Well, dear friends and family, the end is near. My parents will be here tomorrow evening, and come Monday, it’s time to part with Strasbourg.
As of this morning, my all my percussion lessons are finished. They were spread out over a week, which was nice. It allowed me to gradually say bye to the Conservatoire, where I’ve spent LOTS of time this semester (and especially this last month). Throughout this past week, I’ve done my best to visit the last places of Strasbourg I wanted to see before I left. Monday, I went to the Cathedral to see the astronomical clock do its fancy show at 12:30 (somehow, it’s 30 minutes off the Prime Meridian time, so the “show” is at 12:30 instead of noon). Tuesday wasn’t very Strasbourg-y, but I did help a friend with his project (I was videotaped talking, in French, about the differences between the French and American university systems), and it was fun. Wednesday, I tried to go to the Modern Art Museum, but couldn’t find the entrance. Instead, I saw that the dam for the river was open (it has a passage through it), and so wandered through the dam. I think the city houses parts of the cathedral that need repair or are otherwise not working in the dam, because there were lots of old-looking statues behind bars all along the passageway. It was kind of cool. Also, during the day you can climb a staircase to the top of the dam, and you get a pretty nice view of Petite France - the part of Strasbourg where the buildings have been maintained in traditional Alsacien style. I ended up wandering by the cathedral, and in general just walking around. Wednesday afternoon, I saw Pirates 3 with a few friends (two days before it came out in the States – hee hee). I was glad I saw it (it was in English, which is always good when Jack Sparrow is concerned), but it was much darker than the first two movies, and I wasn’t such a fan of the ending. Different, definitely. Yesterday, I closed my French bank account, rode the B tram line (which I live on) to its end, way out in the suburbs of Strasbourg, and walked through the Botanical Garden in the afternoon. Now, all my curiosities are fulfilled (what does the end of the B line look like?), and I’ve done everything that I wanted to do before leaving. I had two consecutive picnics in Orangerie last weekend, and discovered a new part of the park last Friday that I didn’t know was there. That, along with my find on the dam, made me realize that there is always something to learn about a city, no matter how well you think you know it. It makes a little part of me wish that I could stay in Strasbourg longer, and keep discovering short-cut streets and other fun things of that nature, but I know all good things must come to an end.
Here at the end of the semester, I find myself thinking about the overall picture of life in Strasbourg, and a semester away. This whole semester, I’ve been making a mental pro and con list, which I will try to replicate now.
Pros about Strasbourg:
Cheese
Pastries
Easy and efficient public transportation
City life in general – I never have to go very far to find what I’m looking for
My favorite farmer’s market in Place Broglie
The Cathedral, and being able to see it from my house and from the Conservatoire (on opposite sides of the city)
Orangerie
My host family
Studying at the Conservatoire – as hard as it was, it was an amazing opportunity, and my professors were amazing
Speaking French, and doing my best to adapt to the culture – hard at times, but always a new and rewarding experience
Cons about Strasbourg:
Sitting to take my showers (though I must confess, I’ll have to get used to standing again…)
Almost everything being closed on Sundays
Not always feeling confident in my French, and not being properly understood by the people I attempt to speak to
General awkwardness – whether it’s at home with my host family, and not knowing what to do, or out in general and I just don’t know the proper customs
However, all these are just part of living in a different country, so they’re not cons, so much as learning about this different country I’ve landed in. The hardest part about this semester, without question, would be missing my grandmothers’ funerals and my sisters’ graduations. Though I was on the other side of the Atlantic, I know my family knew I had them in my thoughts, and that was the best I could do. There of course were other hard days, when I would really miss my friends or Wellesley or Austin, but I was never down for too long.
In the end, I have found another place that I would move to in a heartbeat. Ask me to move to Japan – I’m there. Inquire if I’d like to live in Strasbourg – no need, I’ve already packed my bags and I’m on the next flight to France. I would love to come back someday, I just don’t know when. It would be nice to come in December, when the Christmas market is up, and I’d like to see Place Kleber and the train station no longer under construction (as they both have been all semester).
It has been a wonderful semester. Truly, a great experience. I’m not sure I know how much I’ll appreciate it, and how it will feel to return to the States after all this. I do know that I would like to see more performances in Boston, and maybe even travel around the States. After all, I’ve been to Rome, London, and Berlin, but I haven’t even been to Vermont, 3 hours from where I go to school. It feels very strange that it is all coming to an end, but end it must, at some point.
I will try to send at least one more blog post, maybe once I’m back in Austin, about my upcoming two-week trip with my parents. Other than that, au revoir, mon blog!
Friday, May 25, 2007
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Pictures from Nancy! (if about a month after the fact)
At the train station! (Or, my train station... )
Porte de la Craffe - one of the old gates into the city (an example of Old Town architecture)
Basilisque St. Epvre - a church in gothic style, another example of Old Town architecture
The Cathedral in Nancy - New Town architecture (it's not nearly as impressive as Strasbourg's :) )
One of the Golden Gates in Place Stanislas (part of the Royal City, 18th Century) 
The memorial plaque to the inventor of military camo (the statue itself wasn't terribly interesting)
One of the many (and most impressive) Art Nouveau buildings of Nancy
Nice variation on my name, don't you think? ;)
Monday, May 21, 2007
Pictures from London (a little bit late)
Me and Ann, after dinner on Friday
The Houses of Parliament with Big Ben (and me)
Westminster Abbey
The Horse Guards in front of the Prime Minister's residence (Downing Street, I think...)
