Alex at GTL Summer 2007

My first week in Metz has been an eventful one. I arrived on Monday in the early afternoon. It was a very simple voyage and communicating with the taxi driver was simple enough (I pretty much just gave him the sheet of where I was going and he entered it into his GPS) After arriving, I checked in, a simple enough process. I got all my stuff sorted and folded and went to set up my internet, this is where the story got interesting. I had the group that runs the internet in the dorms (who all are majoring in computer science) set up my computer and they checked it downstairs and it worked fine. I went up to my room and alas it didn't work. After trying many different ideas, I returned, humbly assuming I had made some silly mistake. Another check and sure enough it worked fine downstairs, was it my cable? Nope we checked that. Ok this is when 3 of them follow me to my room. They run a series of tests on my computer, then on my outlet and ask eachother who was in my room last semester, aye now there's the rub, apparently this person had violated their internet code of conduct and they had physically disconnected the room from the internet (IE unplugged a cable) so they plug the cable back in, I try connecting the computer again and sure enough it works just fine. By that point I was too tired to deal with anything other than a quick e-mail and I went off to bed.

Day 2: Orientation: we had our orientation in the morning and then afternoon classes started. The first class was circuits and electronics. Taught by a "very french" teacher (think of any french person you have seen in a movie and thats the guy). A very nice guy but he underestimates our intelligence I think so the class will be "hard" but he plans on going really slow. The second class was history of rocketry, pretty much what it sounds like: the history of rockets around the world , the class was originally scheduled for tues/thurs 4-6pm but as most of our weekends start friday our teacher didn't want us to miss out on precious travel time thursday evening so we moved the thursday meetings to wednesday! That night we went to downtown Metz to take a tour and have a group pizza dinner. The city is gorgeous, lots of old buildings built in the same style stone (pictures to come soon, I have been way over my upload limit so I will upload those at GTL on monday) It is interesting to think of cathedrals built in the 14th century, before people knew the world was round! It is truly fascinating. The town itself has very little night life and everything closes at about 7! The restaurants stay open a little later (about 10) very interesting considering that most french people don't eat until 8.

Wednesday was the first full day of classes, they will be a significant amount of work but they all seem understanding of travel and travel plans, they aren't going to test us or have large assignments due on monday or tuesday when we have just arrived back in town! They are serious about attendance since we have so few classes it is important to attend class but this shouldn't be a problem since in Metz there isn't much to do other than study and go to class. The network limit should prevent the internet from taking up too much of my time.

Thursday I only had my 9:15 class so I had lunch and then went to Metz with some friends. We went to the train station and asked about reservations on the trains we were going to take that weekend, since we didn't have much time to plan, we decided on day trips out of Metz to Strasbourg, Luxembourg and Nancy, all less than 2 hours by train from metz. I was able to communicate in French to the people at the train station, it was very successful. After that we walked around Metz and got some dinner. We were taking some pictures of the cathedral when I tripped on the cobbles, as I went down I heard (and felt) a pop in my knee and realized I had sublexed it (a minor dislocation) this happens to me about every 6 months due to an abnormal knee and typically is no big deal. I got up and rested for a few minutes, trying to walk it off. Walked around for awhile more and then took the bus back. I figured everything would be fine the next morning but to my dismay I woke up and it was still swollen and stiff. I decided not to go to strasbourg and let my knee heal and potentially go to the doctor. I went back to bed and woke up at 4pm that day!! I guess I was tired. My knee seemed to have improved drastically so I opted out of the doctor that day (not really thinking about it) After walking around the dorm that night I realized my knee wasn't as good as it looked. Realizing that I had no hope in getting to a doctor until monday I took the weekend off. Doing homework and going to the grocery store to buy some food for my meals. It was a very restful weekend. Hopefully tomorrow I can get to a doctor. The swelling has gone down significantly but it is still not back to even 90% so I am pretty sure I need to go to the doctor after class tomorrow.

I am on the train right now to Metz! I got up at the crack of dawn to catch my 7:00 train (I had no idea how long it was going to take me to check out, walk to the train station and find my platform. Finding my platform was a bit difficult because according to my schedule the train was supposed to be labeled to St. Louis but it was actually labeled to Basel since its final destination is Basel. Very confusing, I am assuming I am on the correct train, hehe. I have been really enjoying my time in Europe so far! Brussels was not as impressive as I had hoped. It probably would have been more spectacular if I wasn’t jet lagged and the weather was better. Don’t get me wrong I did really like it but my travel to “major” cities in Europe has been cities like Paris, London, and Amsterdam all which have several million people and are huge, Brussels was much smaller. That being said, because it was smaller I got to see everything in two days and it was very easy to navigate and you could walk anywhere in the city in less than an hour. I really did like what I saw but don’t feel the need to go back anytime soon. It was also tough walking around by myself all day, it gets a little lonely and I don’t plan on repeating that anytime soon. Now it’s off to Metz!!!

