Edinburgh 4

This morning (Sunday) we seriously considered going to the beautiful church where Sean Connery was knighted along with all of the other Scottish knights.  After much debate we decided against the idea as none of us had suitable clothing on hand (we travel very lightly on the weekends).  Instead, we headed to the National Museum of Scotland and took a tour there.  For someone who is very interested in history such as myself, this was really fun (even as you are all thinking that I’m insane).

Afterwards, we stopped by Greyfriar’s Bobby (a pub named with some significance pertaining to Scottish lore) for lunch and returned to the cafe where JK wrote her books once more for coffee (it was really close and the coffee there was actually pretty good).  We managed to catch a few sets of the Wimbledon finals before returning to the train station to catch our ride home.  We really enjoyed this weekend trip and rank Edinburgh among our favorite cities.  Although we did a considerable amount in this short time, we all plan to return as there is much to see in Scotland.

Edinburgh 3

We had no plans for this next day in Edinburgh but got lucky in that we stumbled into a very nice day.  As we were leaving the hostel, we happened to hear of a free tip-based tour of the city of Edinburgh.  We found the meeting point and disembarked almost immediately.  The tour was very well designed and our guide was excellent.  This gave us a lot of great ideas about other things we wanted to check out.  I would go into everything we saw on the tour but it would take quite a long time.  Suffice it to say that Edinburgh is a gorgeous city with a rich and fascinating history.

After the tour, we headed to the café where JK Rowling wrote the first two Harry Potter books. Afterwards, we stopped by the grave of Adam Smith (founder of economics as we know it and the author of The Wealth of Nations).   Both of these were things that we had been directed to by our tour guide.  After a long day of exploration and enjoyment, we returned briefly to our hostel and went out for a night on the town.

Edinburgh 2

Given that Edinburgh is just one city in Scotland and that we also wanted to experienced the world-renowned beauty of the Scottish highlands, we decided to spend all day Friday on a guided tour of the region.  This trek would take us north and west in a large loop covering much of Scotland, the farthest point being Loch Ness.

The Scottish Highlands give northern Italy a run for its money in terms of stunning beauty.  The tranquil hills and mystical lochs were nothing short of surreal in both their grandeur and effect.  It is very easy to imagine why the legends of Loch Ness came to be once you have visited there.  The power and mystery of this place is overwhelming.  Overall, it was a day well spent.

Edinburgh 1

We don’t have class on Fridays at Oxford so that we are free to travel on the weekends.  We left Oxford in the early evening on Thursday, boarding a train bound for Edinburgh.  After a 5 hour ride, during which time we occupied ourselves by enjoying the serene landscapes and hills as they rolled by, we arrived in Edinburgh and checked into our hostel.  It is called Castle Rock and we could not have chosen a better place to stay.  Both the staff and facilities are outstanding and receive an unhesitating 5 stars from me.  It was very late and we planned to rise early the next morning, so we ate a quick dinner at a nearby chippy (place that sells in Fish and Chips) and called it a night.

Oxford 1

Today was the end of our incredible 5 week journey across continental Europe.  The remainder of the summer, we will be living at Worcester College (which is one of many colleges that make up Oxford University).  We drove our last few hundred miles on the bus to the coast and took the Channel Tunnel Train to the UK.  From there we drove to Oxford and committed our travel-weary bodies to semi-permanent residence there.

Being an engineer, I feel the need to describe the channel tunnel to you.  It is definitely one of the greatest engineering feats in the world.  So I’ll start with the obvious—this is a 32 mile tunnel that runs under the English Channel.  Perhaps the coolest part is how we got on the train.  We were on a full-sized coach bus and drove into the train station.  We then proceeded to drive onto the train.  The train took us and the bus under the channel where we then drove off the train and to Oxford.  Cool, huh?

I’m going to wait for a few weeks before I write about Oxford.  Since I have so much time here, I want to give myself time to feel out what it is like to live here.  This is the end of daily blog entries for the trip.  Since we will be at Oxford and taking classes, not too many noteworthy things will happen each day.  I will continue to write periodic entries, however, particularly for the many weekend trips that I plan to make.

