YOU DONT WANT THE DUCK?

So this is a collaboration from Lucille and Taylor regarding Lu's first couple days here...

Taylor:So Mom flew in on Wednesday and rode the train to Maastricht where I greeted her at the airport. Then we brought her stuff back to my dorm and then we walked around town and ate lunch in the Vrithof, the main square. Mom learned her first few words in Dutch and threw in a few in French when she almost got hit by the bicycles. 

Lucille: The bicycles! Oy! I still can't get used to seeing grown men in suits and ties, women with babies and groceries, young girls in high heels, flying down the cobblestone street. We have not yet seen a wreck. Apparently, bicycles have reign over the streets, more so than cars. This is how people who eat chocolate, gouda cheese, and beer all day stay so thin. 

After lunch, we walked around town. Went into a former cathedral turned bookstore and a monastery turned hotel. Interesting, but both were very beautiful. We went to the grocery store and got some rolls and cheese for dinner, had to ask a lady what kind of cheese to buy since there were about a thousand variations. Came back here to have dinner and tried to stay awake.

Taylor: FAIL! After her sentences stopped making since around 6 pm, I let her go to bed. She woke herself up snoring (and probably the neighbors too) and I watched Desperate Housewives on my computer.

Lucille: We woke up on Thursday and took a walk to Taylor's university here. And by a walk, I mean a 45 minute trek through some very confusing twisting streets. We met the director of the study abroad program, a French woman named Severine. We went to a sandwich shop nearby called "Something Good". Long, skinny, hoagie-like, sandwiches with combinations like honey and goat cheese, and Taylor's favorite--turkey, sour kraut, cream cheese, and mustard. We ate our sandwiches and strawberry smoothie while walking to the train station.

Taylor: We took a bus about 10 miles out of town to the American World War II cemetery that my professor had told me about. You are actually standing on American soil while there. We took lots of pictures. It was very serene, with hardly any people and beautiful green scenery. 8000 US soldiers are buried there. Pretty humbling.

Lucille: After that, we came back and did some of Taylor's laundry. You need a PhD to work these Dutch washing machines. Then Taylor took me to the student hangout restaurant, Grillroom Nora, a Turkish frituur for Kebabs! Its a little hole in the wall that has cigarette vending machines, Egyptian murals, Iraqi MTV on in the background, and a guy named Samir who keeps asking Taylor out on dates. We got the Doner Kebab sandwich, which is gyro meat inside bread with lots of salad fixings and some spicy sauce. We washed it down with a cold Heineken. Yum!

We came back and watched an episode of Desperate Housewives in Taylor's bed, the size (and quality) of an army cot. Realized it was almost midnight and decided it was time to go to bed.

Taylor: The room was still dark when I woke up this morning so I figured that as usual Mom was up at an ungodly hour, so I tossed and turned trying to fall back asleep, asked Mom what time it was and she responds "I dont know. 7 or something." So I look at my cell phone and think Im seeing things. 10:45?! I remind you that my mother can remember the ONE time in 5th grade that she slept in past 9am, as if it were a monumental event in her life. So the two of us frantically get ready since now about half our day is gone. 

Lucille: We made another quick walk (ha!) down to Taylor's university to print out Anne Frank house tickets for when were in Amsterdam. Apparently the lines are pretty nasty. It was pouring rain and my khaki capris became completely soaked and see through! Oh, and we were both in flip flops while everyone else is dressed like it's December with their knee high boots. Yet, a Dutch man still asked us for directions..as if we looked like we belonged. Oh boy..

We rode the bus to the train station and caught another bus to Thermae 2000, a hot springs, spa that we had agreed would be a great thing to do on such a gloomy day. 

Taylor: Once we get to Thermae we change into our robes and get lunch at the restaurant. We dont really know what we ordered since the menu was in Dutch but it ended up okay. Some sort of salad with tiny strips of bacon and four leaf clovers thingys? and then baked feta with tomatoes and bread. We also got some special vitamin water stuff made especially for "sauna-ing" Next stop, information desk. 

