Luxembourg, Brussels, and Paris

Yesterday, I got back from our week-long field-study trip to Luxembourg, Brussels, and Paris. We left on Monday on a giant coach bus for Luxembourg. It was like a six hour bus ride, I think. Ha kind of like a PIF tour feel almost. But it only took so long because we stopped for a while at a US military cemetery in France called Saint-Avold. It is actually the largest US military cemetery in Europe, though perhaps not the most well known.

This is Saint-Avold.

We were only in Luxembourg for like four or five hours though, a few of which were spent at an academic meeting at the European Court of Justice. Then we had lunch in Luxembourg at a fast-food place similar to McDonald's. It was called Quick, a "quality burger restaurant." Don't judge though; we didn't have that much time, and everything else in the area was super expensive.

This is in front of a sweet garden in Luxembourg.

Then we had another three or four hours on the bus to Brussels. Some of us went out for a beer at this bar called Delirium. Belgian beer is very interesting. They have no such thing as purity laws like they do in Germany. So their beer has all kinds of weird flavors. I had one called "cactus." It was very sweet and not beer-like. I'm not a huge fan.

On Tuesday, I had four academic meetings. That was exhausting. We had two meetings at the European Commission, then one at the US Mission to the EU and one with the Flemish Representation to the EU. By the end of the last meeting, I was struggling to pay attention. Anyway, we walked around Brussels that night. They have a really awesome central square that is absolutely gorgeous at night. I had some fries at this awesome fry stand, and of course a Belgian waffle (deliciousness).

This is at the European Court of Justice.

This is in the central square in Brussels.

Wednesday was a lot more chill. I only had one meeting in the afternoon at the Council of the EU. I think we just kind of explored Brussels in the morning. My French is terrible. They speak Flemish in the north of Belgium, and French in the south. But even though Brussels is in the north, they speak mostly French. It's a very unique city in that respect, plus the fact that it contains the vast majority of EU institutions.

I seriously don't even remember where this is. But it looks sweet.

Eating a Belgian waffle. Yum.

On Thursday morning, a few of us went to Mini-Europe just outside the city. It basically is exactly as it sounds. It shows a bunch of buildings and statues and monuments and such from around Europe, but in miniature versions. It was kind of cool, I guess, but others liked it a lot more than I did. We had one more meeting in Brussels on Thursday afternoon at NATO Headquarters. It was a very interesting meeting actually. The speaker was very engaging and gave us a lot of good information about NATO. We left for Paris on Thursday evening and got there around 22.00 or so. We checked into the hotel and then most of us immediately flocked to the Eiffel Tower.

This is in front of Atomium, which is a monument constructed for the World's Fair in Brussels in 1958.

This is in Mini-Europe. Big Ben.

I think this is at the Council of the EU if I remember correctly.

No caption necessary.

On Friday, we had two academic meetings. One was at the EU Institute for Security Studies, and the second was at the French Foreign Ministry. I had lunch with one of the professors on the trip and about six or seven other students at this awesome French restaurant. The food was awesome. Although I learned that the French basically don't know how to food at all. Apparently "medium well" means "barely let the steak cook at all" in France. It was still good though. And it came with fries, and we got an awesome English chocolate cake for dessert.

We wandered around Paris on Friday night, and we ate at this little Greek cafe/restaurant thing. It was awesome. Then we went and bought a bottle of wine and just kind of walked around some more. We went to this bar that was extremely crowded and extremely expensive. It was the most I've ever paid for a beer. I don't really want to tell you how much that was.

Saturday was basically a free day for us. No academic meetings or anything. So we went on an optional trip to St. Denis, which was the first church done in the Gothic style. It is also the burial place of almost every French monarch from the 10th century to the 18th century. So that was pretty cool to see. After that, we went to the Louvre. But we only had a few hours there. We basically just saw all the big name stuff, although I was impressed at how much we saw in a few hours. Then we went out to lunch at this awesome French cafe. We had sandwiches on baguettes and omelets. The omelets were extremely runny, once again demonstrating that the French don't know how to cook food properly. But it was still good.

The Louvre.

Inside St. Denis.

This is me pulling a little Da Vinci Code and discovering where Mary Magdalene rests.

We then went to Musee d'Orsay, which was pretty sweet as well. I've heard that people generally like it better than the Louvre actually. The impressionists are very cool to see. So that was cool too. But we again only had like an hour and a half, so we kind of had to rush through it. After we were done with that, we all went back to the hotel for a nap. Which was amazing and entirely necessary. Then we went to dinner at this restaurant in the Bastille area. There were ten of us in our group, and we were literally the only people in the restaurant. So we were treated very well. I had this pasta dish with a white creamy-type sauce and some sort of cheese and spices and it was awesome. And of course we had wine to go with it. Twas very expensive, but that is the nature of Paris. This one guy at our table, John Dionne, ordered something that he thought was a steak, but it was basically just a mound of raw beef. But he powered through it like a real man. It was pretty hilarious.

Musee d'Orsay, which was a former train station.

After that we went out and bought some bottles of wine. We found this giant staircase in front of the Bastille, so we basically just chilled there and hung out and talked and enjoyed the night. It was awesome. We tried going to a few clubs, but the lines were long, and it just didn't work out. On Sunday morning, we basically barely had enough time to get to the top of the Eiffel Tower, and then we loaded back up on the bus and headed back to Freiburg. It was a long seven or eight hour bus ride. But it is good to be back.

Doesn't get much cooler than this.