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janvier 31, 2005
21 janvier :: First long night...
Our night started out at Brassieur, watching two drunk guys dance/strip on top of a table... soooo, i guess that's a good start (?)
We didn't stay there for long and moved on to a "club" called Jimmy's. Jimmy's might be the worst place that I have ever been since you can stand right next to the speaker and not have to yell. I tried to convince myself that they blew their base the night before.. no dice..
Here's Crystal with her crazy, robot dancing boyfriend....
Once I put up my video's you will see how ridiculous he was.. for now, the picture will have to suffice.
Renatta had the best find of the night.. a 40 year old man in tighter pants than mine (let's not mention they're white). Look at that ass..
We left Jimmy's for Le Trou, which shinned like a beacon of freedom..
This is beginning to be one of my favorite bars..
.. for their complete selection of beers...
.. and dart board....
.. and, not to be taken for granted, the 7 piles of throw up always found outside.
Posted by katie at 02:08 AM | Comments (2)
17 janvier :: Boat ride around Strassy
What a way to start off a day.. boy my mom is getting jealous..
The school arranged for us to take a boat ride around the city..
A little Strassy love.. to give you an idea
(sorry about the glare..)
love...
We love boat rides....
(Renatta, me, Steph)
My favorite Strassy picture yet.
The Council of Europe.. not to be confused with the EU.
Some more boat love...
And a little night time action...
Posted by katie at 01:43 AM | Comments (1)
16 janvier :: Bridge to Germany
Spent the day with Monique and her sister and walked the bridge to Germany...
Another view of the bridge. It's only a few months old now... I guess we have the EU to thank for this one...
The bridge crosses the Rhine, the river that seperates France from Germany. Too bad it was foggy out...
.. and after that we watched Monique's niece ride her little french horse. Yah!
Posted by katie at 01:37 AM | Comments (0)
15 janvier :: French Monopoly
Visited Moniques family today and playing one hell of a monopoly game with them.
To bad I couldn't understand how many euro's I owed them when I landed on their "boardwalk" - Place de la Cathédrale..
Posted by katie at 01:33 AM | Comments (3)
14 janvier :: First french breakfast
There's nothing like a good box of Special K with chocolate chunks as a part of your complete breakfast..
Posted by katie at 01:24 AM | Comments (0)
janvier 27, 2005
11 - 13 janvier :: Bonn, Germany
Arriving in Bonn around 6 p.m., our bus driver offered to bring us to a german style restaurant. Big portions, good food? I can't resist.
We had a pretty big table. About 20 of us joined Danielle, our driver, for one fantastic dinner.
Having known that the restaurant was going to give us our beers for free, we would have had more.
Anna, Jenia and I split two amazing, german sounding, dinners. Our portions were probably big enough to feed a small country, such as Croatia.
One more picture of (1/2) the group before heading back to the hotel.
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12 janvier
The next day I headed to an internet café with Vanessa, to check my E-mail, before our last quiz. 1 euro for 30 minutes... not to bad, especially when the homepage is a picture of a cat wearing a lime helmet.
Here is Anna, Jenia, Vanessa and I, drinking our Mimosa's, celebrating our last quiz. Now all we have is a 7 - 10 page paper on God knows what.
Our last group dinner was at a Turkish restaurant. Our appetizer consisted of this, unexpectedly, delicious stuff. I couldn't even tell you what it was...
While these suckers, Jon and Matt, sat at a table for four, with two of our three professors...
Jenia and I drank [too many of] these enormous beers, which somehow lead me into a drinking competition with a sophomore on our trip. Did he think he could beat a former sorority president? Please!
Leaving the restaurant, a bit tipsy, and heading to the bars.. Vanessa spotted these fabulously dressed men in a nearby McDonalds. She's spoke her little german tongue and convinced them to take a picture with us. This lead me to yelling, "one if by land, two if by sea" for the next 10 minutes.
And during this time, we ran into our professor (far left), who was aimlessly wandering around the streets. He was easily convinced to join us for some car bombs at a local bar ...
.. which obviously supported [Native Americans for] Kerry/Edwards.
Seeing a cute german in the corner of the bar, I thought i'd use my good ol' english on him. Best decisions ever..
(ps: i am wearing clothes)
.. because he brought us to one crazy hip hop dance party.
We american's love love love dancing on stage.
Brian, Vanessa, and Louisa.
