Amazing Amsterdam!

We went to Amsterdam in the Netherlands for our Winter Break and it was fantastic! We planned our days full of museums, lots of walking through beautiful parks and canals, good food, and laughter. The people were so warm and friendly in all the museums, shops, and restaurants :) I loved all the colorful boats and buildings everywhere!

There are so many canals filled with birds and boats every time you walk another block. I never got over the beauty.
People in Amsterdam ride bicycles everywhere, so that was fun to see. I'd love to come back someday and bike through in the summer when it's a little warmer :)

We went to the Anne Frank House, where we were able to walk through all the rooms where the eight people actually lived in hiding from 1942-1944. It is more than just a house, but a real museum that gives lots of details about the historical situation at the time, real objects from the house (including Anne's actual diary), and quotes from the diary printed on the walls in each room. It was extremely interesting and also quite emotionally intense to be actually walking up the tiny staircases and looking at the rooms in which these people lived two whole years of their lives.

We spent Monday morning in the Van Gogh Museum, viewing the largest collection of his paintings in the world, alongside the historical information about his life. There were also paintings by Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec, Millet, Corbet, Signac, and many more of his inspirations/contemporaries/followers. I never realized that he started out as a lay preacher and began self-taught painting at age 27. He painted everything we've seen in the 10 years before his tragic death in 1890. It was really interesting to see the paintings together and see his transitions in life and art.


After a lovely lunch of Dutch pancakes in a cafe in the park, we took some fun photos:
Then we went to the Rijksmuseum of the Dutch Golden Age (17th Century), filled with Rembrandt paintings and other famous Dutch artists, intermingled with fancy swords, doll houses, ship replicas, Royal Delft porcelain, and other "Masterpieces" on display. I even surprised myself how fascinated I was by everything. It was one of the most organized and well displayed museums I've ever seen. Memories from high school AP World History definitely came back to me and made a little more sense as I walked from room to room.

Here's a sundial in the gardens of the Rijksmuseum that was totally correct!

Tuesday morning, we went to De Niewe Kerk (New Church- but it's not really so "new", considering it was built in the 14th century) in Dam Square, where we saw the amazing exhibit of archaeological finds and history of Afghanistan. The documentary (in French :) ) explained how the Taliban had destroyed many of the things in the national museum in 2001. Now they are having the restored pieces tour "countries with peace" so that we all may see the beauty of the sculptures, jewelry, and other ancient pieces. The jewelry was sooo amazing- mostly gorgeous gold with turquoise!

After lunch at a fabulous pancake house, we walked across town to the Oude Kerk (Old Church). Built in 1250, is the oldest monument in Amsterdam. It has gorgeous stained glass, high ceilings, and huge pipe organ. For some reason, they show modern art exhibits inside now, which was kind of weird. Some of it was interesting, but mostly kinda creepy.
Wednesday morning, we went to the Stedelijk Museum of Modern Art, which was amazing and beautiful modern art. There were some great longitudinal photographic studies of soldiers, families, and teenagers. There were some beautiful paintings of women and families that were so delicate and warm, they reminded me of Renoir.

We had lunch at a traditional Dutch restaurant, went shopping at a giant Royal Delft store, walked through chess-piece park and Vondel Park. The train ride from Amsterdam to Rotterdam the next morning was again very beautiful. I absolutely loved this trip and would love to go back someday.

To view the rest of my photos, click below:

Amsterdam

Ma Chambre

This post may be slightly boring, but here are some pictures from my daily life here in Grenoble.  I really like my host family and their house.  They have had many other foreign students over the years, so the "student" room I live in seems to have accumulated lots of random books, maps, and other oddities over the past decade.  

Here's the desk from where I sit typing at this very moment:

My dresser - *Note the random antique phone on top haha :)  

My bed - *Note the beautiful flower puzzle wall decoration that is my permanent Skype background (you know you love it, Mom!)

I had fun buying pretty post cards at a little art and paper shop this week.  I've been busy writing those out this week and I even survived my first experience with La Poste to buy stamps. 