Lucille: First of all, no kids allowed. In fact, almost every one was over 50. It's like Water World for geriatrics. Every half hour there were a multitude "activities" offered throughout the facility, including Floaten, where you drag your partner through the water while they float and listen to underwater music and little lights are on the ceiling resembling stars, and berken-something something, where they wave misty tree branches in the sauna to "baptize" you with pine scented water. There was a class for everything.

Taylor: Our favorite activity, however, would be where we went into the "no clothes" sauna for the honey treatment. Don't worry, Mom and I kept our towels tightly around our bodies, unlike EVERYONE else. They hand you a little cupful of honey and as mom and I take turns between awkwardly making an attempt at holding our towels up and rubbing it on our arms and face with the other hand, everyone else is rubbing themselves down with both hands, legs spread and towel dropped to the floor. 

Lucille: This just goes to show you that in the right circumstances, you can get used to just about anything. 

Taylor: Needless to say, we only hit up one of about ten different saunas. All featuring a different aroma therapy, temperature, moisture level, and demographic..no wait, they were all old Dutch people. 

Lucille: After the sauna, we participated in some Floaten and then hit up the outside hot springs which resembled the lazy river at Water World, but with the magnetic pull of the Solar System. We ended up going around the circle a few extra times than desired before we could get thrown back out. 

Taylor: We sat in a few hot tubs and then went up to this bar which doubles as a mild sauna and had a glass of wine. 

Lucille: Envision leather couches, people in robes sprawled out asleep in front of fire places, and an accidental view of the saunas down below through the stair...You've seen one "No Clothes Allowed" sauna, you've seen em all. 

Taylor: Our day at the spa had come to an end (skinny old rear ones), so we navigated our way to the Valkenburg bus stop, which proved to be difficult since they were setting up for a huge Amstel Gold bike race happening this weekend. 

We returned to Maastricht and stopped for dinner at La Chine, one of the few Asian restaurants here. We ordered Orange Beef and Chicken Curry, but were slightly thrown off by what we were served. The "chicken" seemed a little spongy and the beef hadn't slightest taste of orange. Guess they do Chinese food different here. Mom choked on some little tiny bones in the beef, just as the little Asian owner quietly asking "How is your dinner?" Pretty good. "Well," he responds "There's been a bit of a mix up. You ordered Orange Beef and Chicken Curry, but we gave you a vegetable platter with tofu and Peking Duck." It all made so much sense. He brought us some chicken curry on the house and charged us for the least expensive two dishes.

Lucille: With three entrees we couldnt finish it all. So we asked for a to go box. "Sure," the owner responded. "But just the vegetables and chicken. No duck." we say. "WHAT?! You dont want the duck?" he said outraged, then composed himself, "Oh ok" Apparently we offended him by not wanting to eat the most expensive item on their menu that we didn't order, or pay for. 

Back in the dorm now, going to Bruges tomorrow for the day. Mmm...Belgian chocolate. 

Okay so this is going to be an extremely fast post...Were staying in the only hostel in Cinque Terre on Easter weekend meaning they can do whatever they want (including charging outrageous prices for internet usage....and showers?!! Seriously?!)

Greece was amazing. Athens is not worth more than a day, but Santorini is a must see. I took detailed notes so Ill update more when I get some time...lots of sunburns, some ATV riding, meeting awesome people...so fun.

Then ferry to Florence...some parental worries about the earthquake in Italy, which I had no knowledge of at the time...Also, ferry does not really mean ferry..It means cruise ship.. awesome!

Florence was great. Gelato, meeting Australians..go figure, they are everywhere...eating the best pizza ever, beautiful lookouts. Again, more later.

Now were in Cinque Terre in the Italian Riviera..google it..So pretty! Were staying in the village of Manorola. Saw sunset tonight and ate gnocchi. Tomorrow morning were waking up for a 7 mile hike along the coast to all five villages.

Cant believe that this trip is almost over :(

Miss you all!

The last few weeks.

Hey guys! Sorry its been so long without a post.

