Where the Rhône meets the Saône

When I imagine Italy, I picture houses nestled in the hills bathed by the sun. Perhaps my ideas are a little too strongly influenced by Hollywood. At the moment, I'm in Lyon and there are times when it reminds of these visions of Italy. The heart of Lyon is surrounded by hills from which you can see the red roofs and churches below. In climbing these hills, you find the brightly colored houses and terraced gardens that I imagined in the villas along the Mediterranean. At the same time, Lyon has areas that remind me strongly of Paris. In the main shopping area, you have the same white buildings with the shutters and iron balconies. I will add pictures in a day or so to better depict the city.

As with many areas in France, Lyon has a number of regional specialties. There are two types of chocolate that it is known for. The coussins look like little teal pillows. They are made from a type of almond paste which surrounds a layer of chocolate ganache. The quenelle consists of a cylinder shaped praline of hazelnut, almonds, and sugar, which is then wrapped in a thin layer of white chocolate. As with any area in France, you can find patisseries with fresh brioche or croissants; however the ones in Lyon specialize in pastries with pralines, almonds cooked in a pink sugar. Imagine a normal brioche, but with bits of pink and you have the general idea.

I've visited most of the popular attractions in the city. On the hill overlooking the city, you can find both the ruins of a Roman ampitheater and a 19th century church called Notre Dame de Fourviere. Down below, you can find Saint Jean, which is a Gothic church. My friends and I also visited the Abbey of St. Martin where we made the mistake of taking a guided tour in which the guide, a young man with a soul patch, explained every detail of the church, from the peacocks on the columns behind the altar to the history of the stamps depicting the life of St. John the Baptist on the arches outside the church.

I will add the pictures of Lyon in a couple of days and then you will truly be able to see the places and more importantly, the food, the I have been attempting to describe. Until then, this will have to do.

Denmark: By Land and By Sea

Again, I have to apologize for another extended absence. I don`t always have the opportunity to catch up on my blog while traveling. I have returned to France, so if there are any odd typos in this entry, it`s because of the French keyboard, which is arranged a little differently than the American one. I will post up the rest of the photos on facebook eventually; hopefully these will suffice for the moment.

My cousins live about five minutes away from a place called Den Gamle By or "Old Town," which is a collection of houses from all over Denmark. They`ve also arranged them to look like the homes of craftsmen, so you can see what the workshop of a dress maker or book binder would have liked in the 19th century. There were also assorted animals and people in period costumes to give the place more of an authentic feel. There was one house where my cousin opened the door only to find three women in 19th century dresses sitting in a living room sewing and speaking Danish. We had to sweep by them to view the rest of the house and it felt a bit like we were intruding in their lives.


Last Tuesday, I got to have a special treat. Thanks to a friend of my cousin, I got to take a boat ride along the Danish coast between Jutland and Fyn. The Danish coastline, like the countryside along the highways, is open and verdant. There are islands with only one family that have a tiny little ferry to take them to the mainland. This is me proudly displaying a teacup with the Queen`s crest in the control room of the boat. Below, our boat (in the foreground) pulls away from the dock.

Towards the end of my stay, I finally made it to Copenhagen, Denmark`s largest city. Unlike the other major cities I`ve visited, Copenhagen isn`t very touristic. Even around the well-known monuments, I didn`t find the vendors selling bells or painted plates. I got the sense that not as many people make it this far north, although there were still tourists. Copenhagen is still a very beautiful city. It has a canal running through its heart that boats still traverse. There are plenty of beautiful old buildings--castles and churches for the most part. I visited Christianborg Palace; which is in the picture below. This is the palace where the Queen recieves important visitors: There`s a seperate palace where the royal family lives that is also in Copenhagen.


The story of how the Danes received their flag is painted on the roof of the throne room. Apparently, they have the oldest flag in Europe. A Danish king was off crusading against the Estonians when according the legend, the flag fell to Earth from God. As the tour guide said, the Danes believe this story and while one is in Denmark, one had best believe the story as well.