Paris 4

So this entry is going to be about my birthday in Paris as well as some of the funny/interesting facts that I’ve picked up along the way in this great city.

The first thing I did when I got up that morning (after not sleeping) was turn in my art journal containing nearly 100 sketches from various museums, take a music history exam, and put the finishing touches on my 20-page paper describing the influences of Caravaggio on the Spanish Baroque.  Yayyy!!  Happy Birthday!  Well, it recovered quickly after that.

I had a lot to hit today.   Up until then, we had missed out on some of the major landmarks in Paris (of which there are MANY) because we spent so much time in museums.  At this point, though, we had a chance to catch up.  First stop, the Catacombs.

What better way to spend your birthday than to walk in dark tunnels, completely surrounded by the remains of 600,000 dead people that are so close you can literally reach out and pick up their skulls.  I know it sounds like I’m being sarcastic, but I really enjoyed it.  I badly need photos (which I have) to explain it properly, but basically, Paris was running out of room for bodies and needed to move a lot of them into a fairly small area.  They did what any of us would have done and dug subterranean tunnels so that they could stack the bones in neat little rows.  So you are walking in the tunnel and about 2 feet away on either side of you there is a WALL of bones.  No glass, no cement to contain them, nothing.  Bones.  Millions of bones.  The longer bones usually formed the foundation of these walls (about 4 feet tall and 5-8 feet thick), then they would sort of arrange the skulls on top.   Apparently, they have a really big problem with people attempting to steal remains.  I’m not sure I would mind if someone stole my remains.  It might be kind of cool to ride around in someone’s bookbag for awhile.

Everyone goes to Paris in great anticipation of Notre Dame.  After all, an adorable Disney hunchback lives there.  I, like many others, made my pilgrimage there to laugh and throw things at him, but found that the 3d rendering really DID do it justice.  In all seriousness, it IS worth checking out, but it is also one of the least impressive cathedrals I’ve seen on this trip (which is sort of like saying that the Rockies are little hills, but you catch my drift—it still knocks the socks off of anything I had seen prior to this trip).

Now, that being said, DO go and visit San Chapelle, a church that is only a block away and most people don’t even know it exists.  It IS very unique and extremely beautiful.  It is almost entirely stained glass and is absolutely amazing.

That evening we went to the Eiffel Tower and had dinner at a great restaurant nearby.  I was honestly very pleasantly surprised with the tower.  I sort of expected it to let me down given the considerable hype that surrounds it, but it really is impressive and beautiful.  For starters, it’s about four times as big as I expected.  Also, it’s surrounded by a really pleasant park from which you can enjoy it (not the bustling city streets that I had always thought surrounded it).  After dinner we went to the park to enjoy the scenery with Jack and met a Cuban.

Some comments:

• We were stepping into the elevator in our hotel when a French man standing behind us said, “That elevator isn’t going up.  It’s going down.  You’re on the wrong one.”  I quite firmly knew that I was on the right elevator so I stayed on.  It quickly became apparent to me that he was attempting to trick us because he and his friends started laughing when another American (my friend Michael) got off the elevator (keep in mind, the French guy is a grown man wearing a suit).  At this point, another French man unattached to the aforementioned group stepped onto the elevator.  As the doors closed, he rolled his eyes and said, “I’m sorry for French people…they are stupid.”  Let the record show that on this 24^th Day of June In the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Nine, France apologized to the United States.
• The French overcharge for EVERYTHING.  If you go to a café for lunch, expect to spend 5 euro if you want a small coke.  No free refills, people.  We went to a fairly nice restaurant near the Eiffel Tower for my birthday and dropped well over 100 euro as a group, and I still had to pay extra to use their restroom.
• If you speak French, don’t get too excited about visiting Paris.  Chances are the locals will laugh at your accent and speak to you only in English.  Occasionally, if they are particularly bored, they will simply reply, “Sorry, I don’t speak any English.”
• Despite Paris’ obvious short-coming—the French people who inhabit it— I would like to return there someday.  There is simply too much to do in this beautiful city.  I explored the city at a vigorous pace for 4 days and have only skimmed the surface.