Unfortunately the school part of STUDY abroad has caught up with me. The past couple of weeks has been really busy trying to study and write papers before we leave for our month of backpacking around the Mediterranean.

The weekend after Switzerland was spent here in Maastricht. We took a day trip to Cologne, Germany and got caught up on school stuff. I honestly love this city, and could see myself living here one day. Just staying here on the weekend made me appreciate it so much more. 

The following weekend (March 12-15), Jazzy, Briana and I went to Prague. I loved it! It had a different feel than the other cities we've been to and we were blessed with good weather and wonderful people in our hostel. I spent a whole day hanging out with a girl named Sarah from San Francisco studying in Denmark, an Australian named Angus (who we nicknamed Beef), a guy named Kevin from NYU studying abroad in Spain, and a guy named Dominic, from New York, working for an engineering company in Sweden. Jazzy and Bri did their own thing for one of the days and it was really fun hanging out with new people from all different walks of life. Angus, for example, is traveling for 11 months straight around the world, literally. He started in Asia, is now in Europe, then does a 63 day WALKING tour of South America, and finishes up with a 10 city tour of the U.S. I invited him to stay with me when he comes to Denver and/or Austin (hope thats okay mom and dad!) These Aussies are hard core about their backpacking! 

The American guy working at the hostel was doing an imitation on how intense Aussie's are about backpacking and it was really funny. He was like "First I swam across the Indian ocean, then road a camel up to Russia, where I met some gypsies and they gave me a piggy back over to Prague, slept on the street, then hitchhiked to Berlin, chugged 3 pints in 10 seconds as a bet for some guy to buy me dinner, it was a good eat though, especially with a little Vegemite." It sounded a lot funnier with the guys fake accent. 

Prague was beautiful though, and very inexpensive. A nice three course traditional Czech dinner was 200 KC..around 8 euros, including a stout (and not very pleasant) Slovak beer. If you ever get a chance to go to Prague, do it! Ill have to post pictures when I get a little more time, or go check them out on facebook. 

Last weekend, I went and visited my mom's cousin in Mannheim, Germany. He was stationed there for the army in the 1980's and ended up marrying a German woman. They were excellent hosts, and it was awesome having a home cooked meal, a hot shower, and a nice bed. They also took me to Heidelberg to see the castle ruins and it was an adorable little town. It was a lovely weekend.

Classes ended on Thursday, but I am still in Maastricht trying to finish a 10 page paper on Eastern vs. Western philosophy and perspectives on travel. We got to pick our own topic, so I thought travel was fitting. 

Bri and I leave tomorrow night for Berlin, where we catch a flight to Athens. We spend a night in Athens, meet up with Jazzy and then head to Santorini for 5 nights. Then back to Athens for a night and we take a ferry to Ancona, Italy, where we take a train to Florence. We spend two nights in Florence, three nights in Cinque Terre (so excited!). Then one night in Milan and a flight to Barcelona, where we spend two nights and then fly back to Brussels, train back to Maastricht. Then the next day, April 15th, my mom flies in to Amsterdam. The two of us are spending the next 9 days in Maastricht, Bruge or Luxembourg?, Delft, The Hague,  and Amsterdam.

Then back to Colorado! Its going to be a crazy 4 weeks, but Im really looking forward to it! This has gone by entirely too fast, but at the same time I'm looking forward to spending the summer in the beautiful Rocky Mountains, then back to Waco in August. Its actually weird how much Im missing Waco, I think its a sign that its really became a home to me the past year and a half. Missing Colorado is a given, but when I start to yearn for frontage roads, Rudy's bbq, and humidity, you know I've been away too long! haha. Probably a lot of it is just missing my friends there, because I don't think I've appreciated all of them enough until I came on this trip and have been forced to be one of the few people who didn't know anyone before we left. It's been a little hard, feeling like everyone was such good friends or sorority sisters before this trip, but it's forced me out of my comfort zone for sure. I've become a lot more independent, and comfortable being by myself, alone in thought and able to absorb all of my surroundings. Not to say I haven't met a lot of awesome people, but still. 

