Birthplace of the French Fry

Contrary to what most believe, the French Fry was birthed in Belgium, not France. But they speak French in Belgium, so there you go. So, my last trip was to Bruges, Belgium. It was fuhreeking cold but really pretty. Our travel group started out being 4 but poor Stephen was puking the whole train ride and by the time we got to Luxembourg we decided we needed to insist he go back for his own good. He reluctantly agreed from his pale-faced fetal-position on the train station floor. Poor guy. We were all going to turn around and go back and maybe take a small day trip but at the last minute Mary and I decided to go on to Bruges by ourselves. To get to our hostel room we had to walk through this restaurant-bar that served really good Flemish stew and cherry beer (my new favorite!). There were arty-looking sacred hearts all over the place as decoration. Mary and I got up early the next day and walked ALL over Bruges. I'm pretty sure we walked about 20 miles that day. We saw the entire town and took a million pictures. There were huge old windmills along the outside of the town and a river that ran alongside them. There were canals all over the town and during the warmer seasons you can take a boat ride in them. We went into an old cathedral and saw a sculpture by Michelangelo. We of course, ate fries and Belgian chocolate. When we walked into a particularly cute chocolate shop the lady at the counter got really excited when she found out we were American and started asking us if we knew Rick Steves. Then she pulled out her own copy of his travel guide book, which was tabbed to the page that had her store in it, and showed us in writing, Rick's personal approval. I must admit, Rick's got some good taste. Those chocolates were amazing. We tried to find the World's Best Hot Chocolate that our friends had told us about but no matter how hard we looked we couldn't find it and instead ended up getting some disappointing (but cheap!) watery hot chocolate to go from a quick place. Then we went to these 2 fry stands that stand about 20 feet apart from each other and compete for the best pommes frites (Europeans really like to put mayonaise on their fries which I find disgusting, so I opted for the curry ketchup). French fries are my favorite food but I have to say I've had better. They were good though. Then since Belgium is supposed to be known for its lace Mary and I stopped in this tiny little house-turned-lace-shop run by these elderly women who made all the lace by hand themselves! It was really impressive.. Not to mention really expensive. One night Mary and I decided to treat ourselves to a nice dinner (well nicer than the fries and waffels we'd been eating all weekend). She got salmon and I decided to try mussels since they were advertised all over Bruges. I was sorely disappointed. They tasted like mushy ocean. Gross. Next time I'll get salmon too. I took a million pictures on this trip! It was great but good to leave the northern cold and get back home to Heidelberg.

Home Sweet Heidelhome

It's 3:30am here in Heidelberg but as I'm currently suffering from severe jet lag and wide awake I decided to catch up on this here blog.

Christmas break was wonderfully eventful. I spent the first 2 weeks traveling and the other 3 back home in the states. I traveled with my friends, Lisa and Chelsey. Our first stop was Paris and it was gorgeous. I have to say while the Eiffel Tower photographs well, it's really not all that pretty in person. It's conspicuous and brown and skeletal. But at night they light it up with blue lights and due to some French anniversary they've added a circle of yellow stars for the year. Then every hour from 7pm-midnight the whole thing sparkles with flashing white lights. Boy, those French really know how to fancify things. We hit all the tourist stops-- The Louvre, the Musee d'Orsay, the Champs de l'Elysee, Sacre Coeur, the Arc de Triumph, and the La Fayette Galleries. I liked the Musee d'Orsay better than the Louvre because it had more impressionist art which is my favorite genre of paintings, but it was cool seeing the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo. We also stuffed ourselves full of the 'Best Crepes in Paris!' We actually believed it though because we chose the place at random and the French woman standing in line in front of us was raving about them. My favorite was nutella, banana, and coconut. SO good. It snowed the last day we were in Paris and it was a nice little farewell before we set off for Barcelona.
Barcelona has been my favorite city visited so far! I absolutely LOVED it! It was colorful and friendly and inviting and warm, and best of all, the people speak SPANISH! For 2 of the 5 days we were in Paris we had a friend with us who could speak French enough to get us by, but once he had left we were a lost cause. There's no even guessing with French since there are so many silent letters, but once in Spain I took over the communicating job of our trio. I felt right at home. haha. My favorite part of Barcelona was La Boqueria which was this huge produce market on Las Ramblas. It had these amazing fresh fruit juices for one euro a cup and we probably drank 10 of them the first day we were there. Then one night we went to a shot bar called El Gato Negro and had a couple fun shots (all involving fire!) and fresh made sangria. My favorite shot was the Boyscout where the bartender lights your shot on fire and then gives you a marshmallow on a stick to roast. Then you dip it in the shot and eat it. Delish!
Our next stop was Malaga, which is located at the southern tip of Spain (we could see Africa from the coast!). Getting there was quite an adventure as we ended up spending the night outside on a bench in a bus depot, then later on the steps of the resort in the (literally) freezing cold as we waited for the lobby to open, but we survived and it makes for a good story now. ha. Malaga was beautiful and the Mediterranean Sea was gorgeous! The water was so clear and blue.
From Malaga we began what ended up being a 60 hour journey back home. We first trained from Malaga to Barcelona, where we found out our hostel we'd booked for the night was full, got sent to a different hostel, slept 4 hours, then continued on to Paris. From Paris we trained to Frankfurt airport. The airport was like a 5 star hotel after having slept outside and on trains! It was heated and had lounge chairs and a 24-hour Starbucks. Glorious! Then we parted ways and got on our separate planes home (Lisa and I to CA, Chels to Idaho).