Buckingham Palace
Trafalgar Square
Back when Texas was its own country (1824-1836, if my memory serves me right), Texas had its own embassy in London. Today, it is a restaurant that serves a poor imitation of Tex-Mex...
A part of Tower Bridge - tourists generally think this is London Bridge, as it's much more impressive than the actual London Bridge, but it is, in fact, Tower Bridge, leading directly to the Tower of London
The Tower of London, view 1
The Tower of London, view 2
At the Eurovision party - French maid #1 (wearing Cardinal Richelieu's hat), Bonaparte, Greek goddess, French maid #2, and Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkey (couldn't tell you their actual names...)
At the Eurovision party - me, Hector, and Cardinal Richelieu
Hyde Park - the gathering of people over in the corner is Speaker's Corner
Marble Arch (based off Constantine's Arch in Rome and the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, used to be the entrance to Buckingham Palace, was moved to be an entrance to Hyde Park, roads changed, and now it's on an island close to Hyde Park)
Piccadilly Circus
The Globe Theatre
The Prime Meridian (and you can see some of the Royal Observatory)
Your typical British telephone booth - they just made me smile
One example of the cool apartments on the Thames River - these were built to resemble a ship in sail
London Bridge (it says London Bridge on it, but I'm not sure if you can see it in this picture...)
My attempt at getting a picture of the Chunnel
Me in Nancy - again!
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
London!!!
Wow. I’m tired. So tired, I accidentally told my host mom it took me 8 days to get back from London today instead of 8 hours… (got the words jour and heure confused somehow…)
Having said that, however, I loved my weekend in London. It was pretty much exactly what I was hoping for in the weekend, which is always nice. My trip began pretty early Friday morning, catching a morning train to Paris (and thence to catch another one to London). As I had four hours between my trains, however, I decided to meet up with one of my Wellesley friend’s mom (who also happens to be a Wellesley alumna) for lunch. She picked me up at the train station, took me to a nice restaurant closeish to the Louvre (with AMAZING hot chocolate), and then we wandered through the Tuleries Garden and took a picture of me in front of the Louvre pyramid, before dropping me off at a different train station to catch my Paris-London train. Fortunately, both trains of Friday were uneventful (I did sit next to a nice elderly English man who had been visiting his son in France, and we chatted off and on for the train ride from Paris to London, and at the end, he gave me his book that he had just finished… that was interesting). After walking around Waterloo Station in London, I managed to find Hector and Ann, the two family friends I was meeting for dinner. We then went out to a Turkish restaurant for dinner, and then as I was fairly tired, decided I would begin exploring London the next day.
Saturday, the real London fun started. Hector took me around to most of the main sights of London, all in one day. We started with the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben (quite pretty and intricate looking), Westminster Abbey (OH MY GOSH!!!!! I’ll get back to describing this one – it’ll take a while), passed by Trafalgar Square and the Horse Guards on our way to Buckingham Palace, and crossed Tower Bridge on our way to the Tower of London. OK – now for more specifics. Westminster Abbey was probably my favorite of the places I visited. It was unreal to actually see all those famous English monarchs I had studied, and to walk through a church that has so much importance, what with all those buried there and all the coronations that have taken place in that church. It’s a surprisingly big church, but at the same time, there are SO MANY PEOPLE buried in just that one church. And not only the monarchs – I could have stayed in poet’s corner for a very long time, where Chaucer is buried, and where Tennyson, Austen, Dickens, Lord Byron, Kipling, and many, many more are memorialized if not buried. To be surrounded by so many great people… Wow. Intense. No visit to London is complete without visiting Westminster Abbey in my opinion. I’d most definitely go again, the next time I’m in London, but probably wouldn’t get the audio guide, and would just wander around instead. The church just evokes a sense of awe. I felt pretty drained after that visit, but as it was barely noon, there was plenty more to see. Most of the other sites I just walked by and snapped a picture or two, but I did go inside the Tower of London, which was another impressive visit. The Tower has always been associated with torture and the like, but not much of the building was actually used for torture. There were places for people to live (such as the Queen’s House, and the Medieval Palace), and the central building, the White Tower, was much more an armory than a torture building. Mostly, if people went there, they were there as a prisoner, and torture was very rarely used. The Tower wasn’t exactly what I had pictured – it’s not a tower so much as a very foreboding-looking complex of brick buildings. The White Tower is surrounded by a rather thick wall, which has other towers on it. It was in these other towers, I think, where the prisoners were held. And though they were in the outer wall, there was no way they were getting out unless someone took them out. There’s also a fair amount of green space inside – not sure if the prisoners got recreation or not, or it was just there for the people who worked at the Tower to enjoy. Another interesting part about the Tower – the ravens. Evidently, King Charles II (who was reinstated to lead the monarchy after Oliver Cromwell decapitated King Charles I) had a premonition that if the ravens were to ever leave London, and specifically the Tower, the monarchy would fail. So