Day 90-91: Luxembourg

After our big Easter trip, I had just over 24-hours to rest up in Tilburg before my next big exciting adventure! My friend, Maria Le from Agnes Scott, was coming over from the UK where she was studying for the semester to visit for about a week! She arrived in Eindhoven early Tuesday morning and we met up at the Tilburg West station right after I was through with classes around 5:30PM on Tuesday evening. It was great to see another familiar face and to catch up with my friend!

We went to mentor dinner that night, but decided not to hit up the LG, as we were both exhausted from our travels. We spent Wednesday looking around Tilburg, picking up my residence permit in 's-Hertogenbosch, and baking quesadillas for the crew for dinner before heading out on Thursday for our big adventure together....Luxembourg and Maastricht!

Thursday, April 15, 2010: Luxembourg City, Luxembourg

We woke up early thirty on Thursday morning to head to Tilburg West for our first train on our trek to Luxembourg. I had researched the journey route beforehand, and we were supposed to take four trains in total to get to Luxembourg City. It should take us just under five hours to get there. Well, as you know, things do not always go according to plan....

We hopped on the train and made it down to Liege, Belgium with no problems. We were prepared to hop on our next train to take us to Luxembourg, and ended up having to wait an extra 15 minutes or so for it to come, which we thought was quite odd. We boarded the train and the ticket checker came by pretty quickly. He looked at our tickets and said something in French. I whipped out my, "Parlez vous anglais?", to which he promptly responded "No". Darn, what now? He pointed to the guy sitting in the seat across from us and motioned that we should follow him. Okay, that's reassuring, right?!?

So the train stopped a few minutes later and we were all told to get off and hop on a bus to get to the next stop, Rivage, on the way to Luxembourg. This wasn't part of our initial plan.... We followed the boy over to where the buses were and I went and asked the driver if it was the bus to Luxembourg City. He did not speak English, but I gathered that the bus was not going all the way to Luxembourg City. We stepped off the bus to let others on and began discussing what to do. A woman overheard us speaking, and graciously explained everything to us in English. Apparently this bus was going to Aiwaillye where we would need to hop on another train to get to Luxembourg Gouvy to eventually get to Luxembourg City. We thanked her for her kindness and hopped on board the bus.

A bit later we arrived in Aiwaillye where we got on the train to Luxembourg Gouvy right away. When we arrived in Gouvy, we went inside the tiny train station to look up train times to Luxembourg City. No trains for over an hour! We did not want to wait inside the train station for that long, so we decided to take a walk around outside and explore Gouvy a bit, backpacks and all! We went next door to the tourist information point and got a feel for what Gouvy was all about...nature. We figured out where the heck we were on the map (still in Belgium) and bought a postcard (typical).

Then we walked down the street a bit from the train station past some shoppes and houses. We reached a windy hilly road and decided to sit for a bit on the wooden fence alongside the road. We chilled there for a bit until it was about time to go back to catch our train. Finally, we boarded the last train on our voyage to Luxembourg. We arrived in Luxembourg City around 5:00PM, about eight hours after we had left in the morning! Much longer than anticipated! In total, we had taken six different trains and one bus to get to Luxembourg....what a whirlwind of public transportation!

We arrived at the train station and took a bus to the street that the hostel was on. We were a bit turned around initially upon our arrival to the hostel, but figured out where it was rather quickly. We had to go down a hill (with a nice ramp) to get to Luxembourg City Hostel, where we stayed during our time in the city. We checked in and set down our things in the room before heading out to explore!

We began walking towards the city and happened upon the National Museum of History and Art, which Maria had read that there was free admission on Thursday evenings. So we took advantage of this opportunity to see the museum, which ended up being really interesting! It was massive! It went from floor -5 to floor +5! We explored each level, although most of the information was in French, so we could not read much about it. One of the walls of the museum was made of the earthen rock that characterizes the hills of Luxembourg, so it was really cool to see that in the museum. We were a bit creeped out by the single security guard that seemed to be following us around the entire museum like we were going to steal something.... But is was a really enjoyable museum!

After our museum quest, we headed into the city and came upon the Grand Ducale Palace, home of the Grand Duke during the majority of the year. Luxembourg is the only Grand Duchy in the world, so it was really neat to see the outside of the palace, even though we would not be allowed to go inside during our stay, as the family was residing there at the present time. We turned around and noticed that the Chocolate Company was behind us! We had made it our mission to find the chocolate co. in both Luxembourg and Maastricht, so we were pleasantly surprised that it turned out to be so easy. We noted the location and made plans to return the following day.

Speaking of chocolate, we began to notice that our tummies were rumbling, so we began to look for some cheap eats. Luxembourg is a pretty well-to-do city, and it seemed that every restaurant we came upon was super expensive. So we decided to settle for kebabs- cheap, tasty and filling! I enjoyed a chicken cordon bleu sandwich from the kebab place with fries (and the infamous mayonnaise sauce!).

After supper, we continued walking and came to the main square. We made notes for all the things that we wanted to do the following day, as everything was closed this late in the evening already. On our way back, we came to the ruins and explored a bit. We decided that we definitely wanted to do those in the morning.

