Yesterday, a trip to the beach was in order. The weather was gorgeous (about 79 degrees) and super sunny. After this beautiful day, on my way home, I was on the tram that was super crowded for that time of the day. Apparently, there was a little school trip of smaller children and they were coming home in the group with their supervisors on the tram. After many annoying minutes of children laughing and being dumb, the supervisors kept threatening them with some sort of punishment. Finally, one of the supervisors decided to tape some of the kids mouths closed. This wasn't really malicious since she pulled the tape right off. What I found really entertaining was the fact that some of the kids actually started volunteering to get their mouths taped. Wow! What was supposed to be a punishment turned into a game. French kids are weird huh?
I wanted to mention that we are still doing a bit of a penpal situation with the elementary school in the Grand Rapids area. We just received their Easter/St. Patrick's Day cards. After translating some very lengthy letters to my French kids, I found a couple really cute questions and comments and I wanted to comment on them.
Many kids asked what games they liked on the Wii or the DS, if they like their teacher, how many kids are in their class and cute questions like that. I loved that so many kids talked about their pets, their siblings and their favorite games to play. My kids, for the most part, were overjoyed that the Americans wrote back to them and asked so many questions. We are trying to send them all pictures of the kids so the Americans can see what real French kids look like! What I really enjoyed were how excited my kids were to design French themed cards to send back. They asked what we considered really French and when I mentioned baguettes and croissants, they were so surprised. I guess it makes sense. I mean, do you think that peanut butter is a very American thing? Peanut butter is next to impossible to find here and when you do find it, it's really expensive. How odd is that? So, many of my kids drew the French flag or the Eiffel tower or even a map of France with their location marked on the card. I am so happy I did this exchange because it really made me remember how exciting it is to learn about another culture. I hope my French kids remember this for a long time. I have even had some of my students ask if they could keep in touch with their penpals after the school year. That made me so happy.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Barcelona
Chris arrived on Tuesday, April 7th, after wandering around Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris for 5 hours waiting for me to get there from the Paris Beauvais airport (as I was returning from Scotland that day), we headed into town. Our train from Paris to Montpellier didn't leave til 7pm, so we had almost the entire day to wander. Aftter a pizza lunch on the Champs Elysées, we went wherever you could go with a suitcase. Chris graciously brought 2 suitcases with him. One was meant for just me to ship some stuff home in advance with him. Hurray for Chris!! We went to the Arc de Triomphe, walked the whole of the Champs Elysées to the Louvre, walked around the outside of the Louvre and ended at Notre Dame. We could see the Eiffel Tower but didn't go to it since we were returning to Paris in 5 days.
After the train trip to Montpellier and a quick repack, we left Wed. April 8-10 to Barcelona. We bought the cheapest train tickets possible so we had the longest journey possible of 6 1/2 hours. We talked the whole way and had a great time. We arrived into Barcelona around 6pm. After geting metro tickets and finding our super chill, highly recommended hostel, we hit the town for a little sightseeing and dinner. We walked along Las Ramblas (which is the main thoroughfare in Barcelona). We took lots of pictures of the street performers, little shops and tons of toursits. We wandered into this little piazza and decided on a cool tapas restaurant. Now, it should be noted that I do speak Spanish as well, though it's Mexican Spanish which is pretty close to Spain Spanish with a few exceptions. Unfortunately, I completely forgot that Barcelona was the capital of Catalan so everything was in Catalan and sometimes in Spanish as well. Thankfully, we were in a super toursitic city, so things were even in English and French for us (menus, directions & signs were mostly translated). I was a bit disappointed though because I was really excited to speak Spanish but alas, it was easier to speak in English or French to everyone. The Catalan language, if you don't know, is like if the language French and Spanish had a child...it would be Catalan.
