Deux Mille Treize

2013 went by way too fast with me way too busy getting my graduate degree to blog sufficiently. Here's a quick rundown of my year:

January
I finished my first semester of my masters with 7 finals, and started my five week inter semester break (can't complain about French vacation days). The boyfriend and I headed down to his hometown, Grenoble.


Grenoble, a city surrounded by beautiful mountains.
We also took a day trip to Geneva.

February
With vacation still in full swing, we headed north to Lille, Bruges, Delft, The Hague, Amsterdam, and Brussels.


Windmills in Zaans Schans, right by Amsterdam.
We got lost and eventually tasted the best beer in the world, too.

March
Second semester started and life got back to normal.

April
My aunt and uncle happened to be taking a trip to Paris, and I was able to meet up with them for two days. We had absolutely gorgeous weather and even went on a Paris by Mouth tour, where I got to taste delicious wine, cheese, and bread.


Poilâne bread, a Parisian specialty.
May
For Spring break, the boy and I headed back down to Grenoble. This time we went hiking in the mountains to see the Chartreuse monastery.


The monastery hidden among the mountains and fog.
June
Finished the first year of my masters program, and, yes, headed back down to Grenoble. This time I was able to see a glacier at Mont Blanc and tour Chamonix, a picturesque mountain village.


Chamonix, with a glacier in the background.
July
The boy and I flew all the way to my stamping grounds, California. We visited LA, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Carmel, San Francisco, Las Vegas, and my hometown. We drove up highway 1 with my folks to get the real American road trip experience, and by the end of it all I needed a vacation from my vacation. Luckily I got just that, an extra week home with nothing but family and R&R.


Las Vegas Blvd and the Golden Gate Bridge.
August
The boy and I moved into our new apartment, complete with a view of a medieval church.

September
And so began the second year of school, which is proving to be way more intense than the first. But even more importantly, I turned 26! I threw myself a pirate themed birthday party. It was awesome.

I was vaguely trying to find an internship for next semester, but with reassurances from professors that it was too early to look, wasn't too worried about it.

October
While missing out on yet another Halloween due to France's lack of enjoying candy while disguised, we did take advantage of the week off to go explore Italy, Alba to be exact. This little known village is surrounded by vineyards and is home to the allusive white truffle.


Alba.
I finally started applying to a ton of internships.

November
I celebrated American Thanksgiving with a wonderful group of people, and started to stress out about the lack of response to all of my internship applications. I started to apply to even more internships.

December
Bought my first ever French christmas tree!


Me, my Christmas sweater, and the tree.
Also finally had some positive answers to internship applications, and took a day trip to Paris for two interviews. Also, I got offered an internship! I can't wait for next semester.

I was also able to celebrate the holidays at home with my family, and so this year ended on a really happy note.

2013 is gonna be pretty hard to beat, but I think 2014's up for the challenge. Happy New Year everybody!!

Travel Thriftily Tips

Working as an English language assistant in France is great because you are paid to live in France. The not so great aspect of working as an English language assistant in France is that you are paid peanuts. The French government provides you with only enough to live off of - nothing else.

This is fine if all you want to do is teach English and stay put in whatever town you work in, but I wanted to take advantage of my time abroad and travel. So I had to travel cheaply.

When traveling to major, foreign cities I save money two ways. The first way is by taking advantage of New Europe’s free walking tours. The greatest part about these tours is that they are absolutely free. They ask for tips at the end, and you can pay the guide what you will – based on however much money you have left to spend for the day or the merit of the information given on the tour or nothing at all (I’m too nice for option #3).

I went on their three hour walking tours in London and Amsterdam, saw almost all of the sights, and learned amazing facts about buildings I wouldn’t have given a second thought to if I had been wondering the city by myself.

They offer free tours in the following cities:
Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels, Copenhagen, Dublin, Edinburgh, Jerusalem, Hamburg, London, Madrid, Munich, Paris, Prague, and Tel Aviv.



On my London free tour, I learned that this clock found on the side of the Royal Court of Justice was used in the Harry Potter films for the Hogwarts Express.


On my Amsterdam free tour, I learned that this part of the building had no windows because that's where they used to perform autospies, and it was considered too vulgar to show to the public.


The second way I save money is by always staying in a hostel that has a kitchen. Although they are sometimes more expensive to stay at than their kitchen-free counterparts, you will save tons of money if you use the kitchen facilities instead of having to eat out for every meal.

While I do think tasting the local food is a huge part of traveling, it isn’t necessary to eat out for every meal. Also, in a lot of places it is cheaper to eat out for lunch (Paris, Stockholm) than dinner. You can experience the local gastronomy for cheaper at lunch, then go home and cook yourself some pasta with red sauce for dinner in the hostel kitchen.

In some hostels, they even have a cabinet of “free food,” or food left behind by earlier travelers, in the kitchen. Be sure to browse and see if there isn’t anything worth eating in there before you head to the market. You’d be surprised how often people leave food behind.


Me, enjoying a delicious dinner of pasta, red sauce, and cauliflower in my hostel in Stockholm, plus a random fellow hostel-er, and the kitchen where I cooked said delicious dinner. Also a Swedish beer (On a side note: Swedish beer is like 3% alcohol per volume. Living so close to Belgium I'm used to 8% beers. That beer did nothing for me).

One of the easiest ways to save money while traveling, however, is to explore locally. No need to buy a plane ticket, or find a place to sleep. While Lille is a really wonderful city and ideally located for traveling all around Europe, I have hopped on the commuter trains in order to explore other, smaller cities in the area. Just because it isn’t a nation’s capital or recognizable city name doesn’t mean it has nothing to offer. Get to know the small towns around you and you'll most likely discover hidden gems.


