February 24, 2020
Hello! It's been awhile, and I have a lot to share, so buckle in!
In my last post, I mentioned auditioning for a play.......and I got a part! The play will be on May 9th if anyone wants to come.....just kidding, but it will be great. I'm really excited to start rehearsing.
I had last week off because of Carnival, which people dress up for here, like at Halloween. I kept forgetting what week it was, so when a random costumed person would walk down the street, I'd have to think for a second before realizing that it wasn't one of those scary street art sculpture things. Anyway, I had a great last couple of weeks! We had a packed weekend leading into the break. On Saturday, we had our neighbors over for dinner and to play Cards Against Humanity, and it was an absolute blast! We would have played all night if we could have. Dinner was all-American; we started with nachos, had bacon cheeseburgers and fries (ranch of course), and ended with chocolate lava cake 🤤 Man it was good. Then the next day, we had brunch at Maybe Not Bob's, where I overate, but then we went on a historical walk through the city. There are a couple of these historical walks in Luxembourg City, two of which I will show pictures of in this post. This was called the Vauban, which started at the base of the Mudam and went through part of the old fort.
The beginning of the following week, I went to the library and a couple walks through the fields outside of Bertrange. I took some amazing photos, and I plan to do that a lot more now that it has been warming up.
There is this really cool castle-looking building that I drive past every time I get on the bus, so I went and found the front of it. It turns out it now houses the offices of an architecture firm based on the sign on the front of it, though I have no idea what it used to be or how old it actually is.
On Thursday, my friend from Rocky, Danielle, came to visit me. I met her at the train station then because we were hungry and it was close, we went to Five Guys😋 On Friday, we went on a walking tour, this time called the Wenzel. It started from the city center, then we followed part of the old fortress walls down into the Grund, which I think should be the name of a rock band. Or like an orchestra. But nothing in between😂 I took a lot of pictures, so get ready lol. Part of the walls reminded me of the Bob the Builder movie where they renovate the castle and Bob's dad gets stuck in the maze and then also lost in the dungeon. Anyway. Also, we happened into a free museum, where they had a WWII exhibit and a Holocaust exhibit, so we went through both of those. In the WWII exhibit, they had a piece of interactive string art, we use take the color that corresponds to your age and you string it through hoops on a gradient of qualities that you want to leave the world. I couldn't reach the top, so for most of mine, I had to string through the second row. Now that I'm thinking of it too, I remember in my Luxembourg class that we watched a documentary on Luxembourg during WWII, and it focused on Grand Duchess Charlotte. It's called Grand Duchess Charlotte: A Royal At War and it's on youtube if you are interested in watching it.
That night, we went to a bar called Brau Haus, where I had a berry flavored beer that was pretty good. After that, we went on to a place called Hitch that's a restaurant during the day and then removes its tables at night to become a dance floor. All the DJ played were fun German drinking songs set to techno music, and everyone but us were singing along, so we left pretty soon after that. It was fun to experience, though I felt a little left out because of the music. Though I would expect anyone from Europe would feel a little left out at Daisy Duke's so I'll put it down as part of the cultural experience:)
The next day, we explored the Valley of the Seven Castles, which was about as magical as it sounds! All seven castles follow the river Eisch. The first castle was in Koerich, and its pretty much in ruin. The Luxembourg state bought it and has shored up the walls and put a kind of walkway/stage inside, so I assume they must use it for events. We went in and I felt like a historian first finding this castle. It felt so cool:)
The next castle was in Septfontaines. The GPS tried to tell us a road to get up to the castle, but we ended up on the same dead-end road twice. Finally we parked and figured we would use the stairs. The stairs took us back to that same road, but I found a path overgrown with grass and tree branches that we hacked our way through. It was quite the hike, but we finally reached the top. The castle was huge, way bigger than the previous castle, and it looked like someone had recently started renovations on it. There was a new balcony and glass on one of the windows, but we unfortunately couldn't go in. I think it would have been really neat inside. We walked into the garden, and it looked like there was a path that went all the way around the castle, though it was pretty overgrown.