We had super great tapas which I ordered in Spanish and of course, we had sangria. Here's our dinner:
Dinner is served very late in Spain, by the way. You have to plan on eating around 9:30 or 10pm for dinner. After dinner, we went home and tried to prepare for our only full day in Barcelona and sightseeing. Thursday was a very, very full day! We saw La Sagrada Familia which is a cathedral built and designed by Gaudi and is still in progress of being built. This has been in process for over a hundred years. This picture is what the ceiling looks like on the inside. Seeing La Sagrada Familia was almost worth the trip alone. It was so huge and awe-inspiring. The sulptures and angles on the building were just so amazing.
Here is one of the sculptures on the outside of the entrance. Look at how intricate and amazing it is, in stone! I have many more pictures of La Sagrada Familia in the photo album. The link to the album is at the end of this post.
After La Sagrada Familia, thanks for Chris' indispensable travel book for Barcelona, we gave ourselves a walking tour of the Gothic quarter of Barcelona. There we saw the Barcelona cathedral that we did not go in because they were charging 5 euros to get into it. I don't think you should have to pay to go into a church. Even Notre Dame is free to go into. We saw tons of cute little streets, did a little touristy shopping and even saw a man playing Spanish guitar in one of the alleys. There is some video of that in the photo album too. After lunch, we wandered some more and went to the Barcelona port/beach. We were really lucky to have such a beautiful day since the day before and after were pretty rainy. The beach was beautiful and the boardwalk was really full. More pics of the beach can be found in the photo album.
Then we decided to go to the Park Guell which is another Gaudi designed/inspired place. This place was really hard to find. Once you get out of the metro station, you actually have to know where you're going. There were zero signs that pointed us in the right direction. I actually went into the library near the metro stop and asked for directions. Turns out that you basically have to climb this really steep road to get to the park which overlooks all of the city. There are sections of the road that actually have escalators for pedestrians because it's so steep. The climb was worth it though. The park was beautiful and mosaics were everywhere. These buildings are at the actual entrance of the park but you can see the skyline a little in this pic too.
Here is the stereotypical shot of the park and I'm sitting on the curving bench that surrounded the whole park.
After the park, we headed back to Las Ramblas to find dinner. We came across La Bouqueria, which, as you can see below, is a huge outdoor market that is setup and taken down every day. We got there in time to walk around as they started to take it apart. It was really crowded as people were scrambling to buy things before they got put away but really cool to see all the food.
Dinner was paella and huge steins of beer. The paella, unfortunately, wasn't very good either but thankfully the beer was huge and plentiful. Chris is demonstrating the size of our beer here.
After dinner, we felt the need for more sangria. We wandered the streets for awhile trying to find a good sangria bar. After being directed really poorly by some drunk American guy on the street to a non-existent bar, we settled on one not far from Las Ramblas but in a little alleyway. 3 pitchers later, we got a cab home since we missed the last metro by a couple hours (they stop running around midnight on the weekdays).
The next day, Friday, April 10, we had the whole afternoon before our train left at 5:30 so we decided to try both Dunkin' Donuts which is called Dunkin' Coffee in Barcelona and Burger King. I haven't had Burger King since leaving the US so it was a really great tasting whopper!! Below is a sign in Catalan at Burger King so you can kind of see the language. Dunkin' Coffee wasn't that great and way overpriced. It was 1.20 Euro for one donut. I felt that it was extortion!!
After more shopping, last minute souvenirs and wandering, we were finally on our way home. The train ride this time was 6 hours and we should have been home by 11:30pm. Instead, when we changed trains from the Spanish train (whose seats are super hard and uncomfortable, especially after 3 hours), we were in a French border town called Cerebère. I like to call it the French town of nothingness. You literally couldn't leave the station because there was nowhere to go except down a really creepy dark tunnel which neither Chris nor I wanted to brave since it was by then dark out when we got there. Our train was delayed leaving this town of nothingness for about 2 hours so not only could we really not go anywhere, what was supposed to be a quick layover turned into a most boring and uncomfortable stay in Cerebère. We arrived 2 hours late into Montpellier and thankfully, Dawn was kind enough to let both Chris and I stay at her place, about 5 minutes from the train station. Since Dawn and her roommate were still out of town, we got our own place that night instead of travelling the half hour back to my very full house of houseguests.