I walked along the beach at Dunkirk and stumbled upon old bunkers used in both WWI & WWII hidden among the sand dunes.


Do you have any advice for traveling cheaply?
Brooke vs. the World has asked travel bloggers to put together their best thrifty and resourceful travel tips for a helpful, free ebook. If you think you’re thrifty and would like to participate, check out the official rules.

Le Marché de Noël de Lille

Although I am home for Christmas this year, I still wanted a French Christmas experience. FBF and I decided to go on a date to the Marché de Noël. While this is definitely not something you can find in America, I’m not sure how authentically French this experience is for a variety of reasons.

The first reason being that while I was in Amsterdam, my friends and I went to “Winterland,” which was basically like a Dutch Marché de Noël. I have also seen Marchés de Noël in Belgium, but while this is basically an extension of France, I feel like it counts less in ruining the Frenchness of the whole experience.


Amsterdam's Winterland
The second one being that FBF hasn’t been to the Marché de Noël, in Lille or otherwise, since he was like 8. And even then, he told me that they didn’t really do the Marché like we did, meaning they didn’t look at all the booths, eat all the food, and experience the attractions. This leads me to believe that he'd actually never been before, as what else is there to do at the Marché de Noël except these things?


Le Marché de Noël de Lille
There were all kinds of booths, from Santa Hats and ornaments to metal robot sculptures and puzzle games (none of which FBF and I could figure out, including the ones intended for 8 year olds), but I saved my money for all things edible.

We sampled all sorts of bad for you delicious Christmas foods. I had a gauffre, which is like a Belgian waffle, except that they originate from le nord. Then FBF and I shared 13 croustillons, which are basically like fried doughnut holes but better and come from the Netherlands. To help us swallow all this fried food down, we partook in another French Christmas tradition, vin chaud.


Le Vin Chaud.
Vin chaud is not my favorite drink on the planet, and if it wasn’t part of the Christmas theme, I don’t think I would ever drink it. However, there is something magical about having a hot glass of spiced wine in your gloved hands while walking around admiring the general holiday splendor that lets you know it really is Christmas time.

To finish off this feeding frenzy, FBF and I headed over to the booth called Soupe à la Ferme (Soup from the Farm). I had an amazing cup of zucchini soup, complete with melted cheese on top and some sort of herb bread. FBF had carrot soup, which while I was not a fan, he enjoyed immensely.

After stuffing our faces, we thought it would be ever so romantic for us to ride le grand roue (the giant Ferris wheel). We were told from La Soeur that the view from the top is beautiful, but extremely cold. We dressed accordingly.


Le Grand Roue
So we pay, get weird token things, and wait in line for a couple of minutes before it’s our turn. The man takes our tokens, and let’s us choose one of four little carriages. Now this is unlike any Ferris wheel seating area I have ever seen. Instead of being for two people, it could hold 6 adults, and instead of facing forward, it was a circle with a pole in the middle holding it up to the wheel.

Because this was supposed to be a romantic date, FBF and I sat on the same side, of course. This was a mistake. As soon as we were sky-bound, the carriage started leaning dangerously due to our combined weight on just one side. This was doubly dangerous as there was not really any protective fencing, and it would not have been hard to tumble out. To make matters worse, there was no safety restraint of any kind. We were not buckled in.

FBF and I, while enjoying the view, were not enjoying a romantic, quite moment alone in the sky, because j'avais peur (I was scared). Instead of holding on to my boyfriend, I had my arms wrapped around the middle pole, trying desperately not to fall off.

On about our third turn around the wheel, I realized that something this sketchy could only happen in France. We weren’t even required to sign release forms in order to ride on this obvious death trap.

While I greatly enjoyed the Marché de Noël overall, I’m not so sure I’ll be riding le grand roue next Christmas.

Traverser La Rue

This weekend I took full advantage of my three-day weekends for the first time and went to Amsterdam to meet up with a friend of mine from California. It was my third time in Amsterdam, and we did typical Amsterdam-y activities.

Since I hadn’t seen this friend since she came and visited me last year, I decided that we should go to a restaurant for a nice-ish dinner on our second and final night in the city together. She (and her two friends) agreed.

We found a rather charming sit down restaurant + bar. While perusing the menu, I decided to try some Dutch beer. Everybody ordered a drink, and after discussing with the blonde Dutch bar tender slash waitress, I chose a blonde beer.

Without much delay the Dutch returned with three beverages: a water, a coke, and a beer that was not mine. She turned to me after distributing the drinks and said, “I’ll be back with your beer. It’s on the otherside.”

A little bit confused by her Dutch English, I watched her go back behind the bar. This was a normal bar, with the liquor on one side, and seats for people to sit in while drinking the liquor on the other. As I couldn’t really imagine why they would have stored the beer on the side with the seats, I thought I misunderstood her.


The restaurant.
Being curious as to where my beer would be coming from, I followed her with my eyes as she got out from behind the bar. She followed the length of the bar, heading towards the front of the building, but instead of turning towards the rest of the restaurant, she walked right out the front door.

She walked across the street and entered the building directly en face (in front) of the restaurant, disappearing within. Three minutes later, out she came, with a beer in hand.

I thanked her, and went to grab my first sip of Dutch beer. It was delicious. The only down side was after putting my beer back on the table, I realized my hand was definitely wet from the beer that had spilled on its long journey from across the street.


My beer!
Although I felt guilty at first making her go out (unknowingly)
in the freezing cold, it was delicious enough to merit such drastic measures.