Today was my last full day in Brussels. I decided, since I had seen all that was important to see to visit some places that weren’t in the guide book. The first place I went was the Basilique du Sacre Coeur. I had seen it from the Palais du Justice and it was all by itself on the other side of town. I walked there first thing in the morning, it was much farther than it looked. When I finally found out what it was, I was unlucky enough to discover that it was closed to visitors during service. After this I walked back to the center of town to check a few things out. I walked through the botanical gardens, which were rather plain as the weather still hasn’t warmed up here enough. I walked around town some more and was off in search of some lunch when I saw an arch in the distance, now I don’t know how this thing was not in my guide book. It was magnificent. I am still not exactly sure what it was but it was attached to the museum of royal arts (closed on Sunday) which was a nice structure as well. There was a park around the arch and I laid there for awhile and took a rest since I had been walking around for almost 4 hours straight. After laying there for awhile I headed to a grocery because I was too tired to go out to dinner. I bought a sandwich, some petit ecolier(those biscuit cookies with the chocolate kid on top), some thai sweet chili lays and a big bottle of Evian. I discovered the ease of the metro and took that back to my hotel. I laid there and ate my dinner in my room and now I have to go to bed because I have to get up at 5:30 to catch my train to Metz!

Today was my first full day in Brussels. I woke up a little too early, about 7 and promptly ate breakfast at the hotel and left before 7:30. I decided to walk up to where all the sights that I wanted to see were, it was about 1 km. I used the Palais de Justice as my guide as it was on top of the hill in Brussels and had a distinctive gold roof. On my way I walked through the grand place on the way. One of the original squares in the town, it houses the town hall and other administrative buildings, many of which date back to the 1400’s. At this point the grand place was totally empty because it was only 8AM and nothing opens until 10 on the weekends. I then continued on my way to the Palais de Justice. I walked around it… But you couldn’t go in. After this I marched around the area for awhile until I found the Parc du Bruxelles where I walked around for a little, not as pretty as it would be in the sun but still quite nice. Surrounding the park were several old buildings (note: all buildings in Brussels are old as most date before 1700). The coolest looking of the bunch was the Royal Palace, unfortunately the current king and queen do not reside there but it is quite the place, again it isn’t open to the public until later in the year . After this I walked around the marketplace area where I found a neat little waffle shop and got my first real Belgian waffle!! It was delicious. As it was still raining I went and found the Musee des Beaux Arts (Directly translated: Pretty Art Museum… sounds better in French). It had an interesting mix of paintings. As I know very little about art my description probably does not do it justice. The paintings were very interesting. I have seen dutch paintings and many of the paintings were similar to the dutch masters paintings which are dark and creepy looking but many of the paintings were a mix of dark and light styles. As I said my descriptions do not do the paintings justice but I really enjoyed them. After discovering the Museum I went and grabbed some lunch at a traditional Belgian restaurant. I had some good sausages with “stoemp” which is some sort of mashed potatoes with some sort of squash or sweet potatoes mixed in, very good, especially when mixed with a nice Belgian beer. After lunch it was off on another adventure. I walked and found the city cathedral and the Parliament building of the European Union. Both were very impressive!! After this I wandered around by the Grand Place for awhile and stumbled upon the Belgian GLBT festival and walked around that until I felt too uncomfortable to enjoy the music anymore. On the way back I found the Manneken Pis which is kind of what it sounds like. It is a fountain with a statue of a boy peeing (yes the water comes from his wee-wee/dong/whatever you want to call it). There are many legends of why this fountain is what it is but nobody knows for sure. The cool part is on many days of the year, he gets dressed up in an outfits to take on the day. Today he was in a bright orange rain suit. After seeing the manneken I headed back for a good night’s rest. But before I got to sleep I got trapped into the Eurovision song contest on TV. For those who have never heard of it, you are lucky! It is basically a battle of the pop-stars between all the European countries. It was on every channel in every language on the hotel tv. After each country performs there is a ½ hour to vote for the “best” group. The trick is you can’t vote for your own country. At the end of voting they go through each country and announce how the votes in that country came out, the top 6 or 8 score points (12 for 1st, 10 for 2nd and so on) after this happens for nearly an hour, the group with the highest score wins. The best part is how the countries vote. The voting ends up being in blocks. The top votes in the eastern block countries go to their fellow nations, ie Serbia gives its top points to Russia, Bosnia, etc. This was particulary amusing because there were only a handful of western European countries in the final and they all finished in the bottom ½ because nobody voted for them. This was unfortunate because some of the better groups like Finland and England scored almost no points.

Today I arrived in Europe! It took two flights: Seattle to Copenhagen and Copenhagen to Brussels. Both flights went very smoothly with almost no turbulence. Passport control was easy, it consisted of the customs man asking me why I needed a visa and stamped the passport. Customs was even easier, after grabbing my bags, there were two exits: one for people with an EU passport and one for non-EU passports. As I walked towards the exit I realized that there was no guard or checkpoint, I just walked out. It was very easy! After “customs” I walked downstairs to the train station, pretty easy. I got a “free” ticket (my rail pass covered the train) and only had to wait about 10 minutes until the train came. Taking the train to my station, Gare du Midi, should have been really easy, however I was unaware that the signs at the train stations are ½ French and ½ Dutch (Belgium is bilingual) so I read the Gare du Midi sign as Gare Zuid (Apparently Zuid is Midi in Dutch) and promptly realized my mistake after pulling out of the station and seeing a French sign indicating Gare du Midi. I was able to get off at the next station and along with two German girls who made the exact same mistake as me, managed to get on the next train in the other direction. After getting off the train I found my way to the hotel, only backtracking once. I checked into the hotel problem free. After cleaning up and resting for a bit, I went out in search of dinner. I found a neat little “snack” place about two blocks from my hotel. After that I came back and went to bed!