Next up was the castle with my favorite grounds, in Tuntange-Ansembourg. We drove through the gates to park at this castle, which to me looked more like palace or even two decorative mansions across from each other because It didn't look like it could defend against an attack. Anyway, the gardens were open so we meandered through them. It was huge! And amazing, like the garden of the Queen of Hearts. There was even a maze, though it was symmetrical and short, so not too challenging. Of course we took a ton of pictures and I got some good glamour shots of my self, thanks to Danielle.
The next castle was actually a privately owned hotel, and on the blog that gave us the location of each castle, it recommended that you don't even try to go because the gatekeeper sends people back down the road. So we skipped that and moved on to Tuntange-Hollenfels. I think that this was my favorite castle out of all of them. This too was privately owned, so we couldn't go inside, but there were plenty of hiking trails all around the base of the castle so we circled it to get some good pictures. The castle from the bottom of the valley was so enormously tall that it gave me vertigo looking up at it. We stopped to picnic at some handy tables in front of the castle, and then we were on our way to my least favorite castle.
This one was in Mersch-Schoenfels. I should have known that this was the worst one from the moment we pulled into town: there was a very a strong smell of sulfur. In fact, I thought Danielle had let one loose, but it turns out she thought the same thing of me so 😂 But no, that was the overall odor of the town, which might be why the castle was built by the worst builder ever. Nothing was symmetrical or even. Every side of the castle gave me more to hate about it. It was just a tower with random features on it. You'll see- I hope it bugs you as much as it bugs me.
The seventh (our sixth) and final castle of the day was in Mersch. There wasn't much left of the castle, unfortunately, but what was left was turned into a museum that opens in April. After looking at the castle, we crossed the road to a kind of public park. They had a tower there too (which I didn't take a picture of for whatever reason🙄) and a sculpture of a dragon that represents the seven castles. There was a sign describing all the features on it, which I did take a picture of in case you were curious and wanted to know all the things that were going on with the dragon.
After that, we went to The Chocolate House and had hot chocolate. While driving out of the town, we remembered we had seen a sign for a Roman villa, so we looked for that before we left. We found it, though it was actually the basin in front of what once was a villa that was left. It was pretty big, bigger than I thought a Roman villa would be, so I'm really glad we stopped.
We headed home from our big day of exploring, and it took us only 26 minutes to get there, though it had felt like we were hours away. Later that night we had a bouchée à la reine, shredded chicken and mushrooms in a pastry cup, at a local restaurant. I found a picture on the internet to better describe it. I've had it several times since I've been here, and I absolutely love it.
On Sunday, we visited Vianden Castle, which I went to the first week I was here. I took some more pictures, but don't feel bad if you skip through them.
Because this day was the last of the carnival holiday, there OF COURSE was a clown parade, because why not?? We did our best to avoid them, but at times you could hear the music but couldn't tell from what direction it was coming from😰 After stopping in three restaurants and walking past two more, we finally found one where the kitchen was still open (it was only 3pm). The waiter was just as awkward as the two of us, and it was both a relief and a kind of sadness to leave him, though he probably had a better day after that😂 When I first went it, I (being very hungry and confused and more hungry) asked immediately in English if the kitchen was open. In my empty-headed state, I forget to ask if he spoke English and just reverted back to my native American that expects everyone to speak English no matter where I am in the world. I'm sure it was very abrupt, and he sounded amused with his "absolutely". Duh, why didn't I know that? At one point he tried to put a cake in the cake refrigerator and skimmed a little off the top. And while trying to signal him to bring the check, he did jazz-hands back at us. Also, there was a horse steak on the menu, so hopefully I ordered the regular beef steak.
On Monday, I was back to work and Danielle continued on to the next part of her journey in the UK. I was supposed to meet up with her this weekend for the Lana del Rey concert, but unfortunately and disappointingly, it was canceled due to Lana (yeah, I know, we're on a first name basis) being sick. I'm still going to go to Glasgow, and actually leave tomorrow (Friday) morning.
It snowed all day today, so of course the kids made a snow man and had a snowball fight. Other than the weather being weird (it usually doesn't snow much), we're biding our time until we have coronavirus in Luxembourg. It's shut down several towns in Italy, and some companies in London are having their employees stay home for the next couple of weeks. We stocked up on food and should be fine for awhile should our village be shut down. I'm not too worried about it, though I might change my mind once it gets here.