I would HIGHLY recommend Barcelona to everyone. We had such a blast and packed so much into 48 hours!!
Here's a link to all the pictures if you are interested:
http://picasaweb.google.com/jkimpfbeck/Barcelona#
After the train trip to Montpellier and a quick repack, we left Wed. April 8-10 to Barcelona. We bought the cheapest train tickets possible so we had the longest journey possible of 6 1/2 hours. We talked the whole way and had a great time. We arrived into Barcelona around 6pm. After geting metro tickets and finding our super chill, highly recommended hostel, we hit the town for a little sightseeing and dinner. We walked along Las Ramblas (which is the main thoroughfare in Barcelona). We took lots of pictures of the street performers, little shops and tons of toursits. We wandered into this little piazza and decided on a cool tapas restaurant. Now, it should be noted that I do speak Spanish as well, though it's Mexican Spanish which is pretty close to Spain Spanish with a few exceptions. Unfortunately, I completely forgot that Barcelona was the capital of Catalan so everything was in Catalan and sometimes in Spanish as well. Thankfully, we were in a super toursitic city, so things were even in English and French for us (menus, directions & signs were mostly translated). I was a bit disappointed though because I was really excited to speak Spanish but alas, it was easier to speak in English or French to everyone. The Catalan language, if you don't know, is like if the language French and Spanish had a child...it would be Catalan.
We had super great tapas which I ordered in Spanish and of course, we had sangria. Here's our dinner:
Dinner is served very late in Spain, by the way. You have to plan on eating around 9:30 or 10pm for dinner. After dinner, we went home and tried to prepare for our only full day in Barcelona and sightseeing. Thursday was a very, very full day! We saw La Sagrada Familia which is a cathedral built and designed by Gaudi and is still in progress of being built. This has been in process for over a hundred years. This picture is what the ceiling looks like on the inside. Seeing La Sagrada Familia was almost worth the trip alone. It was so huge and awe-inspiring. The sulptures and angles on the building were just so amazing.
Here is one of the sculptures on the outside of the entrance. Look at how intricate and amazing it is, in stone! I have many more pictures of La Sagrada Familia in the photo album. The link to the album is at the end of this post.
After La Sagrada Familia, thanks for Chris' indispensable travel book for Barcelona, we gave ourselves a walking tour of the Gothic quarter of Barcelona. There we saw the Barcelona cathedral that we did not go in because they were charging 5 euros to get into it. I don't think you should have to pay to go into a church. Even Notre Dame is free to go into. We saw tons of cute little streets, did a little touristy shopping and even saw a man playing Spanish guitar in one of the alleys. There is some video of that in the photo album too. After lunch, we wandered some more and went to the Barcelona port/beach. We were really lucky to have such a beautiful day since the day before and after were pretty rainy. The beach was beautiful and the boardwalk was really full. More pics of the beach can be found in the photo album.
Then we decided to go to the Park Guell which is another Gaudi designed/inspired place. This place was really hard to find. Once you get out of the metro station, you actually have to know where you're going. There were zero signs that pointed us in the right direction. I actually went into the library near the metro stop and asked for directions. Turns out that you basically have to climb this really steep road to get to the park which overlooks all of the city. There are sections of the road that actually have escalators for pedestrians because it's so steep. The climb was worth it though. The park was beautiful and mosaics were everywhere. These buildings are at the actual entrance of the park but you can see the skyline a little in this pic too.
Here is the stereotypical shot of the park and I'm sitting on the curving bench that surrounded the whole park.
After the park, we headed back to Las Ramblas to find dinner. We came across La Bouqueria, which, as you can see below, is a huge outdoor market that is setup and taken down every day. We got there in time to walk around as they started to take it apart. It was really crowded as people were scrambling to buy things before they got put away but really cool to see all the food.
Dinner was paella and huge steins of beer. The paella, unfortunately, wasn't very good either but thankfully the beer was huge and plentiful. Chris is demonstrating the size of our beer here.