Wanting to meet even more locals, I attemtped to talk to some nearby guys. Not only do they not speak English, but they don't speak German (not like that would help my situation). They do, however, speak Spanish, so I pulled over little Anna, who just spent a semester in Spain. Then... I ran away.
Aww, someone is all up in Vanessa.. holla.
Showing a little love in the hiz-ouse.
and btw.. who is this guy?
(Louisa, Vanessa, and Anna)
And good ol' Brian, on the stage until the early morning, when we pulled him off.
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13 janvier
Anna's last stuggle with zipping up the suitcase before we left for Strasbourg.
.. and Jon, at a rest stop, looking his finest, nonetheless, completes my review of the traveling seminar.
Posted by katie at 10:57 PM | Comments (4)
11 janvier :: A quick stop in Cologne, Germany
Before heading to Bonn, Germany, we made a quick stop in Cologne to have a lecture. We had an hour before the lecture so we took a quick trip to the cathedral in the center of the city..
The inside of the catherdral was beautiful. This picture is a bit dark, but you get the idea.
Stained glass windows, if you couldn't tell....
You were also able to climb to the top of the cathedral.. so the cocky veterans Jenia and I are, talked Vanessa and Anna into taking the trip up. Little did we know it was close to 900 steps.
Here we are at the start (me, Vanessa, Anna and Jenia).
Margo, Louisa, and Anna, looking out from the top...
.. onto the Rhine river and the rest of Cologne.
From the top.
It sure beats the view from the cathedral in Brugge.
At the top.. me, Anna, Jenia and Vanessa.
Jenia was the only one to find the sandwich stop during the hike up..
(no, auntie jean, there's no sandwich stop on the way up :)
The top of the cathedral was completely covered with grafitti.. to give you an idea.
And the walk down.. because I like to take pictures of the stairs.
Off to Bonn..
Posted by katie at 10:17 PM | Comments (1)
9 - 10 janvier :: Amsterdam, Netherlands
Finding myself in the middle of Amsterdam, I left with only 9 pictures to tell my story. At this point of my trip, I think the awe of canals and buildings was coming to a close. Oh well.. anyway, here's my first taste of Amsterdam.. nothing better than seeing your first mushroom growing kit. Who want's to be in the yankee swap at Christmas next year?
9 Janvier
After checking into the hotel, we visited the Amsterdam Historical Museum. There is only so much you can see concerning old bowls and apparel, so when I stumbled upon a game, nonetheless, in german (i think), i was determined to beat all the other scores. I proudly put the highscore in under "USA".
Our next stop was the Anne Frank House, which I was looking forward to this entire trip. It was relly interesting, seeing the Secret Annex and all. Here's the bookcase that hid Anne Franks hiding place. See, that's her going into it right now..
Jenia had a sheet of all these places in Amsterdam that we had to go to.. one of them being this restaurant we walked all over the city looking for.
Anna, Karin, and Jenia
This is still the coolest thing to see.. euro's coming out of an ATM.
Fast forward a little bit.. our bus driver for the seminar offered to take a few of us for a tour of the red light district.. after the tour and visiting a few cafés we found a bar with fooseball tables.
Here's Jon and Mark...
.. vs. Jenny and Jacquenette
(Yes, I attempted to play, but my few days of practice at the Green Monster was not enough, I didn't stand a chance).
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10 Janvier
The next day we headed to the Van Gogh Museum. This was pretty cool seeing that I never really go to art museums, especially one like this..
Sitting outseide, Jenia and Anna.
Again, fast forward to the night to find the best part of my 2 day stay in Amsterdam..
while Jenia and I were out, we walked past a café, decided to go in.. and who do we find....
.. but good ol' Lauren Karis. Who would have guessed that her Madrid seminar would be staying in Amersterdam (and at the same hotel) at the same time we were.
A pretty good ending of my pictures/start to the night, if you ask me.
Posted by katie at 09:42 PM | Comments (1)
8 janvier :: Antwerp, Belgium
I cannot think of a more pointless city we could have stopped in (they didn't even have good waffles). We were in Anterwerp for not even a day and only to take a quiz.. so what did we do? Sat our asses in a café for 3 hours and "studied". (btw, looking at these pictures could be the biggest waste of your time today)
Things I like to refer to as art...
btw, this is Ted
hmm..
alright, enough.
and on top of this worthless city, the hotel we stayed at gave us towels that barely covered our bodies..
and yes, those are all the pictures that I took in Antwerp..
ps: you're not missing anything.