Being home with the fam was tons of fun. The 3 weeks I spent in CA were super busy but it was so good to see everyone again. Christmas Eve at our house and Christmas weekend in the mountains. However, I did recieve the sad news that Doug Panter, the husband to my babysitter who watched me for 8 years, passed away. I've kept them in my thoughts and prayers. I love you both.

Overall it was an incredibly amazing, adventurous, and blessed vacation!

Weinachten

Phew, now that I'm finally caught up on my travel blogs, I can tell you all a little bit about my past 2 weekends in Heidelberg! It's been lots of fun just staying at the house because we've had friends visiting from other programs. This past weekend one of my suitemates from last year who's in the London program surprised me with a visit! She ran into my room around 2am on Friday morning and it was fantastic. Although I had taken 2 Tylenol PMs around midnight (MISTAKE. lesson learned) and felt really drowsy and expressionless, so I was repeatedly apologizing for not acting more excited, because I actually was, but just lacked the capacity to show it. One of my other suitemates was here this weekend too so we had a nice little suite runion. It was a great weekend with schnitzel, coffee, thai food, shopping, candy, and lots of laughing and reminiscing.
The main street is getting all set up for Weinachtsmarkt (Christmas Market) which open tomorrow. Everyone in the house is so excited for it to start. There are a lot of food booths (my favorite are the candied almonds and feuerwursts and gluhwein) and craft things (handmade ornaments, santa clauses, wooden toys, etc.). The street is also getting all decorated with big stars that hang between the buildings and garlands around every lamp post. There's also an ice skating rink!
It's freezing cold out here. Literally. It SNOWED this weekend. Maybe coming from Southern California it what made this a grand novelty for me, but it really was a big deal. Everyone who was in the house ran outside screaming and taking pictures. It was so much fun. And Sunday a few of us went to a Christmas tree farm and picked out the biggest tree for Moore Haus! The farm was run by this little old couple who served us cookies and homemade schnapps (hijole!) after we'd picked out our tree. It's floor to ceiling in our reception room waiting to be decorated!
Every time I look out the window and see the town of Heidelberg lit up below I can't believe how incredibly blessed I am to be here. Love you and miss you all!

Lesson Learned

Rome was quite the adventurous trip! And it was by far, the most fun I've had traveling yet. My travel group was 6 people (Amanda, Lisa, Janay, Phoenix, Mark, and myself) but we all got to Rome in pairs. Because our plane left at 5am from Frankfurt we had to take a shuttle from Heidelberg to the airport at 2am. We had the nice surprise of running into some people from the Lausanne program and took up most of the bus (which was extremely overheated). So we get to the airport, get on the plane and start taxi-ing.. We're all pretty exhausted and just as I'm falling asleep this woman starts screaming, "Zu heisse! ZU HEISSE! IT'S TOO HOT!!!" Then she stands up, but we're about to take off so the flight attendants are screaming at her to sit down and it was a mini-panic on the plane. It was pretty scary because we were all jarred awake by the yelling, but she sat down and was quiet for the rest of the trip.. Also, it's true what they say about everyone clapping every time a Ryan Air flight lands safely.. Just a little celebration for surviving the sketchy airfare. haha.

Rome itself was amazing. It was supposed to rain the whole time we were there but it only rained the last day--the rest of the days were gorgeous. We visited all the tourist-y places: the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, Palatine Hill, the Mamertine Prison (where Paul was held!), St. Peter's Basilica (including the dome which took about 600 tightly winding spiral steps to get to), the Vatican, the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, the Catacombs, the Arch of Contstantine, Trajan column, the Tomb of the Unknown, the Pantheon, etc. Even the downpour we were caught in was something to marvel at. We ended up seeking refuge in a small chapel with about 100 other people. None of us were really wearing waterproof clothes so we were soaked but it was so much rain that it was past the point of annoyance and simply became amusing. We laughed and ran and played in the rain, letting it refresh our attitudes and wash away our stress, even if just for a moment.

Aside from the teeny tiny mishap of getting my passport, credit cards, IDs, and cash stolen, the trip was perfect. It might seem weird to say that losing my money and identity was a blessing, but in so many ways it was. I was able to see what amazing people I was traveling with. They came through for me and Amanda (who also lost all her documents since we both had all our things in her purse and that's what got stolen) in more ways than lending us money (although that was a HUGE help and I'm still in debt to most of them!). We also could feel a strong presence of God over us through the entire trip. Even when there was chaos around us we all felt a serene sense of calm enveloping us. And there was definitely enough chaos! With the theft, getting emergency passports at the American embassy, being harassed by a drunk Italian on a bus, watching Phoenix buy 30 Euro Dolce and Gabana man panties, almost losing Janay to a waiter who wanted to take her as his wife, taking pictures of a Canadian couple as the man proposed to his girlfriend, eating too much gelato and pizza, and seeing many many sites, we were exhausted and ready to come home at the end of our five days.

