Tag: Traveling

Eurotrip: Part 1 (Reims, Trier and Dinant)

Days 1 and 2: Flying in, Reims, Trier, and Dinant

The past couple of weeks I’ve been on blog-silence due to vacation! What a wonderful reason not to post–as opposed to laziness or worse–writer’s block! I took a vacation with Doug, my sister, Stephanie, and my parents!

Usually I’m great at sleeping on the plane. In the past I’ve taken a hefty snooze, and woken up in time to put on makeup and look stunning (okay, that might be an overstatement) when I step off the flight. I don’t know why, but this time I was unable to sleep so I was a bit cranky the first day or two of the trip. Sorry, family! My parents rented a car and after we got 5 suitcases and 5 people (!) to fit in a car about the same size as our Pontiac Vibe we hit the open road and headed towards Trier, Germany by way of Reims, France.

Reims would be the perfect French city to move to, IMO. I was met with a good mix of old and modern, the buildings were slightly more colorful than those in Paris, and many people spoke English but not too many–I wouldn’t be tempted to use it as a crutch the way it’s so easy to do in Paris, where the locals like to condescendingly answer my questions (posed in French) with an English reply. The size of the city was less intimidating, too.

The gorgeous cathedral where French kings were crowned.

My family tried their best to look like tourists. ;)

After a quick meal we hopped back in the car and made it to Germany in no time. Well, it felt like no time to me–I snoozed in the back seat with Stephanie and Doug. I am such an indecisive person. At first I wanted to be a renter my whole life and have people repair home problems for me, then I wanted to have a huge house with a huge fantasy-land backyard, and now I want to like in a cute row house like this one we saw in Germany:

How can you blame me, right?

Well, turns out our hotel wasn’t in Trier, but across the river in Trier-Zewen which was much smaller and MUCH less English-speaking. Or French-speaking for that matter. Ordering dinner was an adventure. Three of us played it safe and ordered “chicken.” We were surprised with an intact deep-fried half-chicken. Yowza. Doug and Stephanie ordered schnitzel, which contrary to my Sound of Music loving mind was not a pastry, or to those who dine at Weinerschnitzel, was not a hotdog. It was a huge breaded pork chop topped with red bell peppers (in Doug’s case) and mushrooms (in Stephanie’s case). The schnitzel was better than the chicken, in my opinion, but I’m not a pork fan so I don’t know if I could have eaten it all.

Our room was small but comfortable.

Trier itself claims the title of the oldest city in Germany and was very nice. It boasted an impressive cathedral (complete with ringing church bells, like you’d see in a movie) in a very different style than the one we’d seen the previous day:

And had some cute mideval-style architecture. When we got there the town was just waking up–most stores weren’t open and it was very quiet and sleepy.

After a bit of exploring in the drizzle, it began to pour so we high-tailed it back to the car and headed for Belgium. Since our time in Trier had been cut short by the downpour, we took a meandering path off our planned route to explore some smaller towns nestled up in the mountains of southern Belgium. We happed upon Dinant–which was so picturesque, built on the two banks of a river. In the past, it had been home to a castle but the castle had been burned down hundreds of years ago.

The foundations of the castle had become a fortress, and we took a sky tram up to the fortress where we were met with a mediocre collection of cannons and war memorabilia. They did have a cool old plane though, and the view from the top was killer–made the whole excursion worth it:

After a brief lunch we piled back into the car to make it to Bruges by the evening.

My next Eurotrip post will cover Bruges and Brussels, and my third will cover Paris! I’d like to do an overall wrap up of my impressions after that, so if you have any questions please feel free to ask! 

French Friday

Okay, okay, fine. I won’t be one of those people with the themed day of the week posts. Mostly because I’m not disciplined enough to post consistently on certain days of the week, plus, what if I want to write about something else next Friday?

Anyway, it’s time for a stroll down memory lane. The first time I visited France was with my French class in 2005. It started out with a few-days long tour of the Loire valley, including 2 or 3 castles, and then I had a week-long homestay with my French family, finished up with a day or two in Paris. My memory (of how many days things took and such) is really hazy! Must be getting old.

