The obligatory post-vacation post
And finally, I'm ready to post a vacation report. I know it's taken me long, and I know reading vacation reports is somewhat like looking at 874 pictures of someone's "cute and precious" grandchildren, but I am still going to write one, so please bear with me. ;)
I am quite pleased with the way it turned out this year, because I was able to take two and a half weeks off, a rare piece of luck these days of Workaholism glorification. Plus it was useful for body and mind both, in that I got the amount of physical exercise to last me for the whole of next year and worked on my French really intensively. Yes, I went to France again -- Strasbourg this time, to be more specific -- and stayed there for two weeks studying French, and after that I spent three days at sealover_astara's place!
Strasbourg
The town proved a strange experience. I couldn't help comparing it to Dijon, the only other French town which I managed to get to know as closely, and for a little while, Strasbourg was not winning. Apart from it being in a completely different region (with a rather complicated history), Strasbourg has none of the rich aristocratic laziness of the ancient capital of Burgundy. It's all business, color, movement, activity...it was a merchant town and it has remained such. As a result of all this, it's taken me a while to warm up to it. I did work on it; I didn't want to return home grumbling, so I'd take myself for long, long walks on my own both in the historic parts and in the modern ones, checking churches and shops, having a cookie and a cup of coffee on a terrace of some small cafe, overhearing bits of conversation, and of course taking lots of pictures.
The Alliance Francaise language school did their best to show us around. We got to climb the tower of the (local) Notre Dame -- second time for me, because if I'm in a town with a big church and the church has a tower, be sure I'll be noticed up there at some point. We had a nice picnic at the Orangerie parc, even though we arrived there to find a part of it with lots of police, because some guy had decided that the day was just perfect for a suicide by shooting and had chosen to get some publicity by not doing it in the privacy of his own bathroom. We went to the Museum of Modern Art, and to the Kronenbourg brewery, and to the European Parliament. As the museum made me feel like one the most conservative and repressed people in the world, and the tour to the EP was accompanied by what shall henceforth be known as The Most Boring Commentary Ever, I feel I can safely say that the brewery was the best. There was free beer, too. ;)
The classes
That part was both well-planned and fun. It took me at least three days to get into a habit of speaking French, and that was HARD. I ended up feeling exhausted and went to bed at about 9 in the evening, but I got better soon. We had three hours of studies every morning, in a very international Spanish-Russian-Brasilian-Danish-German-Dutch-Georgian-Argentinian-Ukrainian group, and we avoided English like the plague, so I could really feel some progress at the end of my two weeks. There was a lovely bunch from Spain (I called them "l'equipe espagnole," which never failed to make them laugh), most of them teachers, and, as I was right in the middle of listening to an audio version of Captain Blood, with its villainous Spaniards, I had more than one reason for a quiet giggle. Really, those Spanish students were the sweetest people ever!
During all this time, I stayed at the university student residence, which was about a seven-minute walk from the European Court of Human Rights. I passed the building every day on my way to the tram stop. Yes, roh_wyn, this is your cue to feel jealous! :D And it brings me to another Strasbourg thing --
The European Glass Monsters
This is what I affectionately called the aforementioned Court, the European Parliament, the Council of Europe and all that. :) I emphasize the word "affectionately," because they are rather grand and beautiful, and each of them reminded me of some sort of a ship. I guess it makes a lot of sense, for what is there to better represent the ideas of freedom and deliverance and progress than a great ship braving the vast expance of an ocean? Or maybe listening to Captain Blood made me somewhat nautically inclined. ;)
Freiburg
On our first Saturday there, I went to Freiburg with two other students from Brasil. My, what a pretty town! Also, it's Lviv's "sister city," so I felt I had to see it. The only downer was that it was packed with tourists; often, we'd have to shove our way through crowds. I had also managed to catch a cold a couple of days before, which is never fun when one's being touristy. Still, we got to see the beautiful, beautiful cathedral and climbed up Schlossberg (all the way to the top!) and had a beer there. My Brasilian buddies, even though being terrific gals overall, whined a lot. I suspect that's because they're simply not used to walking this much!
Colmar
The next day, Sunday, was spent in Colmar, a small town south of Strasbourg. It's as pretty as any other in Alsace, but it can boast some special things too. First, we quite accidentally walked into a small open-air exhibition of vintage cars. Second, I had the best onion tart ever for breakfast. *giggles* Third, they have a toy museum! We must have spent at least three hours there...it's just incredible, especially the section with toy trains, which all move through miniature towns and make sounds and blink lights. I must say I got a little sad in the doll section, though. Looking at all those toys -- dolls with individual faces, wooden furniture that looks stunningly realistic, china tea sets and such -- seemed to hammer in the fact that the kids of our era get really, really primitive things to play with. In fact, this is best felt in the Barbie corner, with those really interesting, versatile, stylish doll being gradually reduced to the generic Glittering Pink Princess. Sad.
The last three and a half days
And then I went to see sealover_astara! :D Again, linguistic trouble reared its ugly head: now I couldn't switch back to English and kept checking myself on each "oui, bien sur" "pardon" and "merci." *chuckles* Nevertheless, we got to be delightfully geeky, and saw some lovely places, and generally had a lot of fun. It was a really nice visit -- thanks, Astara and R.! *hugs tightly*
***
So yes, overall, a very nice trip. Stress-free, too, as this time I didn't spend eight hours on passport control, or a night at the railway station in Karlsruhe like last time (though, boy, do I feel a kind of bond with that station now! *giggles*); no endless changing of trains or vicious headaches. This particula vacation most certainly wasn't a waste of time, and I definitely hope to get more like this. :)
I am quite pleased with the way it turned out this year, because I was able to take two and a half weeks off, a rare piece of luck these days of Workaholism glorification. Plus it was useful for body and mind both, in that I got the amount of physical exercise to last me for the whole of next year and worked on my French really intensively. Yes, I went to France again -- Strasbourg this time, to be more specific -- and stayed there for two weeks studying French, and after that I spent three days at sealover_astara's place!