Posted by katie at 09:19 PM | Comments (1)
7 janvier :: Brugge, Belgium
With difficulty recouping from the previous nights episode, ending with the wild night Anna and I had in our honeymoon suite, we woke up bright and early to tour Brugge with an old man whose spit got you more soaked than if you were standing next to Niagra Falls...
The bell tower in the middle of town. 600 some odd stairs to the top... which we later climbed.
Some important building in the center of town, that probably has some important person living in there.
ps: at this point during our tour, our guide tried to convince us that under this building there's a river that they built over. Who's going to believe that crap, old man?
We visited this old church that was over 900 years old.. which I'll admit, was pretty intersting. This is a sculpture made from a townsman some 900 years ago and is suppost to be an image of Jesus' baptism. Boy am I happy I don't have an arm the size of that guys.
And now begins the series of canals...
... canal...
.. Jenia and I by a canal...
The Lake of Love... not to be confused with the previous canals.
David's scuplture of Mary (?). I guess it was stolen by some country during WWI (?) and brought back to Brugge by Americans (?)
(Example 1 of why you don't update your website 3 weeks later...)
Well... after the exciting (cough) tour of Brugge, we headed to the tower to conqure the 600+ stairs. Here's an idea of what it was like the entire way up...
It was worth the view..
Another view
From the top.
Mark, Crystal, Jenny, Jenia (hiding), Brian, Christine, and Jon.
Glancing in a bakery window while walking back to the hotel, something caught my eye.. who would have thought, flying saucers (lower right hand corner) in Belgium? Mom's favorite...
Before heading out for the night, Jenia, Anna and I stopped at the hotel bar for a drink. Not speaking any french.. I ordered "une petite bière" ... and this is what I got. The bigger glass gives you a good idea of the size...
So what am I to do with this petite bière?
Give it to Anna, of course!
We met up with Ramses (from the night before) only to find ourselves at a slamin' hip hop dance party in the middle of Brugge and with the need to show up the bad european dancers... so what did the little Americans do?
.... dance on tables, to say the least... USA! USA!
Posted by katie at 07:59 PM | Comments (1)
janvier 18, 2005
6 janvier :: Ieper, Belgium & a night in Brugge
Leaving Paris for the small town of Ieper was a sad, sad story... but we were only there for a few, yet very boring, hours...
Ieper is a small town surrounded by tons of WWI history. This monument was constructed in the memory of British men who fought to keep Ieper from being invaded by Germany.
Inside the monument ... names of soldiers that fought in Ieper.
To give you an idea of the number of names etched into this monument.
After checking that out we needed some lunch. Here is Vanessa, Jenia and Anna sipping on some fine Belgian beer after tasting a fabulous Belgian waffle.
The Ieper cathedral right outside of the WW1 Museum we visited.
We took a bus tour around Flanders (the area Ieper is located) and visited the grave sights of men who fought here. This is the German cemetary.
Statues of college student found at the back of the cemtary. This symbolizes the mourning of the young soldiers.
We then headed to the British cemetary, a huge difference from the German cemetary. This place was gigantic compared to the pervious cemetary.
The pictures do not even give a good idea of the size.
After the tour of the gravesites we headed to Brugge where we had a fantastic group dinner at this amazing hotel. Anna was my roommate and we were thrown in the honeymoon suite ... sorry no pictures.
After dinner we headed out to see what this little town could do for us. During our loud complaining session that Brugge was a stooopid town with no night life, a Belgium boy decided to help out the annoying americans and brought us to a little bar. Here's Anna dancing with Ramses.
Meet my first european boyfriend, Steve. Steve claimed he was a cop.. but I just though it was a pick up line..
.. Obviously I was wrong when I received an e-mail from Steve-o with this picture attached.
And to prove to you all that all european guys are not good looking..
(yes, i took a shower when I got home)
And an end to the night with a photo in the center of town... Anna, Jenia, Vanessa and me.
(with Anna's signature head tilt)
Posted by katie at 02:48 PM | Comments (3)
janvier 15, 2005
3-5 Janvier :: Paris
Well.. I have finally made it to France.. but it was a rough start. Exhibit A: Mary Frances moving clothes, among other things, into my other suitcase because someone over packed....
Exhibit B: In attempts to dispose of my gum out of car window on the way to the airport, it miraculously reentered the car and landed on the back on my new white jacket. Good thing the more you rub gum in attempt to remove it the worse it gets.
After waiting 3 hours to board the plane, and another hour to be served, I finally got my first taste of french airplane food, not to be confused with the crap that Delta makes you pay for. My shrimp, chicken, salad, cake, coffee and bottle of wine, was all oh so free.... and oh so tasty.