even though said ravens were obstructing the view of Charles II’s astronomer, the ravens stayed. Today, their wings are clipped so as to prevent them from flying away and destroying the monarchy, but the birds are pretty well taken care of. And, since the days of Charles II, there has always been at least one raven on the grounds of the Tower. I can’t remember when it was (possibly the fire of London in the late 1600s) that only one raven made it through the crisis, but as one lived, the raven population has been able to remain extant. And thus, Queen Elizabeth II is secure on her throne, so the legend goes. Also, the Crown Jewels are on display in the Tower, and that was definitely a treat to see. Sadly, no pictures are allowed, so you’ll just have to take my word for it that they were quite spectacular, and looked VERY expensive. After the Tower, Hector and I went to chill for a little before going out for the night. We didn’t go out to a pub, the common way to spend an evening in London, but something entirely different, rather… Saturday night was the finale of this show Eurovision, and one of Hector’s friends was throwing a party in honor of it. Eurovision is basically the European version of American Idol, and each country has an entry in the competition. Generally, the singers sing in their native language, which is pretty cool. The other trick to the party, though, is that everyone was supposed to dress up as one of the European countries competing in the final. I decided not to try to dress up, so soon after I got there I was draped in an English (not British/UK) flag and given a football (soccer in the US) whistle, and I could claim to be cheering for England. :) Some of the costumes were crazy, and it was pretty interesting to see how everyone had dressed up. There was everything from a German beermaid (she even had a stein from Munich’s Oktoberfest), a flamenco dancer, a Greek goddess, French maids, Napoleon Bonaparte, a bulls-runner from Pamploma, Cardinal Richelieu… My favorite costume, I think, was the man wearing a monkey suit, holding a block of cheese, and waving a white flag. He was the Cheese-eating Surrender Monkey – from France, of course. I found it quite amusing, but I doubt my host family would. :) I heard some of the competitors’ songs, found it all fairly ridiculous (especially as the singers really do think they’re good, and they’re not…), but had a lot of fun chatting with the other party guests, though I was the youngest by at least 8 years, I think. And I only had one person ask me if Hector (who is 15 years older than me) and I were together. I hadn’t thought of that possibility, and it kind of made me chuckle. I caught a cab back to Hector’s apartment before the finale had finished – all the walking around London earlier in the day, along with the ridiculousness inherent in the show, didn’t induce me to stay to see who won the contest (Serbia, if you’re curious).
Sunday, I took the morning to wander around London a little. I walked through Hyde Park, and made my way to Speaker’s Corner. Walking through Hyde Park, though, I was just waiting to see one of Jane Austen’s characters galloping across the grass. Though I pretty much only have the BBC movies to go of off, the park looked like the picture I have of the English countryside. It was quite fun, despite the fact that it was raining steadily. Sadly, though, no Mr. Darcy came to rescue me from the rain and take me to his amazing English mansion property. :) Upon reaching Speaker’s Corner (I’ve forgotten the history now, but today anyone is welcome to set up in Speaker’s Corner and speak, or rant, about whatever they want), I listened to just a little of what the speakers had to say. There was a Christian evangelist, an Islamic evangelist, and a man who seemed to be advocating intelligence and common sense, and I wasn’t terribly interested in sticking around to hear any of them. I then made my way by Marble Arch, originally built to decorate Buckingham Palace. When the palace was renovated, there wasn’t room for it, so it was moved to Hyde Park. Marble Arch is the second arch outside of Rome I’ve seen based on the Arch of Constantine, the first being in Dresden. I just think it’s cool to have seen the original, and then two other arches based off of it, in cities as far as Rome, Dresden, and London. And it makes me feel kind of well-traveled… After Marble Arch, I walked along Oxford Street, one of the main shopping streets of London, and ended up in Piccadilly Circus, which was kind of small. Somehow I was expecting a big something or another at Piccadilly Circus, but I think it’s more just the middle of the shopping district, which is still cool. I then met up with Hector for English-style Sunday brunch (yummy Yorkshire pudding… which isn’t dessert – it’s a lot of meat, veggies, and fries (excuse me – chips), which is just fine by me), and we then walked by the Globe Theatre. Sadly, Othello was being performed inside at the time, and there was another play right after Othello, so I couldn’t see the inside of the theatre – that’ll have to be for my next trip to London. :) After the Globe, we took a trip down the Thames River to Greenwich to see the Prime Meridian. The Prime Meridian was also closed by the time we got to the Royal Observatory, but though I couldn’t stand on top of the line, I could take a picture through the gate. It was still interesting, though, to be so close to the point from which all time zones are based. And the hill on which the Royal Observatory is located offers a pretty good view of the London cityscape. We roamed around Greenwich for a little, walked by the Queen’s House there, and saw the Conservatory. We then took the boat back to Waterloo, and went back to Richmond and Hector’s apartment – uneventful, but I got a few last good looks at Big Ben and the London Eye (one of the biggest Ferris wheels I’ve seen, but also has a very interesting design) before heading out to the suburbs (of sorts).
