to get full resolution.
Me by the Eiffel Tower
The Louvre
The Pantheon
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Ireland
This past weekend I went with a group of 5 other guys to Ireland. (Damon Fereshetian, Dan Utley, Eric Anderson, Chris Allebach and Nate Brunk) This all came about because I was just browsing the airline's website and saw we could fly round trip for 29 euros. So why wouldn't we go to Ireland? We flew into Shannon and spent that night in the airport because we arrived after 11pm. That wasn't the most pleasant night I've ever had. I think they turn off any kind of heat the building may possibly have at night. Plus the ground wasn't the most comfortable thing I've laid on. Regardless, we made our way to Galway on the 7am bus. Once we arrived, we booked a tour of the Cliffs of Moher and the Burren countryside. The Cliffs of Moher were the best thing of the whole trip. If you haven't been there and you're going to Ireland, you better go there. They're absolutely amazing cliffs off the west coast of Ireland that stretch to almost 700ft at their highest point. Pictures don't do it justice, you just have to be there. On the tour we got to see just how rocky the Irish countryside is. The reason they have the stone fences everywhere is just because there are way too many rocks. If you had a plot of land, you move all the rocks to the outside of it so the animals can graze. They also make nice walls to keep in the animals. We spent the next two nights in Galway at a really nice hostel, the Kinlay House. Then on Saturday, we booked a ferry to Inis Mór, the largest of the 3 Aran Islands. They're located just off the coast near Galway. We rented bikes and biked all over it. There are also cliffs on one end of the island. These are "only" 300ft high yet they're still very impressive. Especially when you can just stand by the edge, a foot from death. We talked to a local lady that knitted sweaters. She was quite a talker, but we found out more information about the area. It was pretty interesting to find out how many people actually speak the celtic language still. Quite a bit of rural Ireland still has it as their first language. On Sunday we went to church with some people Damon knew. He spent 2 summers previously in Galway on missions trips. We went over to the pastors house and had an awesome lunch there and had to meet some local Irish folk our age. Real cool. In the afternoon we took a bus to Dublin. Dublin was kind of a letdown. Whenever someone thinks of Ireland, they usually think of Dublin too. It's really not that cool. The city itself is nice overall. It's got a canal going through the center of it, it's got a nice "hangout district" called the Temple Bar, and it's got quite a bit of history as well. The thing that's most disappointing is that there are so few Irish people around. I'm sure there are plenty of Irish people in the suburbs and elsewhere, but downtown, there were so many foreigners. Just walking around you had maybe a 25% chance of overhearing an English conversation. There are just a lot of tourists and a lot of immigrants into Dublin. If you want a real Irish experience, go to Galway. It's a nice, smaller city that feels Irish. We then got up Monday morning and flew back to Nantes, ready to sleep in our own beds again. And tomorrow we leave forParis. Voilà
Me at the Cliffs of Moher
One of the sights on Inis Mór
Looking down a few hundred feet
Me at the Cliffs of Moher
One of the sights on Inis Mór
Looking down a few hundred feet
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Mt St Michel/St Malo
Today, instead of going to class like normal college students, we had the school pay for a trip to Mont Saint Michel. It's a monastery located on a 'temporary' island off the north coast of France. When the tides are low, you can actually walk across sand to the island. This can be dangerous though because of quicksand and such. When the tides are high, you can't get to it, except for the man-made road that connects it. Check it out on the internet to read up all about it. It's pretty cool. Then we went to Saint Malo. This is a walled city a little ways from Mt St Michel. It was apparently destroyed during WW2 but has since been rebuilt. It's really, really nice inside. About all the buildings are 5-6 (I think) stories high. Almost all of them have shops and such on the first floor, but they're residential (I think) on all the floors above them. This has got to be expensive real estate for sure.
While in Saint Malo, we decided to walk out to an island a short distance away. While we were walking out, the waves were lapping over onto the walkway, so we figured we didn't have much time until the tides came in and covered it. This was true. I quick ran to the top and snapped a few pictures of the town from the ocean view and started right back to mainland. I was the first one to walk across, and luckily for me, the water only came up halfway on my calves. The other people though, well it was pretty funny. The last people back had their jeans soaked almost up to their waists. Good stuff. Pics:
Mt St Michel
St Malo from the island
Walking across, after the tide came in
And tomorrow we leave for Ireland. Voilà
While in Saint Malo, we decided to walk out to an island a short distance away. While we were walking out, the waves were lapping over onto the walkway, so we figured we didn't have much time until the tides came in and covered it. This was true. I quick ran to the top and snapped a few pictures of the town from the ocean view and started right back to mainland. I was the first one to walk across, and luckily for me, the water only came up halfway on my calves. The other people though, well it was pretty funny. The last people back had their jeans soaked almost up to their waists. Good stuff. Pics:
Mt St Michel
St Malo from the island
Walking across, after the tide came in
And tomorrow we leave for Ireland. Voilà
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Future
Tomorrow: Mt St Michel. This weekend: Ireland. We're going to see Galway and the Aran Islands and Dublin as well. Updates coming...