While in Copenhagen, I also went to the Danish National Museum, which is one of the best places to learn about Danish history. I got a chance to look at objects from the Danish churches of the Middle Ages to posters Beatles`concerts in Copenhagen.

At the end of the day, I made a pilgrimage to the statue of the Little Mermaid. Han Christen Anderson is one of the national heroes, in fact, his house is now a muesum. It took me an hour of wandering to find her, but in doing so, I was able to go by many of the city`s landmarks, including the "Most Beuatiful Fountain in Copenhagen." I`m not sure if there are that many to start with, but this one is certainly striking:

In Search of the Vikings

In thinking of the Vikings, the first image we often conjure up is of men in horned hats in long ships on their way to pillage and plunder the coasts of Southern Europe. We don't often study Denmark, a country of only 5 million people, in school. Over the course of my first few days in Denmark, I got a chance to travel around the country and see sites in museums that date not only from the Viking Era, but even as far back as the Iron Age.

I'm staying in Århus, the second largest city in the country, but the population is only 300,00. You don't have to drive far before you hit the countryside. My cousins have been kind enough to take me around Jyland and I've encountered mile upon mile of green fields with cows and horses. The ruins from the past are often undisturbed. Urbanization, violent revolution, and the two world wars, which have destroyed so much in the past in other parts of Europe, have left much of Denmark undisturbed.

This picture is of a recreation of an Iron Age hut. I visited the Moesgård Museum where the exhibits go all the way back to Stone Age tools. Their chief attraction is the Bog Man, the perfectly preserved remains of a 2000 year old man. Today, he lies in a glass case, twisted, with blackened skin, a slightly eerie sight to see. Cynthia, it reminded me of the Ice Man from sixth grade. The museum also had an exhibit on ancient runes. Although the runes were often used for identification purposes, they could also have love poems and one even had a dirty message.

The following day, I visited Sønderborg Castle, which is a museum of the history of Southern Jutland, the border area between Germany and Denmark. The castle also has a tower where the Danish king, Christian II, was imprisoned. This picture was taken from a window of the castle. I found the port city quite lovely. When I looked in the water, I was surprised to see jellyfish lazily floating. I suppose the water here is much cleaner.

On the way back, we went by the ruins of this castle. It once belonged to a nobleman who had a falling out with a Danish king.

My explorations of the Danish countryside continued the following day. My cousins took me to an inn where I had smørrebrød for the first time. The open-faced sandwich is one of the tradional foods of Denmark. They take a piece of rye bread and then add meat, vegetables, and other sandwich toppings. For example, one of the ones I had was topped with ham, cold asparagus, onions, peppers, and Italian salad, which is just peas and carrots in mayonnaise. There are a limitless number of snørrebrød. Apparently, the cook didn't know what he would put on ours until he started making them.

As we drove along, my cousins directed my attention to little bumps by the side of the road that were Viking burial mounds. Although not nearly as impressive, they're the Danish versions of the pyramids. They also stopped to show me the following view. Moments before I took this picture, I managed to shock myself on the fence designed to keep the sheep from running away.

When All that Glitters is Not Only Gold, but also Diamonds, Rubies, and Emeralds

Last Saturday, I found myself in a car driving through East Anglia, the "Iowa of England," on my way to Norfolk. The family I was staying with invited me along and since I hadn't seen much of England outside of London, I accepted. The British countryside is quite green and quite flat with the occasional cow. On the way back, we stopped in the town of Cambridge and I did get to poke around the campus. With its Gothic architecture, Cambridge is everything that my school aspires to be. The campus is divided into colleges, but these colleges have names like "King's College" and "St. John." They are essentially gated communities with residences, a dining hall, a chapel, and large greens and courtyards. I was able to walk into some of the colleges even though it was after 5. This is the outside of St. John's, which apparently is the most despised of all the colleges by both Cambridge students and their peers at Oxford.

Both Oxford and Cambridge are known for punting. For a large sum, you can get a student to take you around in one of these boats. The building on the right is Queen's College.