Monday was relatively uneventful. I caught my train in London with no problems, and attempted to take a picture of the entrance to the Chunnel as I entered – the tunnel that runs under the English Channel, which for reasons unknown is a source of some amusement to me. The train goes really fast, though, so I didn’t get an excellent picture, but that’s OK. I still got to go through the Chunnel – twice. :) When I arrived at Paris, I made I tiny mistake in judgement. I thought I could understand the streets of Paris, but was a little mistaken. After wandering in pretty much a complete circle for 30 minutes that got me no where, I managed to find the Metro, and arrived at the other train station with 15 minutes until my train for Strasbourg left. No harm done in the end – I just had to pay twice as much for lunch on the train as I would have paid, had I had time to buy lunch in the train station. On the train to Strasbourg, I sat next to an art student who goes to school near Strasbourg, and though we didn’t talk a lot, we still had pleasant conversation when we did. As the Paris-Strasbourg train makes a stop in Nancy, I had one of the other passengers take a picture of me with the sign for the city. I like this picture better than the ones I took in my trip to Nancy, which made me happy, even if it was quite silly.
Then, it was the end of the train ride, and I was back in Strasbourg. As I walked back to the tram stop to go home, I realized, not for the first time, that the end of my time in Strasbourg is fast approaching, and, again not for the first time, I got a little tear in my eye. As I told my boss for the summer, my job at Interlochen really is one of the things that has me excited to return to the States. I miss friends and family, true, but it’s not going to be easy to leave Strasbourg, and leave my host family. Not sure how I’m going to take that…
Two more weeks, still. It’s never a good idea to wish your life away, and two weeks is plenty of time to prepare myself to say goodbye to this city that I’ve grown rather fond of.
Having said that, however, I loved my weekend in London. It was pretty much exactly what I was hoping for in the weekend, which is always nice. My trip began pretty early Friday morning, catching a morning train to Paris (and thence to catch another one to London). As I had four hours between my trains, however, I decided to meet up with one of my Wellesley friend’s mom (who also happens to be a Wellesley alumna) for lunch. She picked me up at the train station, took me to a nice restaurant closeish to the Louvre (with AMAZING hot chocolate), and then we wandered through the Tuleries Garden and took a picture of me in front of the Louvre pyramid, before dropping me off at a different train station to catch my Paris-London train. Fortunately, both trains of Friday were uneventful (I did sit next to a nice elderly English man who had been visiting his son in France, and we chatted off and on for the train ride from Paris to London, and at the end, he gave me his book that he had just finished… that was interesting). After walking around Waterloo Station in London, I managed to find Hector and Ann, the two family friends I was meeting for dinner. We then went out to a Turkish restaurant for dinner, and then as I was fairly tired, decided I would begin exploring London the next day.
Saturday, the real London fun started. Hector took me around to most of the main sights of London, all in one day. We started with the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben (quite pretty and intricate looking), Westminster Abbey (OH MY GOSH!!!!! I’ll get back to describing this one – it’ll take a while), passed by Trafalgar Square and the Horse Guards on our way to Buckingham Palace, and crossed Tower Bridge on our way to the Tower of London. OK – now for more specifics. Westminster Abbey was probably my favorite of the places I visited. It was unreal to actually see all those famous English monarchs I had studied, and to walk through a church that has so much importance, what with all those buried there and all the coronations that have taken place in that church. It’s a surprisingly big church, but at the same time, there are SO MANY PEOPLE buried in just that one church. And not only the monarchs – I could have stayed in poet’s corner for a very long time, where Chaucer is buried, and where Tennyson, Austen, Dickens, Lord Byron, Kipling, and many, many more are memorialized if not buried. To be surrounded by so many great people… Wow. Intense. No visit to London is complete without visiting Westminster Abbey in my opinion. I’d most definitely go again, the next time I’m in London, but probably wouldn’t get the audio guide, and would just wander around instead. The church just evokes a sense of awe. I felt pretty drained after that visit, but as it was barely noon, there was plenty more to see. Most of the other sites I just walked by and snapped a picture or two, but I did go inside the Tower of London, which was another impressive visit. The Tower has always been associated with torture and the like, but not much of the building was actually used for torture. There were places for people to live (such as the Queen’s House, and the Medieval Palace), and the central building, the White Tower, was much more an armory than a torture building. Mostly, if people went there, they were there as a prisoner, and torture was very rarely used. The Tower wasn’t exactly what I had pictured – it’s not a tower so much as a very foreboding-looking complex of brick buildings. The White Tower is surrounded by a rather thick wall, which has other towers on it. It was in these other towers, I think, where the prisoners were held. And though they were in the outer wall, there was no way they were getting out unless someone took them out. There’s also a fair amount of green space inside – not sure if the prisoners got recreation or not, or it was just there for the people who worked at the Tower to enjoy. Another interesting part about the Tower – the ravens. Evidently, King Charles II (who was reinstated to lead the monarchy after Oliver Cromwell decapitated King Charles I) had a premonition that if the ravens were to ever leave London, and specifically the Tower, the monarchy would fail. So even though said ravens were obstructing the view of Charles II’s astronomer, the ravens stayed. Today, their wings are clipped so as to prevent them from flying away and destroying the monarchy, but the birds are pretty well taken care of. And, since the days of Charles II, there has always been at least one raven on the grounds of the Tower. I can’t remember when it was (possibly the fire of London in the late 1600s) that only one raven made it through the crisis, but as one lived, the raven population has been