Luxembourg

Our next weekend travel was to Interlaken, Switzerland. So far this has been one of my favorite places just because it was a lot different than anything we've done so far. I hadn't originally planned on going to Switzerland at all, but it wasn't too far away (only 6 hrs by train), so it seemed like a pretty good option.

This time Jonah, Missy, Casey and I went and we stayed in this great hostel; it was almost like a hotel. The lady that worked the desk was great and arranged everything for us and told us all the best places to go hiking and eat.

We didn't go until Friday morning because we didn't think we'd want to be there that long. So we got there Friday afternoon and checked in and went for our first hike up a mountain. It took us a little over an hour and a half to hike up it, and it was pretty steep; we decided that the smallest incline we had hiked up was about 45 degrees. We definitely got a good workout in, but once we got to the top, the view was so worth it.

On Saturday I went canyoning. It was absolutely amazing and nothing I will ever get to do again. I'm pretty sure it was the biggest adrenaline rush that I've ever had. Basically canyoning involves driving up to the top of a mountain and hiking a little bit until you get to the area where there's a lot of water, cliffs and rocks. We got to jump off cliffs into the water, repel through waterfalls and down big rocks, we slid down "water slides", jumped into walls and slid down, etc. It was pretty much crazy, but one of the best things that I have ever done in my whole life and completely worth every moment of it. Once we got back we were kind of tired so we just walked around a bit and grabbed some dinner and met up with a few of our other friends who happened to be in Interlaken with us.

As usual, on Sunday we left in the afternoon to head back to Luxembourg.

We have classes Monday to Thursday, so our first weekend trip was to Paris. We figured it was a good start since it's only 2 hours away by eurorail. It was really nice to get out finally and travel. I went with Jonah, Max, Andrew, Missy and Casey. We stayed in our first hostel, which wasn't great, but it could've been a lot worse. We weren't directly in the city, but a little bit out, so we had a 20 minute metro ride everyday in, but it wasn't too bad. We arrived Thursday night and went to the Champs-Elysees and saw the Arc de Triomphe, and got dinner in that area and just kind of wandered around the city a bit.

Friday was very busy. We started off by going to the Louvre, then made our way over to the Notre Dame and later the that night, the Eiffel tower. We wandered around the city a lot too which was kind of nice to get to see everything. We got dinner that night around the Eiffel Tower, so by time we were done eating it was dark out and we were able to watch it light up and just hang around there for awhile.

Saturday we went to Versailles and saw the castle and wandered through the gardens. Luckily we got there early enough that it wasn't raining yet, but by time we made it back into the city it was raining some. Overall we got pretty lucky and we just wound up doing some souvenir shopping and sat at a cafe awhile that day to let the rain pass by.

Sunday we went to the Sacre Couer, which I hadn't been to yet, so I was pretty excited. It was on top of this huge hill that we had to walk up, but it was worth it overall. A little later that afternoon, we left to head back to Luxembourg.

So clearly I've been here quite a few weeks already, but I wanted to do this awhile ago and I'm finally getting around to it. I got to Lux on May 15th and we had an orientation weekend where we went around Differdange (the city in Luxembourg where I'm staying) and Luxembourg city. That weekend we went and saw the American and German burial sights of the Battle of the Bulge. We also went on a walking tour around Luxembourg city so we could start to orient ourselves if we ever make it around that area (about a 45 minute train ride to the city from where I'm staying). We also went on a wine tasting tour and we had a group BBQ at a restaurant.

During this trip we stay with host families. Mine speaks almost no English so I'm definitely having to put my French skills to use, which are not near as good as I wish they would be. My family has 3 girls, 13, 8, and 9, so it's always pretty crazy around here. The houses are really interesting because they're all connected together and have about 4 floors to them and are very square. I'm not usually around the house much because our chateau (where we take classes) is open till about 10 and I like to stay there and hang out w/ people and grab dinner since I'm living by myself. It has been really different living with another family, especially with one that I can barely speak to, but it's definitely a good experience.