France – Restless Spirit Syndrome

I lived in Tours, France for the month of January to complete an intensive French language course at the Institut de Touraine.

My Multi-National French-Intensive Class

A small town in the Loire Valley, Tours is about an hour by train south of Paris.

Courtesy of www.transitionsabroad.com — Courtesy of http://www.transitionsabroad.com

Tours is the quintessential quaint little French town and it has a very historic feel to it thanks to its old city center, Place Plumereau (a.k.a ‘Place Plum’) with buildings dating back from the Middle Ages.

I did another home-stay in Tours, this time with a lovely elderly woman and her older daughter. The house I stayed in probably predated America, so the heating system was a tad sketchy and the high cost of heat in France meant that it was a very, very cold January. Truth be told, the hot water was so sparse in my shower that I learned how to bathe in 5 minutes, every other day (and that’s 5 minutes from clothes off to clothes on). But did I mention the glorious French windows in my bedroom overlooking a park? Totally worth it.

The Park Across the Street from my Window

My host mother and her daughter were some of the sweetest, most hospitable people I’ve ever met. They picked me up at the train station one Sunday afternoon completely disoriented and barely able to keep my ‘Madame’s and ‘Señora’s straight. It didn’t take them long to figure out that I barely spoke French (nor me very long to determine that they spoke only slightly better English) so our first few dinners were spent around a very large French-English dictionary. But they were patient, and I got better… eventually.

One thing that I have to gush about is how damn good the food was. My host mother was a fabulous cook and I inhaled weird things like snails (land and sea) and beets (previously a mortal enemy) with gusto. My favorite thing that ma mère made, however, was a classic from her native Brittany (in the north-west of France); buckwheat crêpes with ham, Emmenthal cheese, and a fried egg, served with alcoholic cider. Yum. Yum. Yum.

I should have a picture of this fantastic dish, of course, but I was too busy scarfing it down to snap a photo so forgive me.

Instead, enjoy this photo of me eating a caramel and hot fudge crêpe!

For the next part of my journey, I ventured into Reims, France. Actually, more like crawled…

My finals in Granada and then a week of hard traveling had given me a nasty cold that I couldn’t seem to shake. I know, I know, I’m weak, but I made the executive decision to curl up in Reims for a few days to lick my wounds and stymie the hemorrhaging of my bank account. Why Reims? Well, I found an affordable hotel there and I wanted to be close to Paris, which would soon be my next destination. Other than that, it was just luck. Turns out it was good luck.

Reims (curiously pronounced “RrrANCE”… or something to that effect) is an ancient city in the north of France, about an hour by train from Paris. Besides being in the heart of Champagne country, Reims’ Cathedral was the historical site of all of France’s coronations, most notably among these being the coronation of Charles VII (the one that Joan of Arc was supposedly responsible for).

The Cheap Traveler's Laundry System — The Cheap Traveler’s Laundry System

After a little bit of R&R in Reims, I traveled to Paris on December 30th to meet my friend, Nikki Foskey. Nikki is a friend from home, and she came to visit me for the last week of my vacation.

Nikki in Paris... yes, Starbucks was our first stop — Nikki in Paris… yes, Starbucks was our first stop

We did just a little bit of touring in Paris, then celebrated New Years in front of the Sacré Coeur (which was actually a bitterly cold and slightly miserable experience), before heading off to Brussels, Belgium on the first day of 2013.

The Eiffel Tower against a Parisian winter sky

We arrived into Brussels cold, hungry, tired, and with no idea what to expect. After checking into our hostel, we wandered around what turned out to be an incredibly beautiful and extremely quirky city. I’m still not sure whether Brussels is always lit up, or if we just stumbled across some post-holdiay light displays, but in any case the city positively glowed… especially the Town Hall, which we stumbled across one night lighting up in all different hues to classical music. Breath-taking.

The main center in Brussels, Grand Place, by day

As far as eccentricity goes, Brussels really took the cake with their little darling, Manneken Pis. Now, dear little Manneken Pis is actually only a small statue of a little boy peeing into a fountain, but the city of Brussels is obsessed with him (or maybe that’s just the tourist influence…). In any case, he is EVERYWHERE and we quickly made a game of spotting all of the Mannekens big and small throughout the city.

An example of some of the Mannkens that we saw all over the city.

Jeanneken Pis - Manneken Pis's lesser-known sister... anatomically accurate and all. — Jeanneken Pis – Manneken Pis’s lesser-known sister… anatomically accurate and all.

I don’t think that I’ve ever had a traveling experience that wasn’t food-centric, so of course we dined on all things Belgian waffle, Belgian beer, Belgian chocolate, and Belgian french fries. We also took a side trip to a few museums, on of which was a chocolate museum (of course) and another featuring an exhibit of Manneken Pis in all different international costumes.

The chocolate museum... complete with a free sample at the end! — The chocolate museum… complete with a free sample at the end!

Manequins of Manneken in costumes from around the globe.

*Ok, so admittedly, I did not take enough pictures of food or Brussels. It was very cold and I was being a wuss, I apologize.

After Brussels, Nik and I went on to conquer Amsterdam.

Amsterdam is amazing, and don’t let anyone tell you differently. And no, I don’t mean for the typical reasons. The whole city is beautiful, full of some spectacular architecture and beautiful canals that become illuminated at night. Yes, we went to the Amsterdam Sex Museum, stumbled into the Red Light District, and visited a coffee shop or two, but we also got to visit the Heineken museum and see Anne Frank’s attic hideout. We tried to go to the Van Gogh museum, but only made it for the last 5 odd minutes, unfortunately. We were only in Amsterdam for about 2 days, but it was a wonderful trip and I highly recommend this city to anyone who can make it there, because the concentration and variety of culture was astounding for just one city.