Anyways, I gotta get back to writing my paper, and then packing 16 days worth of stuff into a backpack..Yikes!

With love (and a longing for vacuum bags),

Taylor 

So in honor of Carnaval, we decided to celebrate by spending 6 days in the Swiss Alps. University of Maastricht cancelled school for the festivities so we experienced a little of the craziness and then got the heck out out of town. Our destination: Gryon. It's literally not even on the map. Its a tiny town outside of the bigger ski town Villars. Its in the French part of Switzerland and we were recommended the hostel, Chalet Martin, by previous Baylor study abroad students. We spent a whole day, over 12 hours, navigating our way through the European train system and finally at about 9:30 pm on Monday (March 23rd), we arrived. 

Honestly, Switzerland is my favorite place so far. I could have stayed there for another 2 weeks, if I didn't have to come back to school. The hostel made our trip. It was so warm and homelike. The people there, the owners and the other guests, were incredible. The owner is an Australian named Matt who is married to Elizabeth, a girl from West Virginia, who stayed there while doing a college backpacking trip. Now, her and her younger brother Patrick help run the place. They also rent rooms per month, so besides people who just come through for a few days at a time, there are people who live there all year or for the entire ski season. I guess its a running joke that you can never really leave the Chalet Martin. You just keep coming back. I can see why.

This is the few off the deck. Im sure it's just as amazing during the summer months. 

Ill just get confused if I try to do this in order. But one of the days, we went skiing. I'm in the middle here with Briana and Jazzy.

Breathtaking

This is Barbalouse, the next little town down the cograil from Gryon. This is where we got on the ski lift and such. 

Every night, we had a "family dinner" with the twelve of us from Baylor in an effort to save some money. The hostel had a kitchen with everything you need to cook. We had spaghetti one night (hey, were college students!), chili the next, chicken noodle soup, and breaded chicken and mashed potatoes another. The first night we didn't get there til after dinner and the last night we were on our own.  

All our skis outside of our hostel

This is where we stayed, the attic. My bed was behind that first curtain. 

View from the hostel

Ski resort

Palm trees in Switzerland. This is getting me excited for the beaches in April

Lunch break from skiing (Tori, Meghan, and Miranda)

They have these weird lifts there. Kind of intimidating

The quaint little town of Gryon. 

We did wine and chocolate tasting at our hostel. Switzerland only exports 1% of their wines, so tasting them is something you have to do while visiting. We learned a lot, no really, we did.  

The next day, one of the girls Carolyn and I decided to venture to the town of Zermatt in order to see the Matterhorn. We failed to realize that our Eurorail didn't cover the trains to Zermatt because its a private train company. So we had to pay 50 swiss franks to get there...We probably wouldn't have gone had we we realized that, BUT it was too late. So we decided to have a positive attitude and enjoy it for all it was worth. If I was going to 50 Swiss Franks for a train ride, however, this would have been the one. The ride there, was stunning. Going through vineyards and mountainous areas with rivers cutting through, like the one above.  

And then we got there! Here's me in front of the Matterhorn. I mean, honestly, how cool is that? The real thing was 5 times better than the Disney World Ride and that's saying a lot. 

We walked around the town of Zermatt and went in some shops. It was a super cute town. 

No cars were allowed in the town, except for these little taxi car thingys. Yes, thats their technical name. 

Our last day in Switzerland was absolutely beautiful outside. It was 60 degrees outside and sunny. Jazzy, Briana, and I went out to lunch at a restaurant called Cookie. We splurged for some authentic cheese fondue. Best lunch ever. Period. 

You are supposed to either eat fondue with white wine or hot tea, so that it doesn't upset your stomach. We figured noon was a little too early for wine, and we got some amazing fresh mint tea. Isn't it pretty?

Yum!

Our time to leave Switzerland had come, so we packed up our bags, said goodbye to our Aussie friends and the beautiful views, and hit the road. "We'll be back, Chalet Martin," we wrote in the guestbook. And we will. Someday. 

The picture is of Lake Geneve taken from the train on our way home.