On my way back through town, I saw a number of women dressed in short black dresses and sporting brightly colored wigs or devil horns. Apparently, the town of Cambridge is also a prime spot for hen parties (also known as bachelorette parties in American English). It is amusing to watch the groups of women tottering around in ridiculously high heels and very short revealing dresses.

The following day, I visited the British Library, which is where they display all the old documents and books from British history. You can see the orginal text of Persuasion written in Jane Austen's own hand or Shakespeare's First Folio. I didn't spend much time in the permanent collection, because they had an amazing special exhibit on Henry VIII. I won't go into too much detail for fear of boring anyone with my enthusiasm over history. Just to give you an idea, they had portraits of Henry, both of his parents, his first three wives, and his grandparents. Some of these people are not even on display in the National Portrait Gallery. They had books that he had written notes in and a letter that he had written to Ferdinand of Aragon. There was also an original love letter to Anne Boleyn. I could go on much longer, as the collection was so large that it took me almost three hours to go through.

On my way back, I went through Kensington Gardens, which houses the palace Princess Diana lived in. This is the Royal Albert Memorial, which was built in honor of Queen Victoria's husband.

I apologize if this entry is too full of museums, but I will have to add one more. On my last day in London, I went to the Victoria and Albert Museum, which was one of the highlights of my trip. The picture below is a part of its inner courtyard. This museum is principally devoted to exhibiting, for lack of a better word, stuff. They have a British collection, which takes you from 1500-1900. They explore each period in history and show you furniture, clothes, jewelery, and even tableware that was typical of the period. Occasionally, they will even have a complete room, such as the grand Baroque ball room or a Tudor sitting room. I feel like I really learned about each period. There would be an explanation of what distinguished the Rococo Period and then there would be a mirror and a chair with the characteristic decorations. Further on, there would be a woman's dress across from a table with the table setting from this period.

Although the long march through British history may seem dull, I can assure you that there is truly something for everyone at this museum. I was also fascinated by the costume and jewelery collections. The costume collection consists of fashions from the last 300 years and compares certain styles, such as the suit, evening gowns, or active ware over time. The jewelery collection was even more incredible. I entered a dark hall and lined up on the walls were sparkling rings, necklaces, and tiaras dating from Ancient Greece to the present. I saw an emerald necklace that Napoleon had presented to his adopted daughter and a diamond tiara that a courtier had worn in the 19th century. All the rare stones that I had only read about or imagined were actually on display, indeed, there was a spiral of rings of every kind of precious gem imaginable next to the entrance.

This the statue outside of Buckingham Palce. The hoardes of people are waiting for the changing of the guard.

A Visit to Mr. Dickens, Mr. Shakespeare, and Dr. Johnson

As my train for London pulled out of the station, I rejoiced in the idea that soon I would be in a country where once again, everyone spoke English. In the seats in front of me, three businessmen discussed the meeting they had attended earlier in the day. Somehow, it sounded so much more exciting with their British accents. At the ticket counter for the metro, I marched up to the window without having to form the question in my head first, as I would have done in Paris. My illusions were quickly shattered when the lady behind the glass intitally thought that I wanted to buy a ticket for a town three hours outside the city, rather than the next station over.

When I was younger, I was disappointed that London wasn't the medieval city of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, but now I can see that it has a character of its own. The rows of neat, little brick houses made me feel that I was in Mary Poppins. I half expected Mr. Banks to march out of one as I passed by. The double decker buses are a completely different story. The hurtle down the little narrow streets and make such sharp turns that sitting on the top layer, I get afraid that they'll topple over. It doesn't help that they go on the opposite side of the road, which makes me feel like they're about to crash into the oncoming traffic.

I've found that I enjoy getting to know a city by walking though it, but London is more spread out than Paris and hence not as ideal for strolling around. Still, there are some areas where one can promenade. I started my London adventure by walking along the south bank of the Thames from Embankment, which is a little beyond the Westminster (where the Houses of Parliament are located), to the Tower of London. Along the way, I passed by the Globe Theater and the Golden Hind, the ship Sir Francis Drake sailed on to the Americas. Sadly, there were no tickets available for the play that day. To console myself I went to the National Portrait Gallery.

