Montpellier
Montpellier
OLD ENTRIES! From Sept. 6 to April 3! Click here! Happy Reading!
April 19- hey everyone! well i've been doin quite a bit of traveling as i previewed last time! to start, i had a blast in germany! it was great to see all of my friends again! i stayed at kathi's house and her family was so nice to me! her dad especially who doesn't have a son and was just THRILLED to have another man in the house! That evening after I got to Kathi�s, she took me over to meet her sister who was at her boyfriends. Her b/f�s place was HUGE! It used to be a small beer brewery and he took me back into the caves where the stored the beer and had parties from time to time. Quite neat. We ate by an open fire and grilled some fine german sausages and drank some great bavarian beer! Yummy! So the first day Sebastian came over in the morning to pick me up and take me into the island-town of Wasserburg. Quite a pretty little town; full of colorful buildings and neat things to see. He gave me a little tour of the town and then we went back to Kathi�s for lunch. After lunch kathi took me back into town to rendez-vous with monika. I bought a little expresso maker and then moni took me to munich for the rest of the afternoon. I loved munich! It was so pretty and teeming with life and so much to see�I really enjoyed it. Got some great pics and had a lot of fun. She took me to her favorite coffee shop and then to her favorite cocktails bar! We had a great time. That night, we were a little late for our rendez-vous with sebastian and some other german friends (one other of which I knew - Michael - and then some others. We ate dinner there and drank and I spoke french with a hot german girl, kathi (another one)�.quite fun! Then moni, kathi, and I went back to kathi�s place and talked and watched tv till late and then went to bed. The next morning we had to get up at a decent hour to go to sebastian�s grandparent�s cottage in the foothills of the alps. After a very beautfiul, scenic drive we arrived at this awesome cottage. It was like 200 years old, old wooden beams, real cozy warm, and what a view! While the girls cooked stuff for our dinner party sebastian took me into the mountains a bit for some more spectacular views. After seeing some really awesome sights, we returned and started drinking and eating prezels (I love those preztels!). the guests (mostly sebastian�s friends on his basketball team) started to trickle in, we had a lovely little pitch-in dinner. I met the Yugoslavian boy that sebastian had warned me about (doesn�t like americans because of the war/bombins/etc). I talked to him, and I�m glad to say that I won him over�I�m �cool� in his book! The night was filled with a lot of drinking�I got a little too toasty, but maintained control and had a great time and remembered it all in the morning! The next day we cleaned up and then took a short rock over to some large boulders from a landslide that happened some 500 years ago and there are now trees growing out of the rocks�.very interesting. We ate lunch at a small restaurant and I had a dish called leberkas�was delicious! Before going home, sebastian, moni, kathi, and went to salzburg, austria! Yeah, it was that close, so the decided to take me! We spent a couple of hours there and I loved it! Got to see Mozart�s birthplace and got some great pictures of the beautiful city. I hope I can visit it again someday! Well we were supposed to go to another party that night and it got moved forward a bit because the birthday girl had things to do for school, so we just sat at Kathi�s and talked and watched TV. The next day we didn�t do much of anything�it was a great chill day. I caught up with my journal and relaxed all day. In the afternoon we went to meet Sebastian after his civil service (either that or military service is required in germany) and went to celebrate his birthday on a beautiful lake. We had a small picnic and kathi had made some red wine cake and it was delicious! Then we went back home, ate dinner with the family, and went back out one last time to a bar in a nearby town to drink and chat with friends. The next day, kathi drove me to Munich and we went to Magdi�s apartment and hung out there for most of the day. When sebastian and moni arrived we went back into the center of munich to walk around one last time. After going to a great local bierhaus to drink and eat pretzels (I love �em!) we returned to Magdi�s for dinner. After a delicious dinner we said our good-byes and moni took me to the train station and I caught my night train for amsterdam. I love germany and amsterdam because practically everyone speaks english, if not french. I did employ some french in germany and you�ll see that I used more in amsterdam. My train ride was very comfortable and I slept well. It was a 12 hour train ride and I prolly slept for 9 of those hours. Not more than 5 minutes from when I arrived in Amsterdam was I offered drugs�pot, crack, anything I wanted he said. Wow�.what a place�how sad. Anyway, I found my hostel really easily (the flying pig hostel). Walked in and practically everyone was smoking pot. Interesting, but I stayed�it was a nice hostel. I walked around a bit. I found the van gogh museum, but there was a line like 3 miles long (not really though ehehe) so I decided to come back another day. I roamed the streets and crossed many bridges in the �venice of nothern europe� until I found a tourist office and got a map. Several times I got to use my french. In one instance in particular, I asked a couple where they had found their map and they were like �comment?