This weekend I'm staying in Maastricht and a couple of us are going to do day trips to Cologne and Luxembourg. I needed a weekend to get caught up on laundry and school. Plus, there's so much to see within an hour or two of us, that it would be a shame if I didn't spend at least one weekend here.

Oh and good news, my mom is coming to visit the last 9 or 10 days Im here in April. I'm so excited to show her my little European home :)

With Love,

Taylor

Long time no talk. Sorry I went on vacation..from my vacation. Or something like that. Maastricht, the city where I'm studying, is famous for its Carnaval celebration. The entire town shuts down and then goes crazy. Oh and hoards of tourists come into town and everyone dresses up crazy. Sort of like Halloween, except for a thousand times cooler. They have a parade and families build their little "floats" or carts or something, and then dress up to match the theme. 

One important aspect of these carts is to hold the food and alcohol for the day. This guy, for instance, is filling his mug with beer straight out of the tap built in to the side of his SWAT tank. Oh and the speakers, they can't do without the speakers. 

Then families, from the 90-year-old grandmas to newborn babies all dress up crazy and march around the streets and into all the pubs. 

 Some sumo-wrestling chickens? You know, just another day in Maastricht. 

Clever little Dutch theme. Delft china and tulips. They literally spend the whole year coming up with these outfits. 

A man in a baby stroller. Why not? 

Look closely and see the people in the windows of the building. Best seats in the house. Where do I make friends with these people? 

There's even hippies at Carnaval! Polka-listening hippies!

And cute little children who look like porcelain dolls (and who think I'm a creep for taking pictures of them)

Even President Obama and Michelle made an appearance.

 Random note: Dutch people exclaim "Yes, We Can!" all the time to Americans. Even in the most awkward of circumstances. "Excuse me, Man from the Waffle store, can we get powder sugar on those waffles?" He responds, "Yes We Can!" (followed by a chuckle and a "do you get it?" look) Yes, I get it, Waffle Man. And don't think you are that clever. Kebab and Frites Man and Bus Driver Man have already said it five times...each.  

The little tourist children. You can tell they are tourists from their coats covering their costumes. Come on, people, if you want to fit in with the real Maastrictonians, you are going to need to cowboy up.

These are like the Carnaval council. On the highest stand was the prince of Carnaval. A big honor in these parts. 

This was actually a couple days before Carnaval in the Vritof, which is one of the city centers. The "after" photo would show lots of broken glass and trash from the entire square being filled with people. 

My friend Julia from high school came into town. She is studying in London. So we dressed up. This is not nearly my whole ensemble by the way. I'm wearing a very glittery dress, and the wig is actually mine. Along with some huge sunglasses and some crazy accessories. It changed every day for the three days we were here. 

Overall, it was quite the experience. And I wasn't even here for the craziest part. We left early Monday morning for Switzerland, so we headed in early Sunday night (probably the craziest night) and then Monday and Tuesday are almost as crazy. 

Im going to do a seperate entry for Switzerland. Partially, so it's more readable. But mostly because then I'll get credit for TWO blog posts. 

With Love (and the official Carnaval song stuck in my head..the one in the video),

Tay

Paris

So this weekend being Valentine's Day, we decided what better place to celebrate the day of love than Paris? So, on Friday the 13th (another special occasion?! perfect!) we were on our way. The train to Paris, for one reason or another, is one of the few trains where you have to book a reservation. With our Eurorail passes, we can usually just hop on and hop off whenever we please, but for Paris we had to book reservations several days before. We probably should have even booked them sooner, because we were forced to split up onto two different trains.

There were about 8 of us girls on the first train to Brussels,  and then Jazzy and I had to rush to catch our train to Paris. Brussels is a French speaking city in Belgium, and a lot of the people, even if they know how to speak English and Dutch will refuse to do so. So we spent a good 20 minutes trying to figure out why we weren't being allowed on the train, and we never really figured out why, but our train ended up leaving about 45 minutes late. 