able to remain extant. And thus, Queen Elizabeth II is secure on her throne, so the legend goes. Also, the Crown Jewels are on display in the Tower, and that was definitely a treat to see. Sadly, no pictures are allowed, so you’ll just have to take my word for it that they were quite spectacular, and looked VERY expensive. After the Tower, Hector and I went to chill for a little before going out for the night. We didn’t go out to a pub, the common way to spend an evening in London, but something entirely different, rather… Saturday night was the finale of this show Eurovision, and one of Hector’s friends was throwing a party in honor of it. Eurovision is basically the European version of American Idol, and each country has an entry in the competition. Generally, the singers sing in their native language, which is pretty cool. The other trick to the party, though, is that everyone was supposed to dress up as one of the European countries competing in the final. I decided not to try to dress up, so soon after I got there I was draped in an English (not British/UK) flag and given a football (soccer in the US) whistle, and I could claim to be cheering for England. :) Some of the costumes were crazy, and it was pretty interesting to see how everyone had dressed up. There was everything from a German beermaid (she even had a stein from Munich’s Oktoberfest), a flamenco dancer, a Greek goddess, French maids, Napoleon Bonaparte, a bulls-runner from Pamploma, Cardinal Richelieu… My favorite costume, I think, was the man wearing a monkey suit, holding a block of cheese, and waving a white flag. He was the Cheese-eating Surrender Monkey – from France, of course. I found it quite amusing, but I doubt my host family would. :) I heard some of the competitors’ songs, found it all fairly ridiculous (especially as the singers really do think they’re good, and they’re not…), but had a lot of fun chatting with the other party guests, though I was the youngest by at least 8 years, I think. And I only had one person ask me if Hector (who is 15 years older than me) and I were together. I hadn’t thought of that possibility, and it kind of made me chuckle. I caught a cab back to Hector’s apartment before the finale had finished – all the walking around London earlier in the day, along with the ridiculousness inherent in the show, didn’t induce me to stay to see who won the contest (Serbia, if you’re curious).
Sunday, I took the morning to wander around London a little. I walked through Hyde Park, and made my way to Speaker’s Corner. Walking through Hyde Park, though, I was just waiting to see one of Jane Austen’s characters galloping across the grass. Though I pretty much only have the BBC movies to go of off, the park looked like the picture I have of the English countryside. It was quite fun, despite the fact that it was raining steadily. Sadly, though, no Mr. Darcy came to rescue me from the rain and take me to his amazing English mansion property. :) Upon reaching Speaker’s Corner (I’ve forgotten the history now, but today anyone is welcome to set up in Speaker’s Corner and speak, or rant, about whatever they want), I listened to just a little of what the speakers had to say. There was a Christian evangelist, an Islamic evangelist, and a man who seemed to be advocating intelligence and common sense, and I wasn’t terribly interested in sticking around to hear any of them. I then made my way by Marble Arch, originally built to decorate Buckingham Palace. When the palace was renovated, there wasn’t room for it, so it was moved to Hyde Park. Marble Arch is the second arch outside of Rome I’ve seen based on the Arch of Constantine, the first being in Dresden. I just think it’s cool to have seen the original, and then two other arches based off of it, in cities as far as Rome, Dresden, and London. And it makes me feel kind of well-traveled… After Marble Arch, I walked along Oxford Street, one of the main shopping streets of London, and ended up in Piccadilly Circus, which was kind of small. Somehow I was expecting a big something or another at Piccadilly Circus, but I think it’s more just the middle of the shopping district, which is still cool. I then met up with Hector for English-style Sunday brunch (yummy Yorkshire pudding… which isn’t dessert – it’s a lot of meat, veggies, and fries (excuse me – chips), which is just fine by me), and we then walked by the Globe Theatre. Sadly, Othello was being performed inside at the time, and there was another play right after Othello, so I couldn’t see the inside of the theatre – that’ll have to be for my next trip to London. :) After the Globe, we took a trip down the Thames River to Greenwich to see the Prime Meridian. The Prime Meridian was also closed by the time we got to the Royal Observatory, but though I couldn’t stand on top of the line, I could take a picture through the gate. It was still interesting, though, to be so close to the point from which all time zones are based. And the hill on which the Royal Observatory is located offers a pretty good view of the London cityscape. We roamed around Greenwich for a little, walked by the Queen’s House there, and saw the Conservatory. We then took the boat back to Waterloo, and went back to Richmond and Hector’s apartment – uneventful, but I got a few last good looks at Big Ben and the London Eye (one of the biggest Ferris wheels I’ve seen, but also has a very interesting design) before heading out to the suburbs (of sorts).
Monday was relatively uneventful. I caught my train in London with no problems, and attempted to take a picture of the entrance to the Chunnel as I entered – the tunnel that runs under the English Channel, which for reasons unknown is a source of some amusement to me. The train goes really fast, though, so I didn’t get an excellent picture, but that’s OK. I still got to go through the Chunnel – twice. :) When I arrived at Paris, I made I tiny mistake in judgement. I thought I could understand the streets of Paris, but was a little mistaken. After wandering in pretty much a complete circle for 30 minutes that got me no where, I managed to find the Metro, and arrived at the other train station with 15 minutes until my train for Strasbourg left. No harm done in the end – I just had to pay twice as much for lunch on the train as I would have paid, had I had time to buy lunch in the train station. On the train to Strasbourg, I sat next to an art student who goes to school near Strasbourg, and though we didn’t talk a lot, we still had pleasant conversation when we did. As the Paris-Strasbourg train makes a stop in Nancy, I had one of the other passengers take a picture of me with the sign for the city. I like this picture better than the ones I took in my trip to Nancy, which made me happy, even if it was quite silly.