Tired from a long day on the trains, we headed back to the hostel. In the lobby we asked the woman at the desk about opening times the following day and decided to relax and watch 'Germany's Next Top Model' in the lobby for a bit. It was interesting as it was all in German, but we understood what was going on, as we had both seen the Tyra Banks version in the States before. After it was over, we headed upstairs to our 6-bed female dorm to get some rest for the night.

Friday, April 16, 2010: Luxembourg City, Luxembourg

We woke early the next morning, got ready, and went to breakfast at the hostel. We had a typical hostel breakfast of bread, cheese, meat and various spreads. We were also happy to have some coffee to wake us up! While at breakfast, we overheard a boy speaking to some girls that he would have to stay longer than anticipated as his flight had been canceled due to a volcanic eruption...hmm, that's odd! We shrugged it off and headed out for the day.

First we walked alongside the scenic roadside and admired the gorgeous view we had from up above of the rolling hillside of Luxembourg...what a beautiful country! We walked all along the road for nearly an hour exploring the hills and catching some great views! We were killing time before the Casemates opened for the day, so we finished our walk and headed back towards town to see the Saint Michael's Church. It was quite nice! Afterward, we stopped into the European Union information center on the corner, as Maria wanted to look at the information available there. She studies History and International Relations at Agnes Scott, and focuses on the EU, so this was of utmost interest to her. I was also curious and picked up a brochure in the center about what the EU does for women....yes, I attend a women's college, thank you!

It was just about time for the Casemates to open so we headed that way. We arrived, bought our tickets and headed inside. We were amazed by how old and historical it all was. We had a blast navigating our way through and getting lost inside the narrow passageways in the Casemates. I was shocked at the extremely low ceilings at some points and noted that the Dutch would have a difficult time in there. We climbed up and down winding spiral stairs and in and out of small passageways. It was a really fun  and adventuresome thing to do, and I loved it! At one point, we managed to accidentally exit the Casemates, so we had to go back to the entrance and re-enter. No biggie. We found our way back and got to see the rest. I think we spent nearly two hours exploring before we headed out.

We went back to the hostel to drop off my jacket, as it was pretty warm outside! Then we explored the hospice gardens next door to our hostel, before heading to the Chocolate Co. for a quick mug of hot coco to relax from our wandering so far. I had a Blackberry Yogurt Chocospoon (so healthy!). We enjoyed sipping our coco outside on the Chocolate Co. front patio and watching a particular tourist attempt to get a picture of the guard on duty at the Palace directly across the way. The guard kept walking in his stance while the tourist waited patiently for him to stop at his post so that he could take a nice picture. Finally, the guard stopped at his post and the tourist raised his camera to snap a quick photo, but before he could press the button, the guard began walking again. Obviously frustrated, the tourist resigned to his seat at the restaurant next door with his wife. At this point, Maria and I were laughing quite hard, as we found the whole situation quite humorous! We finished our drinks and headed out.

Our next stop was the Museum of the History of the City of Luxembourg. I was eager to go to this museum to learn a bit more about the city and country of Luxembourg, as it is such a small, unique and fascinating place. This museum was also quite large and did a great job of relaying the history of the city from past to present. We learned all about the city, and were really impressed with the museum!

After our museum visit, we began our search for a yummy lunch. We headed back to the area where we had eaten dinner the evening before....cheap food area. We split a nice warm panini and then headed next door to the crepe and gelato place for a crepe. We ordered a monstrous, delicious crepe filled with bananas, liquor, cinnamon, cream and garnished with vanilla ice cream. Yum!

Next we decided to do what we girls do best on any trip- shop! We went to our typical favorite shops: H&M, Zara and all. I don't think either of us bought anything, but we enjoyed looking around and window shopping.

Next we ventured over to another area of the city to visit a large cathedral that was quite impressive. We then headed next door to the public library where we used a computer to check what was going on in the world. We began looking into the volcanic eruption airport-closing incident and realized it was quite serious. We made mental note that we would need to be thinking about this for Maria's intended flight back to London on Monday.

We left the library fairly exhausted and decided to make our way back to the hostel to rest up and refresh a bit. I took a short 30-minute nap before we headed back downstairs to the lobby. We asked the girl at the desk if she could recommend any good places to us for dinner and she gave us the name of an American food place called 'Maybe Not Bob's'. We decided to try it out, as we could get a coupon at the Tourist Office nearby for buy one get one free on a beverage of choice. We picked up  the coupon and headed to the restaurant.

We enjoyed a nice "American" dinner. I had a plate of yummy nachos and Maria had a burger. To celebrate our last night in Luxembourg, we each bought each other a drink (and got one free!). We shared strawberry margheritas during dinner and sipped a white russian after we had finished.

We made our way back to the hostel after our yummy dinner and got ready for bed. We packed as well, as we would be leaving the next morning for Maastricht.

I really enjoyed Luxembourg and thought it was a very beautiful place. I think the word is 'unassuming'. It is not where everyone wants to go, but it is a really nice place to visit and definitely worthwhile! I would have loved to have had more time to explore more of this minuscule country and get to see some more besides just the city. Next time I'm in Europe!