Virtually Home

On Saturday we woke up earlier than any of our bodies would have liked, and the extra-France residents had their first experience with a curtainless shower. Meredith was still feeling pretty exhausted and opted to stay home for the first part of the day, and save her energy for the Eiffel Tower that night. Mel and I took a few metro lines to the RER C and rode it all the way out to Versailles, which was a trip I hadn't taken before. Since we'd seen the Louvre just the day before, the whole trip felt like a big tour of Louis XIV's ego. The palace was, of course, beautiful and incredibly grandiose. It was also choked with people, and Mel and I were pretty constantly exclaiming over various photographic opportunities we might have had, were we given a shot that wasn't full of other tourists. There was a photographic exhibition on display, celebrating the palace and its significance over the years. They had photos from pretty much the inception of the camera, to the sig...

On the 30th, Rachel and I took complicated, multi-change train ride to Paris. We couldn't get a direct train, so we had to go from Zurich to Basel, Switzerland and from Basel to Mulhouse, France. We went from Mulhouse to Belfort and then changed trains for the last time in Belfort to get to Paris. We ended up either on trains or in train stations all day. I do like riding trains a lot, but the lugging of luggage and the cold were a little unpleasant. And we rolled through northern France after sunset, which caused us to miss out on what the countryside looked like. I was curious, since I had considered studying abroad this year in Strasbourg instead of Bordeaux. That would have been a different experience entirely, I'm sure. Arrival in Paris was a trial. We took the metro from Gare de l'Est to the southwest part of town, where we were staying at the Aloha Hostel for one night. The hostel was cramped ad ecclectic...all decorated in bright colors and with lots of cheery New...

I will start by saying that this is the only photo I have from Amsterdam. It was a delicious pizza, and the photo illustrates an interesting quality of European pizzas, which is that not every slice is guaranteed to have all the ingredients you might have ordered on a single pizza. I particularly enjoyed the artistry of the ascending triangles of sliced ham on the left side overlayed by the more organic shapes of the onions. However, as "only" photos go? I probably should have tried to get some shots of the actual city with my phone. Every time I was outside it was cold and raining and I had other concerns, like not being run over by bicycles. So I will backtrack and start from the beginning. Alex and I left for Amsterdam on Saturday morning. The train left at 8:30 a.m., which meant leaving around 7:40 to take the two tram lines to Gare St. Jean. It should be noted that this was about 4 hours earlier than I've been waking up lately, and only two and a half hours after ...