Okay I think that's it? It was a long post because SOMEONE forget to do it like two weeks in a row, sooooo anyway. Whatever, I'm done now. Have a great weekend! I can't wait to share pictures of Glasgow next week!
In my last post, I mentioned auditioning for a play.......and I got a part! The play will be on May 9th if anyone wants to come.....just kidding, but it will be great. I'm really excited to start rehearsing.
I had last week off because of Carnival, which people dress up for here, like at Halloween. I kept forgetting what week it was, so when a random costumed person would walk down the street, I'd have to think for a second before realizing that it wasn't one of those scary street art sculpture things. Anyway, I had a great last couple of weeks! We had a packed weekend leading into the break. On Saturday, we had our neighbors over for dinner and to play Cards Against Humanity, and it was an absolute blast! We would have played all night if we could have. Dinner was all-American; we started with nachos, had bacon cheeseburgers and fries (ranch of course), and ended with chocolate lava cake 🤤 Man it was good. Then the next day, we had brunch at Maybe Not Bob's, where I overate, but then we went on a historical walk through the city. There are a couple of these historical walks in Luxembourg City, two of which I will show pictures of in this post. This was called the Vauban, which started at the base of the Mudam and went through part of the old fort.
The beginning of the following week, I went to the library and a couple walks through the fields outside of Bertrange. I took some amazing photos, and I plan to do that a lot more now that it has been warming up.
There is this really cool castle-looking building that I drive past every time I get on the bus, so I went and found the front of it. It turns out it now houses the offices of an architecture firm based on the sign on the front of it, though I have no idea what it used to be or how old it actually is.
On Thursday, my friend from Rocky, Danielle, came to visit me. I met her at the train station then because we were hungry and it was close, we went to Five Guys😋 On Friday, we went on a walking tour, this time called the Wenzel. It started from the city center, then we followed part of the old fortress walls down into the Grund, which I think should be the name of a rock band. Or like an orchestra. But nothing in between😂 I took a lot of pictures, so get ready lol. Part of the walls reminded me of the Bob the Builder movie where they renovate the castle and Bob's dad gets stuck in the maze and then also lost in the dungeon. Anyway. Also, we happened into a free museum, where they had a WWII exhibit and a Holocaust exhibit, so we went through both of those. In the WWII exhibit, they had a piece of interactive string art, we use take the color that corresponds to your age and you string it through hoops on a gradient of qualities that you want to leave the world. I couldn't reach the top, so for most of mine, I had to string through the second row. Now that I'm thinking of it too, I remember in my Luxembourg class that we watched a documentary on Luxembourg during WWII, and it focused on Grand Duchess Charlotte. It's called Grand Duchess Charlotte: A Royal At War and it's on youtube if you are interested in watching it.
Also we found a church that was built right into the rock. The creek that runs past has been said to have healing properties, so I stuck my hands in.
That night, we went to a bar called Brau Haus, where I had a berry flavored beer that was pretty good. After that, we went on to a place called Hitch that's a restaurant during the day and then removes its tables at night to become a dance floor. All the DJ played were fun German drinking songs set to techno music, and everyone but us were singing along, so we left pretty soon after that. It was fun to experience, though I felt a little left out because of the music. Though I would expect anyone from Europe would feel a little left out at Daisy Duke's so I'll put it down as part of the cultural experience:)
The next day, we explored the Valley of the Seven Castles, which was about as magical as it sounds! All seven castles follow the river Eisch. The first castle was in Koerich, and its pretty much in ruin. The Luxembourg state bought it and has shored up the walls and put a kind of walkway/stage inside, so I assume they must use it for events. We went in and I felt like a historian first finding this castle. It felt so cool:)
The next castle was in Septfontaines. The GPS tried to tell us a road to get up to the castle, but we ended up on the same dead-end road twice. Finally we parked and figured we would use the stairs. The stairs took us back to that same road, but I found a path overgrown with grass and tree branches that we hacked our way through. It was quite the hike, but we finally reached the top. The castle was huge, way bigger than the previous castle, and it looked like someone had recently started renovations on it. There was a new balcony and glass on one of the windows, but we unfortunately couldn't go in. I think it would have been really neat inside. We walked into the garden, and it looked like there was a path that went all the way around the castle, though it was pretty overgrown.
