#14: A Saturday Away - Trier, Germany

Hello again everyone! I’ve come to a bit of a sad realization lately…that soon I’ll have to go back home…so to make most of this time, one of my flat mates and I have made a bit more effort to explore Europe before we head back home to the U.S. (Although she’ll be coming back to study in Europe for one more semester…)

So our little trips started last weekend. While talking with some friends I realized how cheap it is to go to Trier, Germany from Luxembourg. I had recently been to Germany, where I stayed with one of my roommate's family, explored Koln, and visited Rita in Bonn. But my flat mate had never been to Germany and really wanted to go, and because Trier was so easy to get to we decided that’s where we would head off to first. So we got up early on Saturday and headed into Luxembourg City to buy some train tickets. And sure enough, it was pretty cheap! It was 7 Euro for round trip tickets and we didn’t even have a set time when we had to use the tickets. That meant we could come back whenever we felt fit (or at least in time to catch the train home to Esch). 

After buying the tickets we walked out to see when the next train was leaving to the last stop in Luxembourg. And sure enough, there was one leaving in 3 minutes! There is nothing like sprinting to the train when you’ve only been awake for about an hour. A short train ride later, we were at the last stop, Wasserbillig. From there we got on a bus that took us to the Trier bus station. After wandering over a few streets we found Porta Negra, which is so beautiful! After a round of pictures, we began scouting out the churches, my flat mate has a thing for churches and I had no problem indulging her!

We then spent the day wondering around all the big tourist attractions, and what was so cool is that they are all so close and within walking distance. Then as we were walking we saw a guy ahead of us who turned and waved. We’re in Germany though, so how could this be someone we knew? Sure enough, it was an Erasmus student who had come back for the day to submit his vote for the European elections. Go figure that we go to a different country and see someone we knew. This world is seriously smaller than I ever thought possible.

From there we decided it would be a nice time to get some food. Well, us and everyone else. As we wandered around the streets, every single restaurant with outdoor seating was full. And with it being such a beautiful day, we really wanted to sit outside. Unfortunately for us, no matter how hard we looked, we couldn’t find anything. We ended up going into a small café where I tried schnitzel for the first time. It was pretty good! I did accidently buy carbonated water instead of flat water though…Europeans really love carbonation; but shaking my water bottle for a few minutes made it a little easier on me.

After a few hours of shopping, and having spent a lot of money, we decided it was time to head back to good old Luxembourg. When we headed back to the bus station, we found it surrounded by about 30-40 police officers and a small group of protestors, maybe 6 or 7 people in total. They were holding up a banner and one was yelling something into a megaphone (sorry, it was in German so all I could do was watch for craziness). Then he finished yelling and began blasting the German national anthem, which just confused me more. When I looked around behind them, I found a store that was called “U.S. Army Store” so I can only assume it had something to do with that.

The next problem we faced was figuring out which bus to take us home…because neither my flat mate nor I had really paid attention to the number of the bus we took here. We tried reading the bus schedules, but we still got nothing out of it. Eventually we went up the one of the bus station workers and showed him our ticket. But he took a brief look, gave us an annoyed look, and just kind of pointed us in a vague direction. Thank you. Eventually though we found a bus driver who responded with “Moein” so we knew he had the right guy. Shortly thereafter, we were headed back to Luxembourg. It was such a nice day, but it was at that point that I remembered I have red hair and I didn’t put on any sunscreen. That’s a rookie ginger mistake. That’s right everyone, I got my first sunburn of the year! Thanks for the great day Trier!

#13: Familiar faces in Not-So-Strange Places

So as you might have been able to tell from the tone of these blogs, I've just about got a hold on how Luxemburg works. I'm not aware of everything, but I know how to get around and haven't gotten lost in a long, long time. I'm having so much more fun now that the worry has worn off. Well this week I had a bit of a treat as Lakeland College's basketball team came to Luxembourg and played a few games.

Now before they arrived, I'd been given news that they would be here. I was sent a very vague itinerary that gave me the basic ideas of where they would be traveling during the week.  So I worked it out to where I would be able to make it to two of their games and attend a little going away dinner on Friday night.

So Monday afternoon I had just gotten off work at my internship and was waiting in Limpertsberg campus for my one class of the day to start. I was playing around on my iPod when suddenly a large group of people begins to fill the hallway. Not just that, but there was a stream of Wisconsin shirts flowing past me! So I began searching the crowd for someone I recognized and happened to catch the president of my college, Dan (he saw a girl waving, said a short hello that you would to a stranger, then realized who I was!). So we stopped and talked for a few minutes so they could get a very general idea of how my stay had been going so far. And who happens to be trailing behind the group but my intern boss back home, Kevin. He also didn't expect me and greeted me with a warm hug, and also temptation to skip my class...but I didn't...my studies are just too important for these shenanigans!

I ended up going to the game with one of my flatmates and a friend from class. The game was nice, but it wasn't a win. It was a bit strange to be cheering on my home team across the world, though. But, this scene was missing two characters. Firstly, where was my other intern boss, Sara? And where was Pol? Both were successfully avoiding me! So rude.. :P and of course they went to the Tuesday game that I couldn't make...

When Wednesday rolled around, I managed to get one of my roommates excited about going to the game, so he came with me this time. Boy, was he excited. He became Lakeland's head cheerleader, and all the Lakeland parents were truly feeding off of his energy. Everyone was having a great time laughing, and I'll credit part of our win that night to him. In fact, his spirit got him invited to dinner on Friday. So lesson of the night, cheer your heart out and good things will come your way.

Well when Wednesday's game came, Sara was still missing...She was apparently too tired to come see me. (I shall have to remember this when I go back to work for her!). But I did finally meet Pol! I have to give him a little shout out because he's been great and has helped me out so much since I've been here in Luxembourg, from answering my questions to interpreting the bus schedule for me!And this was the first time I actually met him, and good news is that we're equally sarcastic, pending BFF status lol =]

Friday's dinner came and my roommate and I strutted into the hotel where the Lakeland tour was staying, holding a small pound cake decorated Lakeland-style to show appreciation. This is finally where Sara appeared. That little social butterfly just had no time, I'm sure I'll forgive her eventually! Dinner was lovely and it was great to sit around and talk with everyone. Also, everyone was really excited to see my roommate. "Oh! You brought your friend!!" and they all laughed about the basketball game and had a great time. It was so nice seeing people from back home and catching up, it reminds me that my time here is so limited and I really need to get to most of it. It also made me a tad homesick, I can't wait to see everyone back home...but couldn't they just come here??