� and I was like OH, I can speak french! So I asked them again in french�unfortunately they had gotten it at their hotel, but at least I could ask! I was thrilled. It�s awesome knowing another language! Makes me want to learn more of them! I think spanish is next on my list. When I�ll actually get to do that I dunno�cause I have to graduate first, but eventually! Anyway, I wandered around a bit more. I walked through the red-light district during the day�some of the ladies were already at work standing in their windows. Interesting place, amsterdam. After I visited a church in that district (almost ironic that a church would even exist in that area, but whatever) then took off to find Rembrandt�s house. I found it and took the tour and saw some of his art�quite cool. I continued to wander the streets�stumbled across the marihuana and hemp museum (didn�t go in, but got a picture) then went back to the hostel. I happened to run into Elizabeth from Purdue (second semester liz) and another of her friends at my hostel. They had met some other guys that study at Purdue too and we chatted and hung out for a while. Then I grabbed some dinner and stayed at the hostel until after dark, then took off for the infamous red-light district. Wow�never seen so many hookers in all my life! Just all standing there in their windows with their red lights glowing�illuminating the streets and rivers. Again, interesting place, Amsterdam. So the next morning I woke up real early to be first in line at the Van Gogh/ Gaughin art exhibit. Well I thought at least some other people would be there, but not a one! I waited for just under an hour it opened. I could have showed up a half hour later an still been the first! Oh well, I got in quick and didn�t have to walk around with too much of the crowd. Me being by my lonesome, I could go as fast or slow as I wanted. It was an excellent exhibit (as you said, mom) and I really enjoyed it. So then I went to the Anne Frank house and stood in line for a half hour or so. Finally I started the little tour of the office building where she and her family had hidden from the Nazis. There little apartment wasn�t much and it was cool to see how they had hidden it so well with a book case. The whole thing was quite moving�.to see how the Jews were treated and hear her story and see the stories of others that knew her or the family. Then I grabbed some lunch. Afterwards I went to buy some souvenirs (I started collecting flags and country bumper stickers (you know, like F for France, etc.) along with my shot glasses. My room is now filled with several flags from the countries I�ve visted!). Well I walk in and the guy says something to me in Dutch and I say francais or english and he said he did that to get people to talk. Well I started speaking to him in French and he was so surprised at how good I was. He asked me if I was Swiss, or German, or Swedish. I kept telling him no, I�m American! I about had to pull out my passport and show the guy! He said he�d �never met an American that could speak fluent French.� I told him it wasn�t fluent but he said �better than me� and I said, yeah, I know! Ehehe That made me feel good. So I took that stuff back to the hostel and took off for the Heineken brewery! The brewery was pretty cool. The tour was kind of cheesy, but the 3 free beers at the end and the games and stuff were great! ;) That night I took myself out to eat to a cool little Italian restaurant and then wandered the town again. The next morning I got up early again and took a train to Antwerp, Belgium. This was a neat city. Very clean and the buildings were all neat. I went in a HUGE Gothic church and then into a smaller Baroque church. Both were neat. I was in French mode then and wasn�t speaking English and got by without a hitch! I had my first Belgium waffle and OH MY are they GOOD!!! If I could only describe in words! I�ll stop because I�m getting hungry! (bet you are too�.go on, get a snack, this�ll be here when you get back!) Well it was a small town so I left that afternoon and went to Brussels. I walked around the town, again very clean and pretty. I was just quite impressed with Belgium. Germany was better, but Belgium in a close second. I met an American couple as they were asking questions to each other about what something was. I answered them and we talked a while. Then I just kinda walked around with them. I didn�t have anyone else to talk to, so I said, what