The bathroom I am constantly getting soaking wet because there is no shower curtain 

The grand finale ... 

                 my favorite part of my room ... 

                                     I don't know if you're ready for this ... 

                                                       ready? ... 

the Pocahontas Paper Lantern that surrounds the ceiling lamp!  

It makes me happy :)  Have a great weekend everyone!  

Sunday Afternoon at the Château de Vizille

Sunday morning I had a leisurely breakfast with my host family and then headed off to the Château de Vizille about 30 minutes outside of Grenoble. Miranda gave us a bit of a tour but mostly let us explore the museum, the castle itself, and the beautiful grounds on our own.


The chateau was built between 1600 and 1619 by François de Bonne, Duc de Lesdiguières. This is apparently very quick for a whole castle to be built and so there is some type of legend about the Duke selling his soul to the devil to get it done in time. This wooden sculpture depicts some type of horse race with the devil.


On July 21, 1788, the Assembly from the Dauphiné region (around Grenoble) met in the castle's royal tennis court haha. In defiance of royal authority, they demanded a meeting of the States General, another key event in the build-up to the French Revolution.



It was and official residence for the President of France from 1924-1972.


So now they've turned a large part of the chateau into the Museum of the French Revolution. There are dozens and dozens of paintings depicting various political scenes, family portraits of royal and revolutionary individuals, and of course ornate furniture and decorations from the period. None of the paintings are incredibly famous or anything, so it was actually really interesting to see many of the same scenes from famous paintings by a different angle, with a slightly different perspective.


[This is me being a "Good Anderson Birder" and taking pictures of the ducks because maybe they're special European ducks] :)

After going through the museum, we walked around the gardens for a few hours. It was really beautiful and peaceful.


They have deer, goats, sheep, swans, peackocks, geese, and other animals.



[For those of you Fox Valley readers out there] Parts of it kind of reminded me of 1000 Islands in the springtime!


To view the rest of my photos, click below:

Chateau de Vizille

Happiness in Signs of Spring

Some of the first buds of Spring are here!  

This is what I see every day on my way home: 

I love walking past all the flower shops.  They smell so wonderful and never get old to me! 

The weather's getting nicer and I'm hoping to get one of these sometime soon :)  

My friends and I had quite the adventure finding a movie theatre the other day.  We finally did get there just in time to see Juno.  It was definitely interesting seeing an American movie in a French theatre.  People don't really heartily laugh out loud much here, so we had to restrain ourselves a little haha.  I laughed.  I cried.  Overall a good film.  

When I came back to my host family's house, there was a dinner party with two taxi driver family friends.  That was lots of fun.  One of the guys was named Michel, so he kept joking to me about having the same name.  I was able to hold my own in conversation and they even complimented me on my French (probably just being nice, but oh well!)  

Last night we went to see La Traviata, put on by one of the university choirs.  The music was absolutely fabulous!

Onward and Upward!

Yesterday was a gorgeous day with a beautiful clear blue sky. Christine, Elizabeth, and I met at one of the markets in town to enjoy the day. The French love to use the phrase, "profiter du soleil" (to take advantage of, to benefit from the sun,) so we thought we'd be French and do just that! We perused aisles upon aisles of fragrant pears, clementines, raspberries, cheeses, beans, apples, mushrooms, flowers, and butchers’ stands with lovely looking fresh cuts of meat.

Delicious clementines with their stems still attached!

With our market-fresh lunches packed, we headed across the bridge to begin our first climb up to the Bastille. Here's the link to a website with some great pictures of the Bastille. (You can click the English version in the upper right hand corner.)

It was quite the hike! There is a rather steep incline and it took us about an hour to get to the top. We ate our lunches as we looked down at the city, trying to point out our neighborhoods, the university, and buildings we know downtown.

The view of the city was incredible and it was nice to get some exercise and breathe in some fresh mountain air.

Happy Hikers at the top of the Bastille!

