The land of Fairytales, or so they claim...

Last weekend Sarah, Tim and I went to Luxembourg. We kind of decided to go on Wednesday and left on Friday morning. Yes, we all go to Macalester but I decided that’s okay since I didn’t know them before we came to Amsterdam. Anyway, we somehow missed the first train to Brussels Friday morning but caught the second one. Upon arriving in, my second favorite train station, Brussels Nord, we dashed to catch the train to Luxembourg after learning we only have 6 minutes between the trains. It was all very anticlimactic, however, when we arrived at the platform and waited ten minutes for the train to come. We got separated during the train to Luxembourg. I sat next this old woman who kept talking to me in French. I am unsure why because, although smiled and nodded, I thought it was quite evident that I understood little of what she was saying. I also noticed another old woman who reading a Reader’s Digest, and then I noticed it was in Dutch and then I noticed it had Tom Hanks on it, and then I noticed it was from 2002. I don’t know why I find that so strange or worth noting but I do. So, the countryside to Luxembourg only got prettier to as we went along meaning that my feeble attempts at reading my homework only got worse and worse.

After we arrived in Luxembourg City and bought a ridiculously large map of the city, we headed to our hostel. It was nice but at the bottom of a very, very large hill. I could be entirely wrong, and don’t want to take the time to research, but I believe Luxembourg City was originally settled in a river valley/gorge between two mountain-like hills. From there the city has obviously expanded and now spans across two gorges. Anyway, the hostel was at the bottom of one of the gorges which meant that our leg muscles got a work out. The weather was fairly awful but we wandered the city for the rest of the day. It was pretty but for some reason, all weekend, I had trouble characterizing it in my head. I think that Luxembourg was conquered over the years by tons of other countries so there are tons of influences within the architecture that are hard to define. I sort of felt like we saw the whole city in about two-three hours. One of the strange things about Luxembourg was that the royal palace was just in the middle of the city and with the exception of the scrawny guard marching with a gun in front of it, I don’t think I would have noticed. Another strange thing was the advertisement for the history museum. They had an exhibit on the history of scouting but their signs just had picture of a “sexy scout” on them. It was ridiculous. After walking about for a few hours, it was getting dark and was damp, cold, and rainy. We began looking at menus of restaurants. This continued for a couple hours as we struggled to find a place that had food for under $15.00. It was only then did I remember that, in fact, Luxembourg is ridiculously rich and has the highest per capital GDP in the world. We finally got so cold and wet that we were desperate to eat anywhere semi-cheap that was warm. This left us, as far as we could tell, with the options of McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Quick Quality Burger or ChiChi’s Mexican Restaurant. We ate at ChiChi’s. It was fairly surreal trying to order Mexican in Luxembourg in French. I figure that I probably won’t get Mexican again until June so I was okay with it. After dinner we trekked back to hostel, I watched Lost on Tim’s computer (yay!) and we passed out.

On Saturday morning we woke up to high winds and torrential rain. Because of this and because we all wanted a low key day, we decided to skip Echternach and to just go to the town of Vianden. As it turned out, however, by the time we finish breakfast, it was a beautiful day. We ended up wander around Luxembourg City a bit more before catching the train to Ettlebrook where the bus left for Vianden. During our journey to Vianden we went through tiny town after tiny town. Each one nestled on the side of a large hill, with babbling brooks, open fields, and stretching forests. It was then that I figured out why people call Luxembourg the land of Fairytales. We arrived in Vianden and although we had no idea where our Hostel was, we soon discovered that the town of 1600 people only had one main road. First, we went to the Castle! I have to say that it is my favorite castle that I have ever been to. I have only ever been to two but this one was pretty cool. The first castle structure was from 900. William of Orange was also King of England and Count of Vianden at the same time. I also learned that the Dutch Royalty is still part of the house of Orange. They had a lot of the Castle open to the public and different parts of it set up to represent the different time periods of its use. Overall, it was pretty cool. After the castle, we walked/hiked. There were all these shrines and statutes of the Virgin Mary and various religious relics along the road and rocks amongst the trees which were a bit strange but kind of cool. Also, while we were walking Sarah’s phone started making noise and there was a message that said Welcome to Germany (in German). I am not sure if we actually walked to Germany but let’s say that we did. After examining a map, I am pretty sure we were walking literally on the border. We wanted to do their Extreme ropes course but it was closed, so we headed back into town and got desert crepes. It was then time to check into our hostel. It was weird. The Hostel itself was fine but it was weird. First of all, it was kind of deserted. Then, the woman at the desk didn’t take all of our info or make us pay and didn’t speak English or French. Instead she kept trying to talk to us in German like we understood. Everyone else in the town spoke French (So Sarah had been doing the talking) so it was really weird that she didn’t. Anyway, throughout the day we checked out the town restaurants and determined that the Pizzeria seemed the most promising. As it turned out, it was totally the place to be in Vianden. Our Pizza was delicious. After a long dinner, we trekked back up the hill to the Hostel.

Sunday we came home. So that is more then you probably cared to know about Luxembourg. If I was not so exhausted from catching up on homework, I might have more to say or some kind of observation to make but at this point I can’t think of any.

Couple Quotes of the Weekend:
“It’s Extreme Luxembourg. So Extreme. Wow, that was so extreme.”
In response to confusion at the hostel in Vianden: “I Don’t think we’re suppose to know…It all part of God’s plan”

Also my roommate went to England over the weekend. She bought a Mr. Darcy aka Colin Firth magnet for out refrigerator. It’s pretty much awesome.

It is a little sad that I am not going to Paris at such an exciting time. That said, stocking celebrities at Paris Fashion week may have marred the trip a little bit.

Well, that’s all folks.