Friday, March 30, 2012

High Five for Friday

There is a blog I follow that I found through Pinterest, and this particular blogger does a "High Five for Friday"  where she posts her highlights of the week. I should've gotten on this band wagon long ago, so that I later on I can look back at the posts and remember the highlights of my weeks here, but oh well. At least I'll have them for my next 4 weeks. So here goes:

1. Spring has FINALLY arrived in Montlucon! The weather has been B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L this week!

2. My very dear friend Stephanie (she is living in Spain at the moment) booked a ticket to come to Paris during the first part of my April holidays!! (I love her, and cannot wait to see her!)

3. The lady at Sephora telling me that I speak good French (that's enough to make my WEEK right there!!!)

4. The awesome dress I bought to wear to my sister's graduation & my best friend's rehearsal dinner. (It was 15 euro, marked down from 37 euro!)

5. My student telling me today that he and his classmates didn't deserve to have me as a teacher (I spend a lot of time trying to get them to listen and not talk while I am, and I frequently have to be very stern with them)


What were some of your highlights of the week???

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Château de Versailles

The palace of Versailles.....A reminder of how powerful how France once was, but also a painful reminder of how quickly power in the hands of the wrong person leads to chaos and revolution. The palace was built by Louis XIV, also known as the Sun King ("Roi-Soleil").  Louis thought that he was on equal par with God himself, so he built his home should reflect that status.  He therefore left the palace in Paris, and set out creating his grand château in the city of Versailles, about 10 miles west of Paris.  Anyone who has ever heard of Versailles knows that the palace is just massive; at one point, 6,000 people were living there. Here is an aerial view of the palace (bear in mind this does not include the Grand Trianon, Petit Trianon or Marie Antoinette's Hameau, which are all located on the grounds as well)
You really have to go to Versailles in order to appreciate it's size and magnitude, but I'll do my best with the following pictures. This first picture is of the Royal Chapel.
 Hercules Drawing Room
Checking out the gardens through a window
 About to enter the Hall of Mirrors
 Hall of Mirrors-serious history has been made here, like the end of WWI w/the Treaty of Versailles
Ceiling in the Hall of Mirrors
 Walking through the Hall of Mirrors
 King's public bedroom
Balcony off of bedroom. Louis the XVI & Marie Antoinette stood here as the French people gathered outside in the courtyard
 Queen' public bedroom. The decor in the palace was changed to reflect the current season. And they wonder why the French people revolted.
 Outside about to explore the gardens
 But first we ate our picnic lunch!
Painting of Versailles grounds
Marie Antoinette's Hameau, where she could live like a "peasant"

Except she didn't do any of the work that one would do as a peasant

 She just oversaw all the other people doing the work. 
 We had another picnic for dinner. Best way to eat for a weekend of traveling. 
 The King's public bedroom is just on the other side. Faces the rising sun. 
 We got to go into the Opera House!
The Opera House was made entirely out of wood because the King wanted it built quickly. And wood was the only available material that was readily available in abundance. 



My pictures do not do any justice to the palace, but I hope they have interested you enough to one day go check out the palace for yourself!

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

I received my ashes at a UNESCO World Heritage Site....how 'bout them apples???

I have one more blog update from my February holidays before I can blog about my recent travels.  After spending a few days in Dunkerque Emily and I headed off to the famous Mont St. Michel. Mont St. Michel is a rocky tidal island that has been around since probably the 6th century.  This island has held many fortifications and is also home to the Saint Michel monastery, plus 41 other inhabitants.  Today it attracts around 3 million visitors a year, and this year Emily and I contributed to that number. 
It's important to understand that this place is a rocky tidal island because that is what is so fascinating about it.  There is a strip of 2 lane road that connects the island to the country, and when it is high tide everything that surrounds the island except for the road is swallowed up by water.  This is how it looks at low tide:

And this is what happens at high tide: 
Translation in case you can't read the English: "The sea will  take up this parking area.  Please leave  before 6:00"