Then, it was the end of the train ride, and I was back in Strasbourg. As I walked back to the tram stop to go home, I realized, not for the first time, that the end of my time in Strasbourg is fast approaching, and, again not for the first time, I got a little tear in my eye. As I told my boss for the summer, my job at Interlochen really is one of the things that has me excited to return to the States. I miss friends and family, true, but it’s not going to be easy to leave Strasbourg, and leave my host family. Not sure how I’m going to take that…
Two more weeks, still. It’s never a good idea to wish your life away, and two weeks is plenty of time to prepare myself to say goodbye to this city that I’ve grown rather fond of.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Life as a Proper Conservatoire Student
Is very different from what I’m used to. For the past nine days, there hasn’t been a day I wasn’t at the Conservatoire practicing. I’m not complaining, though – not only has it given me a chance to at least somewhat socialize with the other percussionists (when we’re not shut away in our practice rooms), but I’ve made fairly good progress with my pieces. Of course, my lessons last weekend still didn’t go quite as well as I had hoped, but I suppose I was still somewhat rusty from vacation.
For these last two weeks I have in Strasbourg (what!! I only have two more weeks!! Gaack!!), the only item on my to-do list is to practice and leave the Conservatoire having my professors think well of me (I hope). I have discovered, though, that I do much better when I have to fit practicing into my schedule, instead of that being the only thing to do. Though a little uninteresting, it is refreshing to be able to fully concentrate on my music, and not have to think about my homework while I’m trying to work out this weird sticking in my snare piece. So, it should be a relaxing last two weeks, and I can take it easy, and properly enjoy Strasbourg in my free time. There is a museum or two I’d like to go to before I leave, maybe visit Orangerie a few more times, and otherwise wander around and soak in the wonderfulness that is Strasbourg when I’m not practicing.
You or may not know that this past Sunday was a rather important day in France. Not only was it my concert (hee hee – it went pretty well, by the way, and a few of my Strasbourg aquaintences came, from my church, two SU friends, and one of the SU administration people), but it was also the second round of the presidential election. France has an interesting system for their presidential election. The first round, all the candidates run – there were 12 this year. From all the first round candidates, the two who receive the highest percentage of the votes continue on to the second round. This year, the two final candidates were Segolene Royal of the Socialist Party, and Nicolas Sarkozy of the UMP party (translates to the Union for the Popular Movement, but basically it’s a party a little right of center). M. Sarkozy won the election last Sunday, which surprised me a little - not because he came out of no where (he’s been in the lead in the polls all semester), but because he’s rather pro-American. With as much as the French public doesn’t like Pres. Bush (and they really don’t), I was surprised they elected someone who is openly accepting of Bush’s presidency. One headline from the International Herald Tribune this week reads that the French-American relationship is expected to warm up with Sarkozy as president – it shall be interesting to see how that pans out. And, especially with our next presidential election coming up in the not-too-distant future, it will be interesting to see how Sarkozy gets along with our new president. Though I’m not a political person, it’s been very interesting to study in France in the midst of the election, and see how it all works in a foreign country.
Tomorrow morning, I’m leaving for a weekend in London. I’m really, really excited – not only is London the last of the places-I-absolutely-have-to-see-while-I’m-in-Europe (which means I’ll at least have seen what I really wanted to this semester), but I’ll get to see two family friends that I haven’t seen in a very, very long time. (Which also means free lodging – thank you, Hector!!) So, this weekend should go by quickly, and then it’s less than two weeks until my parents get to Strasbourg… Wow, my semester has gone by quickly.
For these last two weeks I have in Strasbourg (what!! I only have two more weeks!! Gaack!!), the only item on my to-do list is to practice and leave the Conservatoire having my professors think well of me (I hope). I have discovered, though, that I do much better when I have to fit practicing into my schedule, instead of that being the only thing to do. Though a little uninteresting, it is refreshing to be able to fully concentrate on my music, and not have to think about my homework while I’m trying to work out this weird sticking in my snare piece. So, it should be a relaxing last two weeks, and I can take it easy, and properly enjoy Strasbourg in my free time. There is a museum or two I’d like to go to before I leave, maybe visit Orangerie a few more times, and otherwise wander around and soak in the wonderfulness that is Strasbourg when I’m not practicing.