After waiting four hours for the group flight from New York City to arrive we were finally making our way around Paris. Here is Vanessa, Jenia, Ted and I on a tour of the Seine River.
Just a random shot from the boat.
A fabulous shot of the Eiffel Tower... if I do say so myself.
We were lucky enough to get the boat tour right as it was getting dark. Here is a shot of Notre Dame from the front.
Notre Dame from the back.
Driving back from the boat tour.. a shot of Le Champs d'Elysee.
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le 4 janviér
We began the next day with our first visit to Les Invalides, which houses Napoleans tomb.
Jenia and Anna outside Les Invalides
When you first enter Les Invalides you see this amazing scene. Les Invalides used to be a church and this is where the King of France would enter from. In front of this alter is a large hole in the ground where Napolean's tomb can be viewed through.
This is a picture of Napolean's tomb from below the floor in which you walk in. His tomb is made out of stone and is absolutely georgeous. Surrounding his tomb are carvings of the great things he did for France.
This is Le Pantheon, our second stop on the 4th. Inside Le Pantheon are tombs of great men and women of French history.
A pictures from inside Le Pantheon.
We had to grab lunch on our own... a shot of Jenia, Me, Vanessa and Anna outside Notre Dame where we sat and ate our baguettes.
At night a bunch of us went to a random café for some beers, etc. Jenia and I with out desparados...
Which lead me to my first problem, the bathroom. All I could think of was mom telling me about her visit to China where you had to go the bathroom in holes in the ground...
.. which actually isn't the case in France. It seems that I just entered the Men's bathroom by mistake. Stoopid french language.
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le 5 janviér
The next day we headed to Le Louvre... the Pyramid outside, which was a huge controversy when it was built, is accepted my the French people. It symbolizes a city within a city.
This monument is infront of Le Louvre. I couldn't tell you what it was but it looks pretty damn cool.
Another picture of Le Louvre.
A shot of the park infront of Le Louvre. You can barely make out L'Arc de Triomphe through all the fog.
The monument that stands at the beginning of the park. Napolean stole it from Egypt. If you look closely you can see the hieroglyphics.
ps: who steals a giant cement monument from Eqypt?
And last but not least... a picture of the horrible room at the hostel we stayed at. The shower turned off every 20 seconds.... stoopid way to help the environment, don't you agree?
Next... Belgium.
Posted by katie at 09:19 PM | Comments (6)
janvier 02, 2005
back to vermont .. 12/28 - 1/1
Spending my last days in Vermont could possibly have been "a blessing in disguise"...
First run of the day and low and behold... a moose is standing in the middle of a trail. Good thing Mt. Snow had a ski patrol man making sure the moose didn't charge the mountain... because i'm sure he would have been able to stop it.
Sara, Dennis and I spent most of the day hitting this rock... one of my death jumps seeing that I face plant 50% of the time.
A little 4 p.m. apres ski. Dennis & I love the tallboys.
ps: it took Dennis about 3 shots to look good
On 12/31, Scott, Chris and G.Bell joined us in Vermont for a fabulous day of skiing... until my 2 p.m. attempt at a helicopter landed me on No Tooth McGee's snowmobile because I snapped my binding. Blessing in disguise? Next year new ski's, bindings, and boots..... RODEO!
No Tooth McGee dropped me off at repair's, which didn't help much because my binding couldn't be fixed. This lead to the most expensive 1 hour and 15 minutes of my life. $24 for rental ski's to get me through the rest of the day. Damn you Mt. Snow.
After this fiasco I needed a little apres ski tallboy @ Cuzzins'. I'm only 20 you say.. we'll we like to call Cuzzins' the all age's bar.
Greg, Sara, Me, Scott
For those of you who don't ski... this is what all the cool kids are wearing, fyi.
Hours and hours later, now jan. 1st and returning from the Snow Barn, Katy makes the best move ever by grabbing her 1/2 eaten sub from earlier in the night. We are all oh so hungry but only Sara offers up her first born for a bite.
For those of you who heard of my ice cream eating field day this past summer when I ate 2 half gallons ... here I am going at it again.. but of course, trying to suck Sara into it this time.
The last shot on my camera.. Katy, Eric, and I... bonding in 2k5, but not for long... France on jan 2nd. Can we say, "euro's, euro's" ?!?
Posted by katie at 03:15 AM | Comments (0)