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Update
I haven't updated in quite a while, mainly because there's absolutely nothing huge going on. We're mostly just involved with class and that's mostly it. I hope to get more involved with the youth aged people at church, and that happened more this past weekend. I invited a few of them over for lunch, and I seem to be making pretty good friends with David. David's dad owns the townhouse we live. His parents are Irish, but he was raised in France as a missionary kid. His parents moved back to Northern Ireland, but he's still here. He hopes to live in the US someday, so I hope we keep in touch. I'd like to hang out with him on a regular basis, but he lives in a town 20 min from Nantes, so it's not possible for me to go there. He comes to Nantes every weekend to see his friends though, so I'll see him at least every weekend.
Next weekend is a trip to Ireland. We fly into Shannon airport (tiny town) late Thursday night and we'll probably have to end up staying the night in the airport, cause there's really no place to stay in Shannon that's even close to cheap. We're gonna then go up to Galway and spend a night there, then to Dublin and spend a night or two there and fly out of Dublin. We plan to do a couple bus/train tours of the countryside and cliffs and such, so I'll put up pics of that in a week and a half or so.
Next weekend is a trip to Ireland. We fly into Shannon airport (tiny town) late Thursday night and we'll probably have to end up staying the night in the airport, cause there's really no place to stay in Shannon that's even close to cheap. We're gonna then go up to Galway and spend a night there, then to Dublin and spend a night or two there and fly out of Dublin. We plan to do a couple bus/train tours of the countryside and cliffs and such, so I'll put up pics of that in a week and a half or so.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Sailing
So this past weekend (the 22nd) 5 of us went sailing at La Boule, which is the closes beach to us. It's a really, really nice beach. It's something like 5 miles long in a quarter moon shape, so it's large. Just about everyone else was gone this weekend (either Ireland or Prague) so we decided we should do something cool. Eric Anderson has sailed quite a bit before, so he was our captain. We rented two kayaks and 3 stayed on the sailboat. It wasn't windy at all, but it was probably the last weekend that was really warm enough. Kayaking was more fun, since there was no wind. We would ride waves in and get flipped and such. Pretty good times. Wet suits are pretty awesome. It's amazing how warm they keep you in chilly water. Anyway, here's some pics:
L2R: Nate Brunk, Chris Allebach, Me, Dan Utley, Eric Anderson
Sailing
L2R: Nate Brunk, Chris Allebach, Me, Dan Utley, Eric Anderson
Sailing
Thursday, September 20, 2007
9-20
Today was a really busy day. We had class for most of the day; and in between classes I went running, hand washed some clothes (yay for frugality), and ordered train and plane tickets. We decided what we're doing over Thanksgiving and spent a mere 200 dollars for 3 flights, and 4 train rides. Simply amazing. Over Thanksgiving we're going to fly into Venice, and from there hit Florence, Rome, Sicily, and London. London just got added on cause we're going to have to stay overnight there anyways because flights didn't work out. So we're just going to stay 2 nights and experience the city. Can't wait for Sicily because we're going to be staying at a campground right on the coast. I saw pictures online and it looks simply amazing. I can't wait so swim in the Mediterranean. Here's a pic of what class usually is like. Notice Dan Huber and Dan Utley on the right with their heads each on a pillow.
Pornic
Last weekend we went to a coastal town by the name of Pornic. It was a very beautiful city, even though there wasn't much to do in the way of tourism. They have a harbor built that completely dries out when the tide leaves, but fills in when the tide comes in. So when we arrived there were a bunch of sail boats just sitting on the ground in the harbor, but by the time we left, the harbor was all filled up. It was really pretty neat. While we were there, we stopped at a place called "Fraserie" or something like that. They had the best ice cream I've ever had. Period. I had this coconut-chocolate that was simply amazing. There are also a few cool rock formations that we spent the last of our time on. They were nice to just sit and watch all the sailboats on the ocean. (Pornic is a big sailing town) Check out the sailboats in this pic. Notice the "chateau" on the right. At this point the water flow was out to the ocean. Later it was cool to see the flow of the water change to coming into the port, to eventually fill up.
A pic of the full harbor. This is taken looking the opposite way of the previous pic. Notice the chateau and the church steeple that's about center of the image in the background. Remember, you can enlarge these pics by clicking them.
A pic of the full harbor. This is taken looking the opposite way of the previous pic. Notice the chateau and the church steeple that's about center of the image in the background. Remember, you can enlarge these pics by clicking them.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Stuff
Not a whole lot has been going on lately, obviously stated by the fact that I haven't posted in a long time. I tried to upload a video tour of our house, but that didn't work; I may try later. We've been just having class and doing stuff around here on the weekends. On Sunday I played basketball with some French guys. When we were playing, other people our age that were from the church showed up too cause they were hanging out or whatever. It was cool to see the group of friends they had, just like I've got back home. So next week I'll be trying to finalize and organize trips; the main ones being: backpacking in Switzerland, Thanksgiving break in Italy, November trip to Spain, hopefully a trip to Scotland, and of course the trip to Paris that everyone goes on, so I don't have to plan that :) And of course doing random small stuff in between those. This Saturday I'm going to Pornic, a cost town an hour or so from here. Not sure what all is there, but heard from others it's worth visiting. Especially since it's like 7 euros to get there. There are just way too many places to go in Europe and not enough money to go everywhere...