Folk Dancing and Peanut Butter

Friday night, we went to this crazy French folk dance thing at the student center Eve.  The band played French/Irish sounding beautiful and fun music and there were tons of people doing all these traditional dances.  Lots of girls were wearing beautiful long skirts that twirled around to the violin/flute/guitar/harmonica/accordion music. Pretty much every single song had a different specific dance, so we were a little lost most of the time, but still had a blast. 

The four of us girls were definitely the only foreigners there, but luckily we weren’t the only ones who didn’t know the dances.  There were lots of nice people who showed us a few of the moves for the swinging partner dances and it was easy to catch on the big circle dances.  It felt really good to do something without a zillion other Americans and really observe a part of traditional French culture.  Everyone was extremely kind and full of energy. 

  

Saturday, we ventured out to the shopping mall for the end of “les soldes” (sales).  The French government only allows stores to hold sales twice a year, in July and January.  So we had to take advantage of that now, because everything will be full price for the rest of our stay here in Grenoble!  We found lots of good deals and then had our first experience in Carrefour, the big grocery store chain.  That was insanely busy and we had a hard time finding what we needed.  We basically bought our tiny jars of Skippy peanut butter from the “foreign foods” aisle and got through the lines as quick as possible.

That evening, my 16 year old host brother Thomas had a dinner party of raclettes (basically a fondue party).  People could melt several different kinds of cheese in the raclette to drip it over potatoes, mushrooms, chicken, beef, peppers, and tomatoes.  The food was great and it was really funny meeting all his friends and answering their questions about America.  Oh and I ate some kind of chip thing that had the consistency of a cheeto, but tasted like peanut butter.  That was rather interesting.  We all shared a moment of making fun of the American who cannot pronounce the word cacahuète (peanut) haha.  

A Historical Tour

Friday afternoon, we met up with our director Miranda at Place Victor Hugo in downtown Grenoble.  This is a very historical part of town with rather upscale apartment buildings and shopping centers that resemble the architecture in Paris.  We walked past the childhood home of 19^th century French writer Stendhal.  (The school I attend here is named after him: Université de Grenoble Stendhal 3.)   This photo is of the intricate terrace outside of the home.  

We learned that there is actually a Notre Dame Cathedral here in Grenoble!  It’s basically just a regular old church, nothing like its big sister in Paris, but it’s still kind of neat to say, “Meet me at Notre Dame.”  Near Notre Dame, we viewed the Fontaine des Trois Ordres, which is a huge fountain/statue representing Grenoble’s significance as the starting point of the French Revolution.  The top has three men depicting the clergy, nobility, and the Third Estate (i.e. everybody else).   In the late 18^th century, the French aristocracy and Church were extremely powerful.  Despite their knowledge of a poor harvest and starving citizens, they continued to use the fiscal gains from high taxes for their own purposes and actually proposed increasing taxes.  On June 7, 1788, King Louis XVI sent soldiers to Grenoble to control the masses that were beginning to rebel.  That day is now known as the “Day of Tiles” because Grenoble citizens apparently climbed the rooftops and began launching roof tiles down at the soldiers.  The fountain describes this story, with the words Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, and Justice boldly displayed.

We also saw the Fontaine des Dauphins, which has scary looking fanged fish-monster things that are apparently dolphins haha!  Grenoble was the capital of the old Dauphiné region, a province of France since 1349.  Dauphin, which refers to the oldest son/heir to the throne, comes from one of the queens continually referring to her son as “my little dolphin!  mon petit dauphin!”  So basically there are lots of weird looking fish/dolphin things all over Grenoble. 

As we were looking at that fountain, Miranda kindly let us know that a few people were guillotined in that square during the Revolution.  People would actually rent out their upper level apartments so people could watch from the windows.  Gross! 

Along with the many older historical elements of the city, there are many big hotels and business areas that were built up for the 1968 Olympics.  Lovely architecture, needless to say (not!)  Oh well.  On Wednesday, they’re having a 40-year anniversary celebration with a reenactment of lighting the torch. 

Fun Fact: Café de la Table Ronde in Grenoble is the second oldest café in all of France (1739), second only to Café Procope in Paris (1686).  I’ll have to make sure to go there at some point!  

To view more photos of Grenoble, click below:

Grenoble Sights