Les Vacances de Printemps!

It's almost 2, and I am really only just starting to pack for my whirlwind tour of Europe, as usual. I will try my best to post pictures and updates over the next two weeks. It's going to be a crazy trip I'm sure, but filled with places and sights I have been waiting for all my life!

The plan is:

Amsterdam, tomorrow until the 16th
Berlin 16-19
Pisa 19 (just for a photo op)
Florence 19-22
Rome 23-26
Athens 26 (again, photo ops mostly)
Santorini 27-30

And then, back to Paris. Sigh.

Oh, New York. I love you too!

French people really do say this things. All of them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxndREL9h74

Le metro

I just heard a petite fille say "J'adore aller au metro!" as she came out of the exit. So cute.

Paris vs. New York, Part 1

I CONSTANTLY compare Paris to New York. The metro/subway, the food, the people, the aura, everything. Here is a brief introduction, with more to come, I'm sure (not a day goes by without a new comparison)

Paris wins:

• pretty-ness (New York has a beauty in the gritty-ness, I think, but it's not "pretty" the way Paris is)
• every kind of bread besides bagels
• proximity to other cool places (except Long Island...hi, family!). London (quick train ride/nap) especially. 
• Europe wins (I think most people reading this know my general attitude towards my home country...hi, CIA!)
• style (New York is fashionable, sure, but I can get away with looking like a much bigger slob in New York than in Paris)
• sandwiches (again, exception for bagels)
• view on my morning commute (crossing the Seine, looking at the Eiffel Tower, and if it's a clear day I can see all the way to Sacre Coeur...vs either an underground tunnel or Queens, with about a 30 second view of the Skyline, which though it brightened my mornings, was very brief)
• Most food - hot chocolate, pastries, bread, etc

New York wins:

• efficiency (in EVERY way)
• Pedestrian traffic flow (see above)
• BAGELS
• speed (see #1)
• portable coffee/food (see #1)
• ease of everyday chores (I am not going to blame Paris's problems with this on the language barrier...it's just a problem) (see #1)
• Woody Allen (asterisk for Midnight in Paris)
• Diversity (I don't just mean of people...there is just everything in New York)
• Rudeness. Explanation: in New York, if people just can't be bothered to make room for you, for example, when everyone is trying to get on a subway car, someone, and that someone can be you, will yell and people will move, and it's just accepted. Again, see #1.
• Parks. (asterisk: I have not really experienced spring or summer in Paris yet, but my previews of parks have not made them seem like the oases of New York, where even the smallest park will always have a nice bench or patch of grass in the shade in which to sit and read for a while)
• Things that are open late or all night/morning/day
• ease of information (just for example, finding a website that has the hours/location of any given business)
• Loyalty. I think a New Yorker will always be a New Yorker, and to some extent that is true of Parisians (as far as I know), but New York seems like its own country, and no matter what, New York is a New Yorker's hometown. 
• Library system (along with every other system, see #1)

Ties:

• Expats (they both are pretty cool havens for those types)
• myth (there is definitely a romance about a young girl from a small town moving to New York OR Paris...or both)
• activities....I don't think I could ever (justifiably) be bored in either city

Also, this blog is really great for these types of things. Silly, maybe, but there is definitely some truth. 

http://parisvsnyc.blogspot.fr/ 

Belgium - Bruges et Bruxelles

The weekend of March 10-11 (this post is a little late, I know) I went on a field trip to Belgium, spending the first day in Bruges and the late afternoon until the next evening in Brussels. My overall impressions:

• Bruges is really cute...too cute, if you ask me. Not really sure how it is a real city (town?) 
• WAFFLES
• CHOCOLATE
• Fries! And beer that doesn't taste like pee!
• I had no idea that Dutch (Flemish?) was so widely spoken in Belgium, I really thought their primary language was French (with an accent), but it seems to be fairly even. 
• The area we stayed in in Brussels reminded me of Wall Street area in New York - big, looming buildings, cobblestone streets, and complete abandonment on weekends/after dark (aka the entire time I was there)
• Unfortunately, I got sick while in Bruges with what felt like it had to be the Plague, so pictures and impressions from the second portion of the trip are somewhat limited (feeling better now though!)

BRUGES

It's a medieval walled city, and those elements are actually very well preserved. Surprisingly, it is filled with canals, which was a completely unexpected surprise.

Swan Lake?

The tulips were just starting to bloom 

That's definitely not my finger in the frame of this picture, and even if it was, it would be excusable because I was trying really hard to get an action shot of the horse-drawn carriages, and they were really fast.

Every self-respecting European city has a good cathedral:

The tour guide described this as Venice's Bridge of Sighs: Bruges Edition

The main square, with architectural styles from different centuries

They have a chocolate museum. It's true, Belgium takes chocolate seriously.

The most ridiculously cutesy coffee shop, but worth it for the hot chocolate, which was glorious

Kitty!

If you look closely, you can see an artist sketching the church (I promise this is not a picture of a street of parked cars)

Windmills!

Doggies!

View from the windmill, of what appears to be a really sunny day.

Underneath the windmill, a graffiti elephant 

houseboats!

Wild chickens? They were just hanging out.

Hey, I didn't know this is where the Mayflower ended up!

BRUSSELS:

The grand palais

An old tin advertisement for Cow-boy beer:

The best kind of Opera (?): 

Oh hey! Not exactly New York, but close enough for a reminder.

Vincent Van Gogh

The main attraction of Brussels, a statue of a little boy peeing, which is dressed up in different outfits. Apparently legend has it Brussels was once on fire and a boy put it out by peeing on it...right.

I will say, they had really cool graffiti, even to decorate their storefronts:

Waffle!

Honestly, the Wafels and Dinges cart in New York comes pretty close in my opinion.