the heck! That�s the cool thing about traveling alone. You don�t have to be just around your buddies all the time, you can find new people to talk to. We saw the Mannequin Pis (a statue of a little boy�pissing!). Quite comical. Walked around more and then we split up and I went back to the hostel to get a room. Then I went back into town to eat on the �Rue des Boucheres� or Street of the Butchers. I sat down and had, despite the HORRIBLE service, some pretty good mussels. Went back to the hostel�s bar and had a drink with some people there and talked it up with a guy from South America and some other American girls. Next morning I got up and, after about 2 hours of searching and getting lost, I got on a bus and went to Waterloo. Yes, the field where Napoleon lost to the British was quite impressive. Just thinking that there was a large battle here was neat. The large monument in the middle of the battlefield (which is enormous) is a big mound with a large state of a bronze lion that looks over the field. Quite impressive. On top of the mound was neat because they had all the placements of the French, British, other armies on a plaque and you could see where they were. I saw the REALLY cheesy film and presentation (wouldn�t recommend it to anyone visiting) and then went back to the hostel. I met another American girl just traveling alone for a month and we decided to go eat together. Ate on the same street, but different place. I had steak, and it was quite good. Service was much better too. We hung out at a bar talking for a while then went back to the hostel�s bar for happy hour and talked with some other people. Next morning, woke up at the butt crack of dawn and got myself on the Ryan Air bus to the airport, took my flight, and landed in Carcassonne unscathed. The shuttle bus wasn�t operating very often, so instead of waiting 2 hours or taking a taxi, I hitchhiked! Didn�t work for a while, then I got some money and put a 10 euro bill out. Got a van with 3 Belgique guys to pull over for me and they were going to the train station like me and gave me a free ride! Was cool! Finally got home and now I�m up-to-date. Hope you enjoyed yet another LONG entry! Take care! Love you all! Bye. -MQ
25 April 2002- hello again! Just a little update from me. My boy Matthew Goodman and the lovely Rachel Alexander paid me a nice visit last week for 5 days. After I finished with my last entry and some emails I went home and Matthew just showed up on my doorstep a day in advance! It was quite a pleasant surprise! He was lucky I just emailed him my address or he would have never found me (even though he happened to wander into my neighborhood, waking up some not very nice French people at 1am!) We had a great week�I think relaxing for all, or at least I hope it was. We went to the beach almost every day and just chilled. I made my famous quiche again, but was it was topped by 2 (two) FABULOUS dinners by Mr. Goodman himself. Didn�t know the boy could cook, but I�m gonna have him do it for me more often! (tip for the ladies: if he asks you on a date, tell him you want him to cook, not take you out!) ahaha Now I�m back in classes again and their coming to a close. Tomorrow I leave for the D-Day beaches in Normandy for the weekend. Should be great! My time here is winding down in ole Montpellier. The days just keep getting nicer and warmer and the time for me to be coming home keeps getting closer. Depressing and exciting at the same time. Weird. Oh well. Continue to write me if you have a spare minute! I know most of my college buddies are getting ready for finals�.good luck with those!! Take care and love to all! -MQ
May 9, 2002- hey everyone! it's been a little while and i've taken a couple more little journeys since i last wrote! well, two weekends ago, i had nothing to do so i figured i would take a little trip back up to the north of france to normandy. i had never seen the d-day beaches there and i had wanted to see them before i left france. so, i went by myself on friday afternoon and arrived in bayeux at around 7-ish. my hostel i had called didn't hold my reservation, so i found another little place next to the train station. i got a room of my own and a nice, big, comfortable bed. so, the next morning i woke up and took the tour that this little hotel offered of the beaches of normandy. what a trip! the whole thing was just amazing/shocking to see. first we went to arromanches (where a port was built right after the d-day invasion to unload people and equipment). there was a cool museum there with a couple of short films. all that is left of the port was just a few concrete barriers (even though it was only meant to last a few months, remnants are still there more than 50 years later!) the port was constructed in england, then towed by barge, piece by piece. quite incredible! after that we went to a place where the only intact german bunkers remained. they still had the ground-to-ground artilery attached to them! they used to fire at the ships out in the