We joked about how this trip was a test of whether or not we'll survive over Christmas break, and about how we were Oh-so-much-younger before embarking on this 5-day journey, but actually both hold a lot of truth. We learned a lot on our Rome trip, and not just that you should never leave your purse on the ground, but about ourselves, each other, and the Grace we continually receive, even when we aren't aware.

Lausanne-yuh!

I spent the weekend of Halloween in one of the other Pepperdine programs in Lausanne, Switzerland. i loved getting to see all my missed friends! It was a pretty relaxing trip and lots of fun. We had a Halloween party here in Heidelberg on Thurs. night and then 5 of us left for Lausanne early the next morning. Two of the boys in our program dressed up as Derek and Hansel from Zoolander and acted out the "model walkoff" scene. It was hilarious. Our program had some really great costumes including Mona Lisa and Da Vinci, and 2 girls dressed up as presents with tags that said "To: Earth From: God" (they were God's gift to earth. hahaha).
The Lausanne house had a Halloween party too. I dressed as Where's Waldo and spent lots of time jumping into the back of pictures. At first people didn't get it and were just looking at each other like 'who the heck is this girl and why is she creepin in the back of all our pictures??' But then someone caught on and we all decided it was funny. Haha.
The Lausanne house is about a 10 min. walk from Lake Geneva and they all have beautiful views of the lake and the Swiss Alps from their windows! It was one of my favorite trips so far and I'm planning on going back to Switzerland in Jan. Up to Gimmelwald and Interlaken for snow!

Ich bin ein Berliner!

Note: A Berliner is a donut. Sorry, John, but I don't think you were a jelly-filled pastry.

Berlin! What an experience! First off I took a 2am train and was so paranoid about sleeping through my stop that I set 3 alarms for every connection I was supposed to have but didn't really sleep anyway. Berlin was fun, mostly because I got to travel with friends from another program, all of whom I miss so much! The weather was nice and we spent some time in the Teirgarten, which was beautiful. Berlin was also the only place with a Mexican restaurant. The first night we were there we were wandering around the city trying to find a place to eat, but we were all sold as soon as we saw the cacti painted on the walls and the sombreros hanging from the ceiling. We heartily enjoyed out quesadillas, burritos, taquitos, rice, beans, and salsa. Ohhh it was so good. Of course, not as good as real Mexican food, still tasty. We also tried these strange Berlin beers that had flavored syrup in them. Red, which tasted like raspberries, and green, which tasted "like green" according to my friend's French professor. haha. They were really good though. I liked the green flavor best. mmm.. green.

One night we decided to go to a club that was on our map the hostel had given us. We set out determined, but after walking for a while a couple of us were getting tired and the town wasn't lookng so promising anymore. But we persisted. All the way into Sketchville. We finally found the "club" which ended up being more of a ghetto outdoor house party so we just turned around as soon as we got there. There were enough Ladies of the Night and people crouched over and shaking on steps for us to not regret the decision. Not to mention be really grateful for traveling with boys.

We saw the sights (Checkpoint Charly, Bradenburg Gate, The Wall, The Jewish Museum, etc.), but the best part was getting to spend time with good friends.

WIENerschnitzel in WIEN

So all the Pepperdine International Programs have a week-long Educational Field Trip (EFT) each semester. Ours was Vienna, Austria (next semester we're going to Madrid!) and it definitely had the most E of any of the other programs. So while some programs we're on 8 day cruises around the Greek islands and others were climbing the ruins of Macchu Picchu, we were exploring museum on top of museum in Wien. Not that I'm complaining, because I for sure loved the Van Gogh exhibit at the Albertina. It was a great experience to see how his work progressed from his earlier days to the ones nearer his death. And the Hundertwasser and Belevedere museums were great too. I was not, however, a fan of the Third Man museum, which was really more of one man's collection of everything he had ever found related to The Third Man movie.

The first night we got there we all went out for real wienerschnitzel since "wien" is Vienna in German, so it makes sense to eat a food that originated there. Ha. It was sehr lecker! We also tried gluhwein, which is hot spiced wine.. But I'm still sticking to my favorite neue wein which is cold and sweet. Mmm.

We went to a monastary and the best part was the amazing library. It looked like the one from Beauty and the Beast. It was awesome. We also went to a palace that had gorgeous grounds to walk through and the Hundertwasser museum was really interesting too. I'm pretty sure the fancy tourist-attracting toilets I saw in New Zealand were designed by Hundertwasser. We also went to a Bach/Mozart concert one night. It was fun to get dressed up for once. We all joked about how nicely we clean up since we've all seen each other looking pretty rough (one of the side effects of traveling with and sharing a house with 51 other people).