Most people probably find the National Portrait Gallery a bit dull; however, I think it's one of the more exciting museums. It has paintings of the important people in British history from the last 500 years. I started with the portraits of the Tudor monarchs and three hours later, ended with the famous authors of the turn of the 20th century. They have portraits of all the monarchs, which meant that I got to gaze on both Elizabeth I and Victoria in all their splendor, but they also have all the British people who have done remarkable in the arts, the sciences, and politics. Thus, I also sawy Charles Dickens, Christopher Wren, William Harvey, and Winston Churchill.

The next day, I made a quick visit to the Westminster area to see the Abbey and the Houses of Parliament before meeting up with a friend. We went to the Charles Dickens' Museum, which is in the house where he wrote Oliver Twist. The museum has a large collection of photographs of Dickens and his family. Apparently, he had nine children, most of whom wound up going to Australia or Canada. I imagine that it must have been difficult to have a famous author for a

father. The museum also has a large collection of his novels in their original serial form. Ther

e was even a special exhibit on A Tale of Two Cities, which I found amusing considering I've been doing my best to track it down all over Paris. There were plenty of references to Nicholas Nickleby, including a special section on the research Dickens did at the Yorkshire schools, which brought back memories of the Lowell performance.

We made a brief visit to the British Museum, which included a stop at the section on the Sutton Hoo burial. My English teacher in my junior year of high school made us research this burial of a king. We went on a raid to other English classes and captured other students while chanting Beowulf. I actually recreated this helmut for the occasion and was delighted to see the original.

The afternoon also included a stop at Covent Garden, the place where Professor Higgins in My Fair Lady first meets Eliza. Today, it is filled with little shops selling cutesy items like soap and tea. Apparently, they named a soap after me.

For dinner, I got to go to a pub for the first time. As you can see, we split fish and chips and a cheese pie. Both were rather tasty. The pub, Ye Old Cheshire Cheese, is a historic pub where Dr. Johnson used to go.

Brussels: the city that eats, sleeps, and even pees chocolate

I apologize for the lack of entries in the last week. I've been traveling and haven't really had the opportunity to update. I will try to bring my blog more up to date in the next few days.

I spent three days in Brussels last week. Brussels is known for:

1. Chocolate

2. Mussels

3. Waffles

4. Lace

5. Comic books

6. Statue of a little boy peeing

The amount of chocolate in Brussels is astounding. Around the main square, there are about 10 chocolate shops which all have exquisite displays of truffles. The store, Leonidas, is more common in Brussels than Starbucks is in Manhattan or downtown San Francisco. Each time you turn a corner, you see another one. Even the cheap, touristy stores, which in most cities sell post cards and t-shirts, sell boxes of chocolate.

Mussels and waffles are the other food that Brussels, as well as Belgium, is famous for. The mussels come in a big tub with frites. Most restaurants in Brussels offer mussels. Waffles are bought from cafes, food stands, or even trucks. They come with a variety of toppings, from the standard sugar and syrup to ice cream, melted chocolate and fruit. My friend and I had one with maple syrup and one smoothered in a layer of melted chocolate. This is the window of the shop where we bought the waffles. These waffles are fake, but they give you an idea of the main kinds you can buy.

The Manneken Pis is the most famous tourist attraction in Brussels. It literally is a statue of a little boy peeing. Just as you can buy little, metal Eiffel Towers in Paris, you can buy little metal versions of the Manneken Pis throughout Brussels. The Leonidas across from fountain has a giant, chocolate copy of the little boy and I saw candy ones in all colors of the rainbow in another shop. For special occasions, they dress up the statue and his entire set of costumes from the last 30 years are kept in the history museum. They include a samurai costume, a Nelson Mandella one, a Napoleonic general, an organ grinder, and a Rough Rider. The statue has been outfitted in a costume from pretty much every country in the world and a range of professions.