You or may not know that this past Sunday was a rather important day in France. Not only was it my concert (hee hee – it went pretty well, by the way, and a few of my Strasbourg aquaintences came, from my church, two SU friends, and one of the SU administration people), but it was also the second round of the presidential election. France has an interesting system for their presidential election. The first round, all the candidates run – there were 12 this year. From all the first round candidates, the two who receive the highest percentage of the votes continue on to the second round. This year, the two final candidates were Segolene Royal of the Socialist Party, and Nicolas Sarkozy of the UMP party (translates to the Union for the Popular Movement, but basically it’s a party a little right of center). M. Sarkozy won the election last Sunday, which surprised me a little - not because he came out of no where (he’s been in the lead in the polls all semester), but because he’s rather pro-American. With as much as the French public doesn’t like Pres. Bush (and they really don’t), I was surprised they elected someone who is openly accepting of Bush’s presidency. One headline from the International Herald Tribune this week reads that the French-American relationship is expected to warm up with Sarkozy as president – it shall be interesting to see how that pans out. And, especially with our next presidential election coming up in the not-too-distant future, it will be interesting to see how Sarkozy gets along with our new president. Though I’m not a political person, it’s been very interesting to study in France in the midst of the election, and see how it all works in a foreign country.
Tomorrow morning, I’m leaving for a weekend in London. I’m really, really excited – not only is London the last of the places-I-absolutely-have-to-see-while-I’m-in-Europe (which means I’ll at least have seen what I really wanted to this semester), but I’ll get to see two family friends that I haven’t seen in a very, very long time. (Which also means free lodging – thank you, Hector!!) So, this weekend should go by quickly, and then it’s less than two weeks until my parents get to Strasbourg… Wow, my semester has gone by quickly.
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
My Trip to the Best-Named City in the World
Namely, Nancy, France. :)
As I hoped, there were still seats for Nancy yesterday, so I spent a nice day wandering around the city, seeing what I could see. It’s not very big, but it’s really cute. The city was founded in the 11th Century, was revived by Stanislas Leszczynski, King of Poland and Duke of Lorraine (and father of Marie-Antoinette) in the mid 1700s, and then evidently pioneered the Art Nouveau movement in the late 1800s. So, as far as I could tell (from the maps I got from the tourist office), the real attraction of Nancy is all the different architectural styles. It was pretty interesting, actually, as the buildings from the 1300s are clearly nothing like the crazy art nouveau types. Besides wandering around looking at cool buildings, I also wandered through Parc de la Pepiniere, which is pretty much Nancy’s equivalent of Orangerie in Strasbourg. However, I like Strasbourg’s park better – Parc de la Pepiniere is set up in squares, and is very organized, whereas Orangerie has a more relaxed, wandering feeling. But, I enjoyed the little zoo in the park in Nancy, and I always enjoy walking through parks. :)
And now for specific sites in Nancy. The main site is Place Stanislas, named after the guy who had it built. The Hotel de Ville (I think it’s more of a government/community building than a hotel), the opera house, and the tourist office are all located on Place Stanislas. The whole place is decorated with gilded black, and it really is quite pretty. especially in the sunshine, when the gold reflects the sun. There’s also Place de la Carriere, which used to be a jousting court, and I really liked the Porte de la Craffe, which I’m assuming was one of the old gates of the city in mideval times. Surprisingly, the cathedral didn’t impress me much, though I did see two other gothic churches that were pretty.
Another fun fact about Nancy. I think the man who invented military camouflage was from the art school at Nancy, because he had a statue dedicated to him in the park. And in Nancy’s fame as a place for art nouveau, I had hoped to go to the Museum of the School of Nancy, but sadly it’s closed Mondays and Tuesdays. Even just seeing the buildings, though, I was able to appreciate Nancy’s art nouveau-ness.
The strangest part about my visit to Nancy was seeing my name EVERYWHERE. And variations on my name that I haven’t thought of… Le Nancied (I think that was a book store), Nancienne Expressions, Nancyphones… I suppose Le Nancied could be my epic story of this semester – Aeneas had the Aenied, I can have the Nancied. :) Not sure what the others could be, though. The city, in publication, is “Ville de Nancy,” which literally translates to City of Nancy, which can then be taken to mean it’s my city – all mine. Not many people can say they have a claim to a whole city, I think. :)
(I'm amazed - this post fit in one page on Word... I'm not sure I've ever written that little this whole semester! And another note: my computer and I are not getting along regarding the pictures from Nancy - I'll post the pictures as soon as it decides to cooperate. :)
As I hoped, there were still seats for Nancy yesterday, so I spent a nice day wandering around the city, seeing what I could see. It’s not very big, but it’s really cute. The city was founded in the 11th Century, was revived by Stanislas Leszczynski, King of Poland and Duke of Lorraine (and father of Marie-Antoinette) in the mid 1700s, and then evidently pioneered the Art Nouveau movement in the late 1800s. So, as far as I could tell (from the maps I got from the tourist office), the real attraction of Nancy is all the different architectural styles. It was pretty interesting, actually, as the buildings from the 1300s are clearly nothing like the crazy art nouveau types. Besides wandering around looking at cool buildings, I also wandered through Parc de la Pepiniere, which is pretty much Nancy’s equivalent of Orangerie in Strasbourg. However, I like Strasbourg’s park better – Parc de la Pepiniere is set up in squares, and is very organized, whereas Orangerie has a more relaxed, wandering feeling. But, I enjoyed the little zoo in the park in Nancy, and I always enjoy walking through parks. :)
And now for specific sites in Nancy. The main site is Place Stanislas, named after the guy who had it built. The Hotel de Ville (I think it’s more of a government/community building than a hotel), the opera house, and the tourist office are all located on Place Stanislas. The whole place is decorated with gilded black, and it really is quite pretty. especially in the sunshine, when the gold reflects the sun. There’s also Place de la Carriere, which used to be a jousting court, and I really liked the Porte de la Craffe, which I’m assuming was one of the old gates of the city in mideval times. Surprisingly, the cathedral didn’t impress me much, though I did see two other gothic churches that were pretty.