Once on the train, we read and slept, pretty typical. It's funny how at the beginning of the trip I was so alert and looking out the windows trying to see everything and now even if I try to stay awake, I am slowly rocked to sleep. There were some cute/slightly annoying kids sitting next to us who kept creeping up to us and trying to scare us by whispering next to us while we were sleeping. If they had been American, I would have thought they were brats. But theres something about kids speaking in another language that makes them cute. 

Once we arrived in Paris, we got directions to our hostel from a lady. We rode the metro one stop and then switched lines to our stop, which was Les Gobelins. I'm guessing it might translate to The Goblins or something which is kinda creepy...maybe not. Our hostel was a lot easier to find than the one in Amsterdam, which was nice. Plus, we got their in the daylight this time. We checked in and then went next door to a Turkish restaurant for lunch. No one spoke English so we pointed to what the guys next to us had ordered and it ended up being very good. It was like some sort of sandwich with beef in it...kind of like a philly cheesesteak but not exactly. By the time, we were done eating, Christina and Brisa (our hostelmates) had arrived. Their train had been on time...So we went to our hostel and checked out the room. 

Our room number (and also my area code)...A good sign? I think so. 

Our little tiny bathroom. Yes, that shower is really that small.

So after we had gotten freshened up, we decided to go exploring. Jazzy and I needed to buy a multiple day metro pass, because we didn't want to keep paying 1.60 Euros every time we rode the thing. So we searched for the station who sold them, which we finally found. But not before seeing a crazy French lady getting pulled over in a roundabout and throwing a huge fit. She was slamming her head on the steering wheel and then got out of the car and ran into the nearby park with the policeman following her. Lesson learned. Road rage is universal. 

The next little hitch occurred once we had gotten on the metro. We got onto one of the subway cars and were greeted by the absolute worst smell I have ever smelled. I told Christina after that I wanted to blog about it, but honestly didn't know what words could accurately portray how awful it was. Brisa, Christina, Jazzy and I are all trying to be calm and not obvious in the fact that we are literally trying not to breathe. I honestly though for a minute that this was a normal thing for the subway car to smell this bad. And I had already spend 20 Euros on the dumb pass, dang it! Slowly, we start to notice that everyone in the car is covering their faces and then we discover the source of the stench. In the back of the subway car, there was a homeless man laying on the floorboards, with feces all over his pants, and body odor that makes a certain family member (you know who, mom and dad)  smell as good as homemade cookies. 

At the next stop, we ran, not walked, out of the subway car onto the car in front of us and for the next ten or twelve stops watched as people boarded the car and then followed our exact steps from trying to ignore it to the sprint off at the next stop. 

It was about 4:30 or 5 o'clock by this time, and Brisa and Christina were hungry so they got a sandwich and Jazzy and I got Gelato. We walked around a little bit, and went into a perfume shop, which reminded me that I want to invest in some good perfume when I get home to the States. By then it was a little after 6, so we headed over to the Louvre museum. On Friday nights, the Louvre is free to people under 25.  First, we took the infamous photos outside and it was absolutely gorgeous. See!

So then we ventured inside. The museum is huge! Apparently if you spent 30 seconds at every piece of artwork inside, you would be in the place for nearly 4 months. 

And of course, you can't go to the Louvre, without seeing the Mona Lisa. Honestly, kind of a letdown. Its like the size of notebook paper an you can't get within 20 feet of it. But hey, I can cross that one off my bucket list.

The Crown Jewels

And then we were bid farewell by some interpretive dancers wearing skirts. 

Overall, we spent 3 hours in there and probably didn't even put a dent in it. It was really neat though, a very beautiful museum. My favorite so far this trip.

So by this time, it was about 10 o'clock at night and we headed back to our hostel, but we were all starving so we asked our hostel front desk person where the supposedly hoppin' Latin Quarter district was so we could get dinner and drinks. He pointed us in the right direction, but after a little ways of walking, we decided we were too tired to walk that far and had an inkling that were were lost so we headed back to the pizza place near our hostel. It's a good thing we did. 