Here is a very young Staci in front of my favorite castle, Chenonceau. It’s hard to pick a favorite castle because… well… they are castles, and by definition, awesome. I really liked Versailles too, of course… isn’t that technically a palace? So Chenonceau is my favorite castle and Versailles is my favorite palace. Speaking of Versailles, note below: the hall of mirrors. Very blurry (my trusty old 2004/2005 fujifilm camera did not have image stabilization, but overall seems to have done okay). Also, the tops of my host family’s heads.

This is Da Vinci’s house. Very cool!! Filled with art and cool furniture. I saw the bed where he died! The grounds were filled with cool Da Vinci inventions, like this one (below) created for battle. It spun inside with a mechanism like Disney’s tea cup ride. Note my wallet chain. I was extremely cool (and thin, apparently!) in high school.

Aha, here is a shot of the Eiffel Tower. I climbed it to get the full experience, even though it was cold and windy and I was wearing high heels. We were dressed nicely because we had dinner in the fancy Eiffel Tower restaurant! That thing you see attached to the front of it says “Paris 2012.” Paris was trying to get chosen to host the 2012 Olympics, which at the time seemed EXTREMELY far in the future!

Well, that was fun. I’m also a little worried because the CD these pictures are on did not have any photos of Chambord, another castle I saw, or the inside of the Louvre. Maybe I didn’t take any? What was my 17 year old self thinking!

Another fun fact about the trip: I bought my first iPod for the overseas flight. A white one with no color screen or video capabilities. We have come so far.

St Louis (Early Anniversary Trip)

Our anniversary is coming up on the 20th, but due to the anticipated arrival of Doug’s co-worker’s baby, we decided to take the week before off so as not to cause drama at the lab.

We tried to save pennies by staying closer to home (7 hours is not that far) but ended up splurging for a boutique hotel (the Moonrise Hotel) that I found online and couldn’t resist. We did score a deal by buying two nights and getting one free. The third night (the free one) I probably slept better than I ever have! Haha.

The Moonrise Hotel exterior at dusk.

The first day we were there, we shopped the street the Moonrise is located on–the Delmar Loop. The street really isn’t a loop but with interesting stores and restaurants on both sides, it’s easy to walk up to one end and loop down on the other side. Our area reminded me of Hillcrest in San Diego and had lots of ethnic restaurants; something impossible to find in our town. At one of a few resale stores, I scored a pair of Coach tennis shoes for $24! Actually, it was perfect because I had forgotten a pair of good walking shoes. Providence!! At another store, Doug scored some retro swim trunks because the ones he had last summer seem to have mysteriously disappeared.

The shorts. Actually, he has a v-neck in each of these colors except orange. They go with everything!

The following day we slept in as long as possible–we ended up getting up around 10. We went over to downtown to see the Gateway Arch, but since I had ridden up in it as a child and Doug had done it in 2009, we decided not to spend our money in that way.

At the Arch. Shiny!

Instead, we found out that while the team is away, Busch Stadium offers tours! At first I was skeptical of the $10 cost–not cheap, especially considering that there are two of us, but the tour actually turned out to be one of our favorite parts of the trip. We learned some insider info, including that there’s a buffet section! They offer tickets that include a great seat and access to an all-you-can-eat buffet. The price depends on how popular the Cardinals’ opponent is and what day of the week the game is.

The buffet area was set up for a baseball-themed wedding reception. Cool!

During the tour we got to go in the radio press box, in the fancy area where the players eat after the game, on the field (had to stay off the grass) and in the dugout!! It was very cool, Doug was in sports heaven, and our tour guide was very funny.

On the field! It looks bigger from the stands.

Sunday, we went to the St Louis Zoo (free!) in the morning and drove a couple hours to my Grandma’s in Illinois for the afternoon and evening. Some of my other relatives were there and it was so good to spend time with the lesser-seen side of my family.

Monday, yesterday, sadly, was the day to make the 7 hour drive back home. Unfortunately due to hauling a couch gifted by my grandmother (she got a replacement and this one was lonely in her garage) we drove the truck, a manual shift. This means that poor Doug had to drive the whole time and it was my job to keep him in high spirits. Fortunately, even though it was raining through Missouri, everyone and everything made it back in great condition and we even shaved 30 minutes off the estimated trip time (according to TomTom).

It was so great to get away for an extra-long weekend.