Besides eating, there is a limited amount to do and see in Brussels. The main square is quite pretty and exactly what you'd expect from a little town in Europe. It was destroyed in the 1690s by Louis XIV, so the buildings are only a little over 300 years old. Each of these shops has a specific name. For example. the one on the right with the gold dome is called 'the Spanish King' and is decorated with an image of the King of Spain. In the photo below, the building on the left is the Maison du Roi, which houses the museum of the city of Brussels. I made sure to visit to discover the history of the city. I also visited the Royal Art Museum, which has a large collection of masters from the Low Countries including Reubens and Pieter Brueghel and the Museum of Musical Instruments, which is an Art Noveau building.

Brussels is also known for its Art Noveau architecture. I visted the house of Victor Horta, a famous architect in this movement. This style is known for its curvy, flowery lines.

I Become an Engineer and Good-bye Paris (for Now)

Now that I’ve finished my internship, I can give more of an oveview of what exactly I was doing here. Oddly enough, I spent the past six weeks at the École des Pont Paris Tech or the Parisian School of Bridges. I am a decidedly humanities person—a history major, who has never taken physics in her life. The idea of spending six weeks at an engineering school caused me a great deal of misery when I first found out about my placement. If I was going to go all the way to France, couldn’t I at least do something related to history?

In the end, my internship wasn’t as dreadful as I had imagined. My work consisted mainly of translating and editing. During the first two weeks, my boss had an article that he needed to translate into English immediately and I got to work directly with him on it. His English is pretty good and he of course knows the translation for the technical terms such as “bulk damage parameter” or “creep test.” I was able to help because I had a better sense of the sentence structure and could make sure that the phrasing wasn’t awkward. In the second half of my internship, I mainly read over articles and corrected the English. Some of the authors took what I had done and changed it on their own, but with others, I went through and explained why I had made the suggestions or changes I did.

The topics of the articles I worked on generally dealt with civil engineering. The article I worked on the longest was about finding parameters for the deterioration of glue that was used to adhere two metal blocks. Another article I spent a long time on was about calculating ridges. Yet another sought to model the oscillations produced by a pedestrian and the effect of multiple pedestrians on a structure such as a bridge or a stadium. Garnet, I think you would have actually been able to make sense out of these articles, but for me, they were just terms and equations,

The post docs at the school were the saving grace of my job. I would eat lunch with them every day and since most of them didn’t speak English that well, I would have to speak French. Indeed, I responded to them in French when they attempted to practice their English with me. They were all very friendly and welcoming even though I was a good five or six years younger. At the beginning, I would sit and listen to their conversations, but by the end, I could follow without an extreme effort and even participate.

Although four or five of the people I hung out with were French, the majority of them came from other countries, in particular North Africa, the Middle East, Vietnam, and China. Due to the wide range of cultural experiences, the post-lunch coffee discussions often centered on differences of religion, what it means to be veiled, and hunting in different countries. Among other things, I learned that the Algerian president has never married, has remained faithful to his aged mother, and was elected by 90% of the population. I also found that in Iran, it’s very hard for a single woman to rent an apartment, but it’s quite commonplace in Algeria. Furthermore, when you go hunting, you must wait a day before eating the animals you’ve killed.

I think that I did gain some important skills from my job. I learned how to correct texts that have been translated from French and what kinds of errors to look for. My French undoubtedly got better (I now know how to say pomegranate and atheist in French) and I got to learn about life in non-Western cultures. The picture above is the entrance to the school. The obselick in the picture at the top is to all the students of the school, who have died in wars. There are tennis courts just to the right.

As part of Paris Plage, the city is sponsoring free concerts for the next few weeks. I went to one on Friday, which was a competition between two cities in France to see which one was the most rock. My friend at the foyer wanted to see the last group, Cocoon, but we had to make it through all the hard rock to hear this group, which was more soft rock. They sing in English, so Lena and anyone else who likes soft rock, you might want to go check them out on itunes.

I’m going to be outside of Paris for the next month, which means that I won’t be as easy to contact. I will do my best to update my blog fairly regularly. I’m off to Brussels tomorrow where I hope to eat plenty of Belgian mussels, chocolate, and maybe even rabbit cooked in beer, which is apparently a local delicacy.