Strasbourg
The town proved a strange experience. I couldn't help comparing it to Dijon, the only other French town which I managed to get to know as closely, and for a little while, Strasbourg was not winning. Apart from it being in a completely different region (with a rather complicated history), Strasbourg has none of the rich aristocratic laziness of the ancient capital of Burgundy. It's all business, color, movement, activity...it was a merchant town and it has remained such. As a result of all this, it's taken me a while to warm up to it. I did work on it; I didn't want to return home grumbling, so I'd take myself for long, long walks on my own both in the historic parts and in the modern ones, checking churches and shops, having a cookie and a cup of coffee on a terrace of some small cafe, overhearing bits of conversation, and of course taking lots of pictures.
The Alliance Francaise language school did their best to show us around. We got to climb the tower of the (local) Notre Dame -- second time for me, because if I'm in a town with a big church and the church has a tower, be sure I'll be noticed up there at some point. We had a nice picnic at the Orangerie parc, even though we arrived there to find a part of it with lots of police, because some guy had decided that the day was just perfect for a suicide by shooting and had chosen to get some publicity by not doing it in the privacy of his own bathroom. We went to the Museum of Modern Art, and to the Kronenbourg brewery, and to the European Parliament. As the museum made me feel like one the most conservative and repressed people in the world, and the tour to the EP was accompanied by what shall henceforth be known as The Most Boring Commentary Ever, I feel I can safely say that the brewery was the best. There was free beer, too. ;)
The classes
That part was both well-planned and fun. It took me at least three days to get into a habit of speaking French, and that was HARD. I ended up feeling exhausted and went to bed at about 9 in the evening, but I got better soon. We had three hours of studies every morning, in a very international Spanish-Russian-Brasilian-Danish-German-Dutch-Georgian-Argentinian-Ukrainian group, and we avoided English like the plague, so I could really feel some progress at the end of my two weeks. There was a lovely bunch from Spain (I called them "l'equipe espagnole," which never failed to make them laugh), most of them teachers, and, as I was right in the middle of listening to an audio version of Captain Blood, with its villainous Spaniards, I had more than one reason for a quiet giggle. Really, those Spanish students were the sweetest people ever!
During all this time, I stayed at the university student residence, which was about a seven-minute walk from the European Court of Human Rights. I passed the building every day on my way to the tram stop. Yes, roh_wyn, this is your cue to feel jealous! :D And it brings me to another Strasbourg thing --
The European Glass Monsters
This is what I affectionately called the aforementioned Court, the European Parliament, the Council of Europe and all that. :) I emphasize the word "affectionately," because they are rather grand and beautiful, and each of them reminded me of some sort of a ship. I guess it makes a lot of sense, for what is there to better represent the ideas of freedom and deliverance and progress than a great ship braving the vast expance of an ocean? Or maybe listening to Captain Blood made me somewhat nautically inclined. ;)
Freiburg
On our first Saturday there, I went to Freiburg with two other students from Brasil. My, what a pretty town! Also, it's Lviv's "sister city," so I felt I had to see it. The only downer was that it was packed with tourists; often, we'd have to shove our way through crowds. I had also managed to catch a cold a couple of days before, which is never fun when one's being touristy. Still, we got to see the beautiful, beautiful cathedral and climbed up Schlossberg (all the way to the top!) and had a beer there. My Brasilian buddies, even though being terrific gals overall, whined a lot. I suspect that's because they're simply not used to walking this much!
Colmar
The next day, Sunday, was spent in Colmar, a small town south of Strasbourg. It's as pretty as any other in Alsace, but it can boast some special things too. First, we quite accidentally walked into a small open-air exhibition of vintage cars. Second, I had the best onion tart ever for breakfast. *giggles* Third, they have a toy museum! We must have spent at least three hours there...it's just incredible, especially the section with toy trains, which all move through miniature towns and make sounds and blink lights. I must say I got a little sad in the doll section, though. Looking at all those toys -- dolls with individual faces, wooden furniture that looks stunningly realistic, china tea sets and such -- seemed to hammer in the fact that the kids of our era get really, really primitive things to play with. In fact, this is best felt in the Barbie corner, with those really interesting, versatile, stylish doll being gradually reduced to the generic Glittering Pink Princess. Sad.
The last three and a half days
And then I went to see sealover_astara! :D Again, linguistic trouble reared its ugly head: now I couldn't switch back to English and kept checking myself on each "oui, bien sur" "pardon" and "merci." *chuckles* Nevertheless, we got to be delightfully geeky, and saw some lovely places, and generally had a lot of fun. It was a really nice visit -- thanks, Astara and R.! *hugs tightly*
***
So yes, overall, a very nice trip. Stress-free, too, as this time I didn't spend eight hours on passport control, or a night at the railway station in Karlsruhe like last time (though, boy, do I feel a kind of bond with that station now! *giggles*); no endless changing of trains or vicious headaches. This particula vacation most certainly wasn't a waste of time, and I definitely hope to get more like this. :)