After dinner, we felt the need for more sangria. We wandered the streets for awhile trying to find a good sangria bar. After being directed really poorly by some drunk American guy on the street to a non-existent bar, we settled on one not far from Las Ramblas but in a little alleyway. 3 pitchers later, we got a cab home since we missed the last metro by a couple hours (they stop running around midnight on the weekdays).
The next day, Friday, April 10, we had the whole afternoon before our train left at 5:30 so we decided to try both Dunkin' Donuts which is called Dunkin' Coffee in Barcelona and Burger King. I haven't had Burger King since leaving the US so it was a really great tasting whopper!! Below is a sign in Catalan at Burger King so you can kind of see the language. Dunkin' Coffee wasn't that great and way overpriced. It was 1.20 Euro for one donut. I felt that it was extortion!!
After more shopping, last minute souvenirs and wandering, we were finally on our way home. The train ride this time was 6 hours and we should have been home by 11:30pm. Instead, when we changed trains from the Spanish train (whose seats are super hard and uncomfortable, especially after 3 hours), we were in a French border town called Cerebère. I like to call it the French town of nothingness. You literally couldn't leave the station because there was nowhere to go except down a really creepy dark tunnel which neither Chris nor I wanted to brave since it was by then dark out when we got there. Our train was delayed leaving this town of nothingness for about 2 hours so not only could we really not go anywhere, what was supposed to be a quick layover turned into a most boring and uncomfortable stay in Cerebère. We arrived 2 hours late into Montpellier and thankfully, Dawn was kind enough to let both Chris and I stay at her place, about 5 minutes from the train station. Since Dawn and her roommate were still out of town, we got our own place that night instead of travelling the half hour back to my very full house of houseguests.I would HIGHLY recommend Barcelona to everyone. We had such a blast and packed so much into 48 hours!!
Here's a link to all the pictures if you are interested:
http://picasaweb.google.com/jkimpfbeck/Barcelona#
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Scotland
On Saturday, April 4, I travelled with Dawn to her fair country of Scotland. I was only to spend a few days but in that time, I had an amazing and wonderful time. We started out our trip by arriving in the Glasgow airport that is only about 15 minutes from Dawn's parents house. Both parents were there to meet us and take us home. I think the majority of my trip to Scotland is going to revolve around all the food I ate actually. Once we arrived to Dawn's house, we had what is called a "fry-up". In said fry-up, I got to try black pudding (which is more like a sausage type food all sliced up and not actually pudding). Black pudding is made from blood and it tasted nothing like blood so don't get too concerned. I also had square sausages (beef based), tattie scones (potato scones which were mostly like naan bread) and fruit pudding. Fruit pudding is also like a sausage type food but with fruit and not nearly as sweet as I had feared. I loved the fry-up.
After breakfast, we headed over to Glasgow to see the sights and sounds of the big city. I got to take a real Scottish train and everything. Glasgow city is about an hour train ride from Coylton (where Dawn lives). I arrived into lovely Scottish weather so walking around the city was a bit difficult since it was raining and cruddy out. We went to the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. It was even free to get into. :) We had a great time seeing all the random pieces in the museum. I even saw a haggis!! See below.
After Glasgow, we went back home to a traditional haggis dinner at Dawn's parents' house. Haggis with neeps and tatties (turnips and potatoes). And I must say, haggis is DELICIOUS!! Dawn's mom even made vegetarian haggis for me in case I didn't like real haggis. Vegetarian haggis was good but it tasted a lot like lentils and carrot fillers. I got to try Irn Bru which is Scottish soda. It tasted like a mix of cream soda and a little bit of orange soda mixed in. It was good but a little disappointing. I thought it was going to be more exciting. I don't know why I thought soda should be exciting, though.Here's everyone at the haggis dinner:
On Sunday, Dawn and I drove up to Stirling where she goes to college. It's about an hour and a half drive and the weather, though windy, was really sunny and beautiful. We arrived at David's (Dawn's boyfriends) apartment, grabbed him and went to the Wallace Monument. That was really cool since I didn't actually know that existed and that is was viewable from Stirling University even. We hiked up to the top of this nice, steep hill to see the monument which was pretty impressive. Here's a pic of the monument and the guy that was doing a little presentation on William Wallace's life.