Pizza Navona was the name of the restaurant and it was amazing! We all ordered the house wine, which was the best wine I've had here and the best part, it wasn't expensive! Then I got the Quatre Fromage pizza which translates to four cheese, for you people who aren't up to date on your French. It was by far, the best pizza I've ever eaten, hands down. After another couple glasses of wine, we were thinking that our hostel beds were sounding pretty awesome, so we called it a night. 

Goodnight Brisa and Christina. Goodnight Paris.

The next morning we woke up bright and early and ate our hostel provided croissant breakfast and made our way to the St. Michel fountain to meet for our free tour. Gotta love us college travelers, getting everything for free eh? The above picture is in front of the fountain waiting for the tour to start. 
This is our tour guide James. He was on the TV reality show Big Brother a few seasons ago. I never watched that show, but hey here's to the first (pseudo) celebrity sighting in Europe. He's a freak though. If you can't tell from his pink mohawk (not just in honor of Valentine's), they called him "Crazy James" on the show for a reason. Don't google image the guy, I made that mistake yesterday, R-rated. 

The tour was good though. We saw the Louvre again during the day time. 

We saw the Roche Cathedral (sp?)

We saw the most expensive street in all of Europe, where this chocolate shop sells chocolate for $250 Euros

We saw the U.S. Embassy, ironically the most guarded building in all of Paris. We saw some pretty gardens and lots of other stuff too. The tour got done around 2, so a group of about 8 of us girls then headed to, you guessed it, the Eiffel tower!

On the way, we saw this couple taking wedding photos. A depressing reminder that we were spending Valentine's day single in Paris. Okay, maybe don't feel TOO sorry for me. 

Finally, we have arrived!

It was a lot bigger than I though it would be! Some of the girls decided to wait in line and go to the top. I opted out since the line was 2 HOURS long! I mean who would have known that Valentine's day at the Eiffel tower would be so busy? 

On the way back to the metro we grabbed some sucre citron (sugar and lemon) crepes and then I snapped this photo.

After the Eiffel tower, we headed back to the hostel and of course, went back to our favorite pizza place. The owner, an Italian man in in 50's, gave us free Valentine's Day cocktails, but then made us kiss him on the cheek to thank him.. Not exactly the Valentine's kiss in Paris I was dreaming of but I guess we got to get used to these flirty Italian men sometime right? 

Then we ordered Chocolate Mousse and Tiramisu. Good decision. After dessert, we went down the block and saw "He's Just Not That Into You" in English, with French subtitles. It was the perfect chick flick to end our fabulous Valentine's Day in Paris.

The next morning (Sunday) , a girl Katie and I met up to head to the train station for our journey home. Several of the other girls were staying until Monday because they don't have classes on Monday, so they were going to stay and see Versailles and such. I wish I could have seen Versailles because I hear it's truly amazing. Maybe next time. It was nice to get back and have some time to get things done and relax before classes started on Monday. 

Paris, you truly surpassed all my expectations. I guess, after a somewhat stressful weekend in Amsterdam, and all the negative comments I've heard about French people being mean to us Americans, I wasn't expecting much from you. But you proved me wrong. You are beautiful and I promise I will be back someday.

This upcoming week is Carnaval, it's like the biggest thing to hit Maastricht since the invention of cheese (oh yes, these Maastrichtonians love their cheese). But really, its like Halloween and Mardi Gras combined, but bigger, and crazier. Thousands of people travel here for the festivities and the entire town shuts down for a 5 day long party. The pre-festivities started this weekend, and on next Wednesday, they actually have a "The party is over until next year" party. 

My friend Julia and a couple of her friends are coming into town on Thursday for Carnaval and we don't have school next week at all so on Monday I'm traveling to Gryon, Switzerland (a cute  little mountain town) for 6 days to go skiing, hit up some thermal pools, partake in some wine and chocolate tasting, and who knows what else? This study abroad thing really isn't so bad.

Anyways, don't be too jealous. Go eat some good Mexican food and sleep on an extra fluffy pillow tonight, and rub it in my face via blog comment.  It will make you feel better, I promise.

With Love (and a Valentine's Day that will be hard to beat),

Tay