Next up was the castle with my favorite grounds, in Tuntange-Ansembourg. We drove through the gates to park at this castle, which to me looked more like palace or even two decorative mansions across from each other because It didn't look like it could defend against an attack. Anyway, the gardens were open so we meandered through them. It was huge! And amazing, like the garden of the Queen of Hearts. There was even a maze, though it was symmetrical and short, so not too challenging. Of course we took a ton of pictures and I got some good glamour shots of my self, thanks to Danielle.
The next castle was actually a privately owned hotel, and on the blog that gave us the location of each castle, it recommended that you don't even try to go because the gatekeeper sends people back down the road. So we skipped that and moved on to Tuntange-Hollenfels. I think that this was my favorite castle out of all of them. This too was privately owned, so we couldn't go inside, but there were plenty of hiking trails all around the base of the castle so we circled it to get some good pictures. The castle from the bottom of the valley was so enormously tall that it gave me vertigo looking up at it. We stopped to picnic at some handy tables in front of the castle, and then we were on our way to my least favorite castle.
The seventh (our sixth) and final castle of the day was in Mersch. There wasn't much left of the castle, unfortunately, but what was left was turned into a museum that opens in April. After looking at the castle, we crossed the road to a kind of public park. They had a tower there too (which I didn't take a picture of for whatever reason🙄) and a sculpture of a dragon that represents the seven castles. There was a sign describing all the features on it, which I did take a picture of in case you were curious and wanted to know all the things that were going on with the dragon.
After that, we went to The Chocolate House and had hot chocolate. While driving out of the town, we remembered we had seen a sign for a Roman villa, so we looked for that before we left. We found it, though it was actually the basin in front of what once was a villa that was left. It was pretty big, bigger than I thought a Roman villa would be, so I'm really glad we stopped.
We headed home from our big day of exploring, and it took us only 26 minutes to get there, though it had felt like we were hours away. Later that night we had a bouchée à la reine, shredded chicken and mushrooms in a pastry cup, at a local restaurant. I found a picture on the internet to better describe it. I've had it several times since I've been here, and I absolutely love it.
Because this day was the last of the carnival holiday, there OF COURSE was a clown parade, because why not?? We did our best to avoid them, but at times you could hear the music but couldn't tell from what direction it was coming from😰 After stopping in three restaurants and walking past two more, we finally found one where the kitchen was still open (it was only 3pm). The waiter was just as awkward as the two of us, and it was both a relief and a kind of sadness to leave him, though he probably had a better day after that😂 When I first went it, I (being very hungry and confused and more hungry) asked immediately in English if the kitchen was open. In my empty-headed state, I forget to ask if he spoke English and just reverted back to my native American that expects everyone to speak English no matter where I am in the world. I'm sure it was very abrupt, and he sounded amused with his "absolutely". Duh, why didn't I know that? At one point he tried to put a cake in the cake refrigerator and skimmed a little off the top. And while trying to signal him to bring the check, he did jazz-hands back at us. Also, there was a horse steak on the menu, so hopefully I ordered the regular beef steak.
On Monday, I was back to work and Danielle continued on to the next part of her journey in the UK. I was supposed to meet up with her this weekend for the Lana del Rey concert, but unfortunately and disappointingly, it was canceled due to Lana (yeah, I know, we're on a first name basis) being sick. I'm still going to go to Glasgow, and actually leave tomorrow (Friday) morning.
It snowed all day today, so of course the kids made a snow man and had a snowball fight. Other than the weather being weird (it usually doesn't snow much), we're biding our time until we have coronavirus in Luxembourg. It's shut down several towns in Italy, and some companies in London are having their employees stay home for the next couple of weeks. We stocked up on food and should be fine for awhile should our village be shut down. I'm not too worried about it, though I might change my mind once it gets here.
Okay I think that's it? It was a long post because SOMEONE forget to do it like two weeks in a row, sooooo anyway. Whatever, I'm done now. Have a great weekend! I can't wait to share pictures of Glasgow next week!
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