The guy was really cool and very entertaining. We learned a lot about William Wallace (and surprise, surprise...Braveheart was not totally accurate). After the monument, we went over to Stirling Castle and saw a small portion of it. Mary, Queen of Scots, grew up in Stirling Castle. Unfortunately, due to renovation work, much of the castle was closed off. They were adding furnishing and tapstries to all of the castle rooms so we really only saw the great hall and the kitchens but it was fun to see the castle anyway. Right outside the castle gates, there's a huge statue of King Robert the Bruce and you can see the Wallace Monument from the castle.We went out to dinner after sightseeing. We had a traditional dinner of roast beef, mashed potatoes and mixed veggies. The soup was cock-a-leekie. Which was actually chicken and leek soup but I loved the name of the soup. I even had The Tartan Special beer. It was good.
The next day we headed over to Loch Lomond, walked around, enjoyed the almost beautiful day (kind of overcast) and did a little shopping in the boardwalk area of the Loch area. Before driving home to Dawn's house, we stopped over at the Paisley Center (which is a theatre complex) to visit David's mom and get a little tour of the theatre. I was in heaven. It was a small blackbox theatre with a couple hundred seats. The coolest thing was seeing the booth and seeing that they use the exact same light board that I used in countless theatres. I was so excited to see that. I took geeky pictures, of course, of everything. Then, it was back to Dawn's house for dinner out with the family where I enjoyed Scottish salmon and sticky toffee pudding for dessert. After dinner, I wanted to get a few items from the store before leaving (random food items). We went to Tesco, which was like the Scottish version of Walmart, and had a great time taking pictures of EVERYTHING. One of my favorite items to see was this:
Or maybe this one:
(This is a small personal trampoline but I loved the name!!)We ended the trip by watching Braveheart. Yep, that's right. We watched Braveheart in Scotland. Don't you think that's the best? :) Scotland was tons of fun and I have a ridiculous amount of pictures to prove it.
Here's a link to all the pictures if you are interested:
http://picasaweb.google.com/jkimpfbeck/Scotland#
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
A travelling holiday
This is just a short intro to what will be a longer post in a few days. I am now on my final vacation of the year and this one is a great one! It started on Friday, April 3 after 12pm when I was released from school early. Hurray! I spent Saturday, Sunday and Monday in Scotland with Dawn visiting. More on that in an upcoming post. My very good friend, Chris, from the Chicagoland area arrived in Paris this morning (Tuesday) and after it took me forever and a half to get to him from an airport in the outskirts of Paris that I flew into from Glasgow, we reunited for a fun filled 7 day trip he is spending here. We spent the day today walking around Paris with 2 suitcases which was challenging and entertaining. After a 3 1/2 hour train trip on the super fast train from Paris to Montpellier, we arrived just a short while ago for some much needed rest. I slept about 3 hours last night since my flight from Glasgow was at 6:30 am (forcing me to be at the airport by 5 am). Chris did not sleep at all on his overnight flight to Paris from Chicago so he was exhausted. We are resting up since tomorrow afternoon we are leaving for Barcelona. We will be there Wednesday, Thursday and returning late on Friday night. Saturday will be spent sightseeing in Montpellier. On Easter Sunday, we are taking the train back up to Paris to see more sights in the evening. Monday is totally devoted to Disneyland Paris!!! And Tuesday....Chris returns home and I make my way back down to Montpellier. Dawn will have already returned from Scotland by now. On Wednesday, we are both going to spend the night in Nice, France. The plan is to go to Nice on Wednesday, spend the night there and spend a few hours in Monaco since it's so close and return very late on Thursday night. The weekend should just be a resting weekend since it's back to school the following Monday. Anyway, specific posts will be added when I have more time but I wanted to at least post my upcoming, busy travel plans.
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