Another fun fact about Nancy. I think the man who invented military camouflage was from the art school at Nancy, because he had a statue dedicated to him in the park. And in Nancy’s fame as a place for art nouveau, I had hoped to go to the Museum of the School of Nancy, but sadly it’s closed Mondays and Tuesdays. Even just seeing the buildings, though, I was able to appreciate Nancy’s art nouveau-ness.
The strangest part about my visit to Nancy was seeing my name EVERYWHERE. And variations on my name that I haven’t thought of… Le Nancied (I think that was a book store), Nancienne Expressions, Nancyphones… I suppose Le Nancied could be my epic story of this semester – Aeneas had the Aenied, I can have the Nancied. :) Not sure what the others could be, though. The city, in publication, is “Ville de Nancy,” which literally translates to City of Nancy, which can then be taken to mean it’s my city – all mine. Not many people can say they have a claim to a whole city, I think. :)
(I'm amazed - this post fit in one page on Word... I'm not sure I've ever written that little this whole semester! And another note: my computer and I are not getting along regarding the pictures from Nancy - I'll post the pictures as soon as it decides to cooperate. :)
Pictures from Germany and Prague
The inside of the hall where the Berlin Philharmonic plays
I snuck a picture once Seiji Ozawa got on stage... o:)
The main entrance of the zoo (or at least the prettiest) - The Elephant Gate
The Berlin Cathedral
The Bradenburg Gate, which was just barely in East Berlin territory, and through which people stormed when the wall came down in November, 1989.
This is the largest section of the Berlin Wall that is still standing
This is the Holocaust memorial right by the Brandenburg Gate, in the center of the city. Walking through it didn't do much to me, possibly because I kept running into other people from our tour, and because I went a little quickly, but it's definitely an interesting monument. As explained by Torben (our guide), it was built more as a way for the perpetrators to remember what they had done, and less for the victims. The Jewish population of Berlin, actually, decided not to have anything to do with the memorial, as for them, it's impossible to forget the Holocaust.
A view of the Reichstag from the Spree River (great name for a river, don't you think?)
This mirror funnel contraption runs straight through the middle of the dome - it's really cool
Me at the top of the dome - you can see Tiergarten, with the carillon of Tiergarten, in the background
The Pergamon altar
The Gate of Ishtar
Dresden:
The Dresden Castle - The Crown Gate (named for obvious reasons :)
The Cathedral in Dresden
Frauenkirche, which has just recently finished being restored. The interesting part about the destruction of this church, if you can call destruction interesting, is that it escaped the bombings completely unscathed. The following day, however, the heat and the vibrations from the ground caused the church to collapse completely. You can see the old walls in comparison with the new walls in this picture.
The inside of Frauenkirche
The mosaic of the Saxon Rulers
The outside of the opera house - the Dresden opera house was definitely the prettiest one I was in this past week
The Emperor's Box
The dome inside the opera house - the entire dome was painted with portraits of people, mostly famous musicians (Mozart, Beethoven, etc)
One thing I forgot to mention in my blog post, though - the Dresden bombing. The city is still, 50 years later, in the process of renovation, but for the most part, all the main buildlings have been rebuilt, and rather than looking like a city completely destroyed, today it just looks like a city with a few construction projects going on. Our guide definitely didn't let us forget that the city had been carpet bombed - almost every building we stopped at, he had a picture to show of what that building had looked like in February of 1945, and it was never pretty...
Leipzig:
We were really excited to ride a double decker bus from Dresden to Leipzig... :)
Nikolaikirche
Thomaskirche
The statue of Johann Sebastian Bach outside Thomaskirche
Prague:
The Astronomical Clock of Prague
The legend with this clock (which isn't true), is that the council of Prague didn't want the man who had built the clock to build any mroe astronomical clocks, so the council had him blinded in the middle of the night. After that, he had a friend take him up to the top of the clock, and he messed it up in revenge, and for 100 years no one could figure out how to make the clock work again. But, the clock works fine today. :)
The Cathedral
If you can tell from the picture, the right hand tower is bigger than left hand one. This is to symbolize Adam and Eve, and Adam is shading Eve, protecting her from the sun.
A good view of the city, and especially of the Lesser Quarter, one of the first areas of the city of Prague to be populated
This statue is in memorial to Franz Kafka - I forget why he's important to Prague (I can't remember if he's from Prague, or not), but I though the statue was pretty cool. It's supposed to symbolize the feelings of lonliness, alienation, and the like that Kafka writes about.
Me with the statue of John somebody (not the Baptist)
There are four traditions that accompany rubbing the statue, but I only remember three. You will either have good luck, return to Prague (someday), or, if you're female, get pregnant (someday). I figured there was nothing wrong with rubbing the statue. :)
Another view of the city, from the hill Claire and I climbed Friday evening
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