Paris 3

Today we visited my favorite museum of the trip followed by my least favorite.  The D’Orsay was phenomenal.  First, it’s located in an old train station which appealed to me a lot for some reason.  Go ahead and skip the lower floor because it is fairly ordinary.  Once you get to the upper floors, however, there are several rooms that have the highest concentration of great art in any museum I’ve been to.  The halls are packed with Monet, Manet, Cezanne, Courbet, Degas, Renoir, Van Gogh, Seurat, etc.  Any time you see several paintings by Van Gogh in one room, you know you’ve hit something.

The next Museum was called the Rodin (after the famous sculptor by the same name).  The museum was set in a beautiful house, but other than that it was rather boring.  If you are really fascinated by the fact that sculptors make little statues before they make the big ones, then this is for you (part of the museum showcases this process).  In terms of seeing great art, though, its scope is fairly limited unless you simply Louvre Rodin (heh..).

Paris 2

There is a tremendous amount of art in Paris, so much of our time here will be spent to that effect.  Our first day full day in Paris was predominantly consumed with visits to the Louvre and the Pompidou.  Needless to say, both museums were outstanding.  I don’t think I really need to say much about the Louvre since just about everyone has at least heard of it.  Don’t go there just to see the Mona Lisa.  It is much smaller than everyone expects and is constantly mobbed with tourists.  There are numerous, arguably better, works that go almost unnoticed because of the lack of Da Vinci hype.  These are much more pleasant to view without being blinded by flashes and pushed and shoved about.   Other reasons to go to the Louvre include seeing Barry Bonds.

Wait what?  Yeah, Barry Bonds was also at the Louvre while we were there.  After recognizing him, many of us asked him for photos.  I supposed he was moderately annoyed that he had been discovered, but he met our request without too much argument.  Regardless of your opinion of Barry Bonds, I have a photo with the biggest home-run hitting champion or record-stealing crook of all time.  Cool.

The Pompidou is very weird.  It’s a modern art museum (of which I’ve seen many on this trip) but of the stranger-than-average variety.  It’s definitely worth seeing for the upper floors which contain some genuine works that pretty much everyone can acknowledge for their greatness.  The lower floors are simply bizarre.  If you would like the details of just how bizarre they really are, let me know.  Otherwise, I’ll attempt to keep this blog G-rated.

Paris 1

Welcome to Paris, our last destination before we take up lodgings in Oxford.  We will be staying here for several days and there is much to see and experience.  From when we pulled up to the curb at our hotel, it was apparent that Paris would be quite an adventure.  To start with, our hotel absolutely despised us before we even walked in the door.  In fact, the first thing they said to us was, “You will have to find somewhere else to stay.”

One thing I may have failed to mention previously is that there are several other Georgia Tech groups traveling from city to city just as we are.  We all see the same cities (for the most part), just in a different order.  Another Georgia Tech group had checked out of the Oceania Paris (our hotel) just hours before we arrived.  It was apparent that our relations with this hotel were in shambles.  The previous group had apparently initiated a drunken brawl (literally) in the hallway of the hotel, causing a number of other guests to check out immediately.  It is rumored that one guest is even suing the hotel, although this has not been confirmed.

We were finding out about all of this as we sat on the bus waiting to be checked into the hotel.  After about 20 minutes of peace-keeping negotiations, our group leaders managed to secure our reservation.  Despite this early tension, the hotel quickly realized that our group was quite different from the other and all trespasses were forgiven.

Brussels 4

Since today was our free day, we were able to do pretty much whatever we wanted.  Once again, just about everyone took this opportunity to catch up on their assignments in the morning.  In the late afternoon and into the evening we explored Brussels and had a great dinner downtown.  Up until this point, we hadn’t seen very much of Brussels because we were constantly busy elsewhere (Ghent, Brugge, etc).

Tomorrow we leave Brussels.  Reflecting back on our short time here, I can safely say that it is a fun place to visit.  Even so, I can’t say that it left me wanting more.  There are those cities in which you begin planning your next trip to before you even leave.  Brussels was not one of them for me.  I can’t nail it to any particular thing, but the experience as a whole seemed very ordinary.