english channel and also at the men coming to the beach on d-day (although they weren't very accurate because the latest measuring equipment hadn't been installed). after here, we went to the American cemetery. wow...amazing place. there were 3800 graves (30% of the men that were lost) all in a perfect row, every way you looked. i'm sure you've seen pictures or at least seen "saving private ryan" to know what i'm talking about. it was incredible. so many men gave up their lives for others. there were 3 medal of honor winners in the cemetery and i happened upon one, as well as one of the numerous unknowns. there was also a large wall dedicated to the 1300 or so men whose remains were never recovered. after our visit there we headed down onto omaha beach. this was also incredible as our tour guide told us that the soldiers had 150 yds. of open ground to cross before getting to any sort of cover. looking at the massive dunes and just imagining the german bunkers firing...wow. i hope you can feel what it was like. after omaha beach, we went to a place called pont du hoc. this is owned by the u.s. federal gov't and is the ONLY place in all of normandy that has been left untouched since the war. the destroyed german bunkers are still as they were as well as the HUGE, deep bomb craters from the american attack. this is also where army rangers scaled the cliffs to destroy some large weaponry. the germans heard about this beforehand and took them down and installed telephone poles in their place. well the rangers found the weaponry and destroyed it, but the germans found out about it and attacked. 300 germans against 200 rangers. after 2 days when help finally arrived the rangers numbered 90. there is now a memorial at pont du hoc commemorating that. so, that was the end of our tour! our little tour group of 8 was all americans (none of whom i knew), but me and some of the ladies went out to a little pizza place for some lunch, then split up to see the town. i went to my hostel and got my room, then came back out to see the town. i first visited the reallly cool notre dame cathedral. then i went (upon the reminder from mom) to see the bayeux tapestry. it is a 70 m. long piece of cloth (50 cm. wide) depicting the story of william the conqueror and how he, well...conquered! was really cool to see. the video was really cheesy, but very informative. so then i went back to the hostel and read some of "the hobbit" for the remainder of the evening. next day i hung around the hostel until i took a train to spend a few hours in caen before i went back to montpellier. caen was pretty cool. could have spent much more time there, but i saw a bit for the amount of time i was there. i grabbed some lunch in a HUGE sunday market and then checked out the remains of the old castle of william the conqueror. it wasn't anything special and everything was closed. so, i hoped on a bus out to the caen museum and saw a magnificent display of war memorabilia from the early 1900's on. i REALLY didn't get enough time there and i'd like to go back. so, i took the bus back and ran to catch the train and arrived safely in montpellier! so, quite a weekend! i'll continue with my trip to prague tomorrow! cya! -mq
May 10, 2002-wow! 2 days in a row? what!? well i guess i did promise, eh? well let me tell you about my little excursion to prague. well, on wednesday last week we had no class (national holiday) and i also had no class thursday, friday, or monday. so i decided to take a trip (about 2 weeks in advance i planned) to prague, czech republic! i was a bit nervous going. one, goin by myself and two, not a lot of english goin on over there. so, i took a cheap RyanAir flight from MTP to frankfurt, germany. then i waited 7 hours in the train station (i read the hobbit) for a night train to prague. the train station is actually really big with several things to do or at least look at...and i happened to find an internet station amidst the phone booths. so i start lookin around for a price (both are taken)...lookin over this guy's shoulder. i could tell he didn't like that much, so i quit. finally one became free and i asked the guy whose shoulder i had been lookin over, "english? francais?" (yeah, the beginning of all my conversations...sad, no?). fortunately he spoke english and told me how much the thing cost. so i did my email and then went to wait the last few minutes for the train on the platform. well that same guy was there and i started talkin to him. askin where he was from, what he did, the usual. turns out he was goin to prague on the same train (same car too) and a Ralph Lauren PR for the women's line in new york! i thought to myself, damn! what a job...all those hottie models to look at every day! that was about all of that for the evening. we separated to our separate cars and i slept pretty well that night. except when the door crashed open and 2 guys with high-power rifles (border patrol) asked us for our passports at 3 in the morning! so, i woke up nicely, had a bit of coffee