I hate how fast time moves (unless I'm in class, then time could move even a little bit faster, please). It's February already, I can't believe it. This makes me antsy, I want to start travelling outside of Belgium, outside of Brussels even. Well, I wasn't alone in this, Allison, Maren and I decided to go to Luxembourg this weekend, mostly just to get out of Belgium. Figuring out transportation is rather complicated, fortunately, after we invited Sabine to come with us she said yes as long as we drove. That saved us from major headache, we just had to hop in her car. That was Saturday...
Friday night we went to a play, "The Compleat Works of Wllm Shkspr (abridged)", at an English speaking (or anglophone, as they like to say here) theater. It's a 5 person play and involves quite a bit of interaction with the audience. The entire second act is dedicated to Hamlet, and I somehow got pulled onto the stage to "play" Ophelia, i.e. scream a couple times. That was fine, but then, when Ophelia drowns, the actor (yes, actor, all the lead female parts were played by the same actor in a wig) dumped water on himself right in front of me, so I got wet. Then they did the whole thing again, but faster, so I got wet again, then even faster, wet again, then they did it backwards...I had water spat at me. It was a lot of fun though, I'm a good sport.
After the play, we decided we were hungry. However, as it was around quarter to 11 and everything apparently closes at 11, we had some difficulty. Some people got pizza hut, then we found a quick burger which was still open. I got a caramel muffin and a chocolate shake, mmmmmmmm, I have no hopes for not gaining weight on this trip.
Saturday morning, Luxembourg time! We left around 8:15 and I got a mini-tour of Terveuren - where Regina lives and Maren works and Wallonia, aka southern French-speaking Belgium. We went to Vianden, supposedly a big tourist attraction, where Victor Hugo had a summer home and there is a large castle on a hill (check out the pictures). Once we got closer all the roads were up in the hills, winding back and forth and back and forth...Maren almost got sick. We got there though, but it was a ghost town, the other tourists must go during the summer when the chairlift is in operation. It was freezing, first time I've seen snow since I've been in Europe, what's worse is that it was 50 in Omaha (50!). Nonetheless, I was very excited to be out of Belgium (not that I don't love Belgium) and by a CASTLE! We saw Victor Hugo's summer house. They made it into a museum of sorts, with audioguides in english! I think everybody should read Les Miserables before they die, it kinda sucks when you're reading and he describes the battle of waterloo, which is completely irrelevant to the plot, for about 50 pages, but in retrospect it's well worth it. After that we had lunch at a Dutch restaurant, I ordered what Sabine told me not to, ha, she said it was a typical Dutch meal, which is NOT the way to keep me from ordering something. After lunch it was castle time! Allison and I decided we're moving in. It's on top of a hill, like many castles I think, so there was an amazing view at every angle. After that, we began the drive back, which was anything but direct. We'd be on a highway and the GPS (Sabine named her Missy) led us off on a narrow road through the country...oh well. We stopped in Durbuy, another medievel town, for a snack (I highly recommend amaretto in your coffee) and headed home. All in all, a good day. This schengen states thing is a good deal, I completely forgot my passport and it wasn't an issue once, but I better not do it in the future.
Allison, Maren and I sat down this past week and planned out every single weekend for the rest of the semester. Next weekend Allison and I are going to Dublin, we've booked the flights, the hostel and a tour taking us through Dublin, the Cliffs of Moher, the bay and Limerick. It should be amazing. Hopefully, I'll have my camera charger before then.
-Lauren :)
No comments:
Post a Comment