This place is fascinating because of what happens at high tide.  It's just incredible to be standing in a spot that you know will be covered in water in just a few hours time. Anyway, once you make it out to the island you have the ability to go in and walk around.  Most people go to Mont St. Michel because of it's unique status as a rocky tidal island and UNESCO World Heritage site.  Inside it's mostly just a bunch of tourist shops and restaurants that have incredible views. However, there is an abbey and museum that you can visit.  We had just made it into the abbey and had taken our pictures when we noticed that the priests and nuns seemed to be getting ready for something. They were posting no picture taking signs and setting out piles of paper.  Emily had just come up to me to say we got here just in time, as they had literally posted the no picture taking signs after we snapped our last shot, when something clicked in my brain.  It was Ash Wednesday and they were getting ready for Mass!! After my suspicions were confirmed by speaking with a nun, I decided to stay and receive my Ashes for the start of Lent. I obviously didn't whip out my camera in the middle of Mass, but I did snap a shot of inside the abbey before church started:
Definitely not the prettiest abbey/church I've been to, and certainly not the warmest either, but still a pretty cool experience to receive my ashes in such a historic & sacred place.


Sunday, March 11, 2012

Brugges and Dunkerque



Ok, so this is going to be a picture blog post about Brugges and Dunkerque.
Buildings in the city center
Everyone's out and about on a Saturday
Really cool looking door I noticed while we were walking around.  The carvings were the cool part of the door.

Brugges is supposed to be the Venice of Belgium.


Neat part of a building we saw
This could be a postcard picture.


Hope you enjoyed Brugges! Onto Dunkerque!

Dunkerque is going to require a little explanation.  We arrived there just in time for the Carnaval celebrations.  It's basically a Mardi Gras celebration except using a different name. Now I've never been to Mardi Gras in New Orleans, but something tells me the celebrations here outdo what goes on in New Orleans.  Just see for yourself....

We did just that as well.  I'm pretty sure whoever created the definition of  "chaos" and "mad house" definitely had this in mind. It was CRAZY!
Everyone dresses up for Carnaval...
Men dress like women and vice versa, and then there are just some really ridiculous looking costumes.
So there is a parade for Carnaval, and after the parade all the spectators link arms and follow behind the parade....




There

are

NO

words 

to 

describe what we saw during Carnaval! 
No costumes? No problem! Throw some face paint on and you fit right in!

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Did you know Belgium has 3 national languages?

Our 24 hours in Brussels was up, and it was time to move on to the city of Antwerp, which is about an hour north of Brussels.  For those of you who do not know, the country of Belgium is split into 3 parts; you have the capital (Brussels), the Flemish part, and the Wallonian part.  The country also has 3 national languages: French, German and Flemish.  In Brussels we were able to get by because French is spoken (hallelujah!). In Antwerp and Brugges, however, we ran into some difficulties because that part of the country is Flemish speaking.  Can you imagine having a country that has 3 national languages??? And can you imagine traveling throughout a country and in one place seeing Flemish, and then in another place see French? It's quite a change, and makes you feel almost as if you were in a completely different country.  Emily and I were happy to be out of Prague for one reason: we were back in a land where we could communicate and not stick out like tourists.  Well, someone had the last laugh at us as we entered the Flemish part of Belgium.  Thank goodness we were crashing at a friend of Emily's; with her help we didn't stick out too badly.

I think at this point in our travels I was quite tired of walking around and sightseeing, because I don't recall anything super fascinating or interesting to say about Antwerp.  The most interesting part about Antwerp is the pedestrian tunnel that connects the main city to the suburban part; but I unfortunately left the tunnel taking pictures to my friend Emily, so I'll have to post those at a later date. As I look back on my pictures from my travels, I've decided that I really liked the architecture within Belgium.  It just had a different sort of flair to it, and it was something that caught my eye.

I believe this is Antwerp's town hall

This just looks so European to me.
I really fell in love with the Antwerp train station (an odd building to fall in love with, but there you have it).  We made our way towards it as night was beginning to fall, and it was just so incredible looking.  We got picked up by Emily's friend in her car, so this as our first look at the station.
I thought I had taken a better picture, but guess not. 


This leads to the main platforms. 

Inside the station

Welcome to Antwerp