and watched the beautiful czechnian (sp?) landscape pass by. FINALLY we arrived and i got off. started talkin to the ralph lauren guy (found out his name...instead of just the ralph lauren guy: theodore) and decided to stick with him for the day. he had been to prague and knew the place quite a bit well than i. so, he helped me find my hostel and then i helped him find his hotel (a nice one but horrible to find!). then, before touring we decided to go to a place that my tour book recommended for breakfast. the breakfast was delicious, and i ate quite a lot and it was only like $3!! mr. theo decided to pay for that meal and i reluctantly let him! after being pretty satisfied, he showed me around prague a bit. it's a very lovely town. all the buildings are painted different, matching colors and there's plenty of historical things to see. the main square was huge and teeming with life (mainly hordes of tourists!! hardly any of which were english or french speaking). we decided to sit down at a cafe and have a nice, cold beer. well with that beer we saw apple pie too. we both got it and both had a couple of beers. how nice it was! just chillin, talkin, eatin some fine apple pie and drinkin some nice, cold bavarian beer. he told me about his job and working with models and celebrities day in and out. good friends with w. bush's daughter barbara and (my favorite) gets clothes for meg ryan! she's so hot! *LOL* anyway, it was a beautiful day too, so that just made everything better! after theo again insisted on picking up the tab, we decided to walk towards the castle. we came upon charles bridge (the oldest and most ornate in prague) and it was packed with tourists! a very neat bridge that presented quite a view of the river and the castle on the hill. then we went on a search to find a specific church theodore knew of. this church has a small statue of the baby Christ and it is changed every day with a different outfit. i guess it's quite an event to see. well theodore bought his mother a little porcelain doll because she collects them and we were off again. the incredibly long walk up the hill to the castle with sun blazing on our fully-clothed bodies was fun, let me tell you. got a really cool shot of prague. they had some guards out (like the ones in london) and i went up and did my military pose next to him and theodore took my picture. the guard didn't like it much, but oh well...he'd gotten plenty of that all day long. then we went to see the MASSIVE cathedral. it was so huge! and again, packed with people! got some neat pictures and after being in a football huddle next to other hot, sweaty tourists (theodore got it worse than i did) we got to see the room that contained king wenceslas's tomb. then we walked down to try to see some houses that had been built into the side of the castle walls, but it was too crowded, so we decided against it. one of the guys in the crowd started pushin on theo...tryin to get into through the gate (europeans really ARE pushy) and so theo turns around and tells him what's up. the guy like sputters...trying to think of somethin good to say and when he finally comes to it, it's wrong and theo's still goin at him as we're walkin away! it was hilarious! ya kinda had to be there to get the full effect, but let's just say, theo being from new york, he knows how to deal with large crowds. after that we were hungry and decided to get some grub. well, i needed to be back at my hostel to check in at 14:00 so we walked back and decided to meet up a little while later for some lunch. well we met up and found a great little place with some bavarian dishes. i don't have a CLUE of their names, but they were good! we got an appetizer of a breadish/pasta-ish substance that was really good. then the main course was awesome too! i gobbled it all down! afterwards we went to find a store to buy a specific kind of glass that is manufactured in czech. quite beautiful glas...all handmade/handblown glasses. theodore is quite a collector of cool things. these glasses normally run for like $100 a piece in new york, so he came to prague specifically to buy some of these glasses. i bought one too for mom (but won't mention any more on that) and theo bought several! so we walked back to put all the stuff away in theo's room and hung out there (theo caught a quick nap) and i watched some german mtv. theodore knew of a house dj from new york that was in prague and was going to be mixing that night at a club, so we decided to go to that. we went out to the general area where it was and couldn't find it! we looked and asked and no one spoke english. right before we gave up theodore spotted a small add for it and we had a guy point us in the direction to go. it was AWESOME! i hadn't danced in a while, so it was great to do that...but the music was great too! he was a really good dj. during one song, theo told me that he knew one of the guys that was talking in the song! quite wierd! after a nice 4 hours of dancing or so, we got a cab (which theodore