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Random Stuff
Last week was just a week of classes. We've been having intense French language tests that are worth 10% of our grade, with the last one being Tuesday. Altogether there are somewhere around 550 French words we've "learned". Friday we went to a park called Puy du Fou. It's essentially a park with outdoor dramas about the history of that area in France. So we saw viking raids and a gladiator match too. Pretty cool, but a little long since we stayed there all day. Saturday a few of us took the train to the beach. It was a real nice day, but the water was too cold for me to swim. I stayed in for about 30 minutes but others stayed in for a few hours. Today was my first day at church since earlier was an all youth thing instead of a regular service. The pastor is an American missionary so he summarizes everything in English every now and then, which is nice. This afternoon we played basketball with a few French guys from the church. Some of them speak decent enough English, so we can get by. Hopefully we can speak more and more French and less English. I don't have many pictures, but here's one from Puy du Fou.
Monday, September 3, 2007
Amboise
This last weekend I went with 3 other guys to Amboise which is on the Loire River in the heart of chateau country. Our group included Damon Ferechetian, Chris Allebach and Adam Aljets. We left Saturday early morning and returned late Sunday night. In the morning we explored a little bit of Amboise and saw da Vinci's house Clos Luce and the surrounding area which has been turned into somewhat of a museum of his works. We checked into our hotel, Cafe des Arts after noon and had lunch. Then we rented bikes to take to Chenonceau. We biked back to Amboise at 7 then ate dinner and sat by the Loire until dark. The next day we went to Chateau d'Amboise and just relaxed and didn't do much until our train left at 8. We had a connecting train in Tour which didn't leave for 1:20 after we arrived so we went out and walked Tour, although everything was closed and there was nothing to see. Great trip overall.
Chateau d'Amboise
Chateau de Chenonceau, which is built out over a river.
Bike ride to Chonenceau
Chateau d'Amboise
Chateau de Chenonceau, which is built out over a river.
Bike ride to Chonenceau
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Field Trip 1
Today (Wednesday) was our first 'field trip'. I have a feeling these 'field trips' we go on for 'class credit' aren't really going to be much related to class material at all.
We saw a 3 story tall mechanical elephant; which is practically useless. Mark (Dr Reuber) explained that the French don't always have reasons for doing the things they do. They like to do things in a grand way just so they can step back and say, "Check it out." Which is why they build crazy things, even though they look cool.
We then went to the Jules Verne museum. He grew up in Nantes and was actually born on the island in the middle of the Loire river.
PICS
We saw a 3 story tall mechanical elephant; which is practically useless. Mark (Dr Reuber) explained that the French don't always have reasons for doing the things they do. They like to do things in a grand way just so they can step back and say, "Check it out." Which is why they build crazy things, even though they look cool.
We then went to the Jules Verne museum. He grew up in Nantes and was actually born on the island in the middle of the Loire river.
PICS
Saturday, August 25, 2007
First night out
Tonight we went out with Marco. It was much nicer to walk around with a Frenchman so we didn't have to worry about ordering food or anything. We went to a Kebab place with great food. It was across the alley from McDonalds and we definitely picked the better place. Then we went to a cafe across from the cathedral that was pretty sweet. The weather was nice all night.
The kebab
And we later went to Marco's apartment. You could see the cathedral from his window. Amazing. His building is most definitely older than the USA
The kebab
And we later went to Marco's apartment. You could see the cathedral from his window. Amazing. His building is most definitely older than the USA
Friday, August 24, 2007
Trip to Nantes
We took the tram to downtown Nantes today. Nantes is actually a pretty big city. There's a section of town that has buildings from the1300's and even before. So here are some a few pics of some of the things we saw..
Click the pics to get full resolution...
Building with wood that's... really really old.
Really nice castle, in Nantes, the city I'm living in, that's right...
The tallest cathedral in France is also in Nantes. Those are people at the bottom of the picture enjoying a service. The the top is lots of head room.
Click the pics to get full resolution...
Building with wood that's... really really old.
Really nice castle, in Nantes, the city I'm living in, that's right...
The tallest cathedral in France is also in Nantes. Those are people at the bottom of the picture enjoying a service. The the top is lots of head room.
Trip
So the trip had a lot of waiting. Waiting to find out when our flight leaves, waiting on the plane to take off, and waiting for our next plane. The London-Gatwick Airport pretty much blows. They don't have gates preassigned to your flight so you're supposed to get there at least an hour early so you have time to find out where your gate is. They wait to post the gate until a half hour to 45 min before they close the gate. So every 5 minutes they call out people's names who aren't on the plane yet and tell them to get to a gate in 5 minutes; not to mention the gate is a 15 minute walk away.
It was nice to sleep
Roomie
My area to the left
It was nice to sleep
Roomie
My area to the left
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