paid for with the excuse of "i gotta get rid of this funny money!")and said our goodbyes and turned in. we exchanged addresses and emails and i'll hopefully be goin to new york to visit someday soon! you're the bomb theodore! so, the next morning i slept in and it felt good. i had some breakfast and made an attempt to talk with the others at my table, but they had NO idea what i was saying. oh well! i took off to see what i hadn't seen with theodore the day before. first i went and just hung out in the main square, had some lunch, and listened to a small orchestra that had plopped itself in the middle of the square and started playing. then i walked over into the old jewish quarter. i saw the wierd and overcrowded jewish cemetery where the graves are stacked in places up to 12 on top of each other. so the gravestones were in clumps. it was bizarre. i went inside a synagogue, the "new-old synagogue." what new-old means i dunno. it looked old to me! after that i walked around the town and just got some pics of the town. then i decided i wanted to go see a movie that night so i went and saw "panic room" and met some other american chicks studying there. after the film they showed me to an internet cafe to find out bus schedules for a small town with spas called karlovy vary. found the site, but it was so in czech...no way of understanding. so i turned in for the night. the next morning i woke up an hour past when i wanted to, grabbed a sandwhich and hard boiled egg and went out the door to find the bus station. i asked how to get there and it wasn't too much of a problem. actually reading the schedules was a different thing. after about a half hour of trying to find times for the bus, i found it and i had missed the bus until 3 hours later, so i decided to go to the train station and buy a ticket (maybe to karlovy vary). i sat in the train station for a while, thinkin of where i could go. i actually ended up buying a ticket for berlin and then after about an hour of searching for the real train station and about 10 minutes before the train left, i changed it to a night train to go back to frankfurt. i decided i was tired of traveling and just wanted to get home and into a country that i can speak the language. so, i went back into town and saw another movie called "evil woman." it was kinda funny, but it passed a couple of hours anyway. then i just sat around and updated my journal and people watched. towards dinner time i saw tgi fridays and decided i wanted some really good food, so i went there. it was delicious and i had my first piece of cheesecake that i've had since i've been here! then i made my way to the train station. i waited just a little while then got on the train to discover that i was with 4 french people and 1 other american girl in my couchette! i was pretty excited to speak french again, let me tell ya! so the train was fine (we again got woken up by border patrol) and we arrived in frankfurt at about 6:48am the next morning. i went straight out to the stop of the ryan air bus and found out that it had left at 6:45!!! i was so angry! i had no idea what i was going to do then. didn't look like i'd be goin home a day early, that's for sure. so i went back to the train station and hung around, trying to fingure out what to do all freakin day. i was lookin around my travel book for places nearby frankfurt (cause frankfurt didn't seem like an exciting town) and i saw the little country of luxembourg! so i went to check out prices for goin there. i found a great deal (39 euro roundtrip) and i would be on the train (total) around 9 hours! that was really perfect cause then i could study, be warm, and have plenty of time to not worry about things. so i got to luxembourg (the landscape throughout germany was so beautiful) and it was raining, and i forgot my umbrella. i walked around the town (it was a sunday) and nothing was open, practically. there was a huge parade going on starting at the church. they were doing stuff in german and in french. all quite confusing. the inside of that church was gorgeous and held the most beautiful altar i've ever seen! so after about 2.5 hours i got back on the train and went back to frankfurt. i arrived close to 23:00 and sat around until 3 am when i could go out and catch my bus to the airport. i was pretty cold sitting around after all the shops closed at 1am, but i had my blaket and i kept warm. so, i slept like a rock on the bus and got to the airport at 5:45 and got some breakfast. then, like the bum i am, slept on their couch atop my back for a while. after a while i didn't want to ruin my wilcommen and i left to go sit in a bucket seat. i slept there for a while (til 9) and then got my ticket to board the plane (which was at 10:35). FINALLY, i got on the plane, got home and back to my own apt. what a trip! i'm done traveling until my sister comes in a few days! woohoo! can't wait to see you, sarah! well, i've got 2 weeks exactly before i come back home. miss you and love you all! take care. -mq
