Bonjour-ish

I hear there are droughts, its hot and sunny over there...Lucky You...
For the next three days I have a lot to look forward to…according to the Weather Channel there is a 100% chance of showers here in Metz for the next three days…100%. I’ve never actually seen them say 100% before, that without a doubt it will rain, and not scattered showers which is another cop-out used to cover up the in-precision of weather forecasting, but 100% chance of showers. I guess I should be thankful, at least it isn’t 100% chance of thunderstorms, or snow….
If someone had told me that it would still be cold and rainy in France at the end of June I would have laughed at them, but it is, still, cold and 100% rainy here in Metz. It has become a bit of a running joke between Zach and I because no fail when we get off the train in Metz back from our weekends elsewhere it is always cold, dark and pouring rain…its such a reassuring welcome home…
The last few weeks have been an indication to me that global warming is a total sham, its not happening because we’re polluting the atmosphere or whatever other random theory you might think, it can easily be explained by this: Mother Earth is going through Menopause and is forcing everyone living with her to deal with it as well. Take today for example, I woke up and looked outside my tiny porthole to see not surprisingly rain…I got ready, and headed out the door for my first class and it was not only 100% showers, but pouring rain and huge gusts of wind that nearly blew my new Van Gogh umbrella inside out as I walked around the glorified pond known as “Symphonie Lake” that obstructs my walk to class each day…by the time I got out of class, one hour later, the rain had stopped and the clouds were dissipating, and sure enough by the time I had gotten out of lunch the sun had come up and the humidity was rising making me feel like I was having a hot flash too…This weekend I had to put up and take down my umbrella, put on and take off my jacket so many times that it became second nature for Zach to grab my purse whenever we changed environments so that I could reoutfit myself for whatever random weather condition Mother Earth had thrown at us…
The worst part about this 100% chance of rain is that I think I have begun to suffer from SAD, Seasonal Affective Disorder. The rain and the clouds and the cold weather has begun to get to me, I cope with this just fine at school because of my 20 minutes each day laying on a deserted island, or in a tanning bed…but there is no tanning bed here or real sun either, and I’ve begun to lose my golden glow both externally and internally. Several of you have mentioned it to me and its true, I have begun to sympathize with Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, I’m clicking my heels because there really is no place like home…There is nothing that I wouldn’t give for a Diet coke, good West Tennessee BBQ, and some Spill the Beans Ice Cream…But for right now I will have to be content with Fanta, Jambon and Formage Bagettes, and Nutella…
This weekend Zach and I took it easy and slowed down our break neck pace for a weekend in Paris. It turns out that since we both have early exams, we will be able to leave Metz early and will have nearly a week in Paris at the end of our trip, so seeing everything this weekend was not imperative. We focused on Greater Paris this weekend first with a trip down to Versailles on Saturday and then a trip up to Giverny, the home of Claude Monet, on Sunday. The waterlily gardens at Giverny were truly moving, and several hours of peace and serenity of gazing at them were just what I needed to fuel me for another week of school…The pictures are up on my webshots in three albums, Versailles!, Giverny!, and Paris!...check ‘em out. This upcoming weekend we are heading up to the Normandy region and are taking a day trip to Mount St. Michel and are doing the Battle Bus tour of the D-Day beaches, which comes highly acclaimed by Ralph and Celeste…It should be a moving and rather informative weekend.
Lots of Love,
Hillary

We Have Survived...

Our weekend in Madrid had been characterized by unseasonably cold and wet weather, sadly un-“Mexican” food, and a string of cancellations and closings including our long anticipated bullfight: after showing up at the Plaza del Toros, hoping that our weekend would end on a high note or at least rather intriguing note we were again disappointed to find out that the bullfight had too been canceled due to inclimate weather (or at least that was what we were able to gather from the signs at the box office). Angered, distraught, and too tired to attempt to hunt down an acceptable place to eat dinner, we opted for the stereotypical American option : The Hard Rock Café. As a way of making up for my lack of tacos and fajitas that I had been looking forward to - and had sadly realized were NOT Spanish dishes, I ordered a massive margarita and Quesadillas, while Zach attempted to replenish his cholesterol and further confirm his status of American ordering a Hickory Bacon Cheeseburger and a Budweiser – on tap. We had a lovely meal, eating our American food, listening to American music, and surrounded by fellow Americans…Dog tired, we left about eleven, hoping that an early night could mean an early morning…
As we were leaving the Hard Rock Café we noticed a stream of people walking, and cheering down the street…Apparently there had been a soccer or “futball” game tonight, that ironically enough, had not been rained out…and Apparently this was a pretty big soccer game…and Apparently they, Madrid’s team – Real Madrid (pronounced Re-Al)– had won…and Apparently there was fixin’ to be some kind of a celebration… Curious about this whole soccer culture, and open for any sort of positive experience from our weekend in Madrid, Zach and I joined the crowd…
We walked along with the stream of chanting college kids all the way to the Plaza de la Cibeles where they were going to have a little pep rally…I thought to myself, well this could be cute, I bet a bunch of the fans will come out and the team will show up and we’ll all cheer - maybe there will even be cheerleaders, and they’ll shoot some fireworks and we’ll all go home, safe and sound…I obviously misjudged the level of fanaticism that is involved with European “futball”, because in case you, like I was, are not aware, soccer…It’s kind of a big deal over here…When we arrived at the “pep rally” it was about Me, Zach and about ten thousand fans…but by the time that the team did show up, it was me, Zach and several hundred thousand of our new best drunk, smelly, soccer-fan friends, all cheering in unison...Zach and I attempted to join in just so we didn’t look stupid, but joining in on a cheer that is in a foreign language is a little bit difficult…I was amazed by the crowd, you might even say baffled, and this coming from a girl who is intimately familiar with 100,000 screaming Tennessee fans. The city had set up a huge platform around the iconized fountain at the center of a roundabout right in the middle of town. There were people packed into each of the 6 roads intersecting at this round-about, all cheering the Real Madrid song, sounding off noise makers, and attempting to sing “We are the Champions,” which instead was more of a “We are the Chomp-onions” and a slurring of the words in the verses – obviously knowing the words wasn’t as important to them as the theme. A stunning lightshow of soccer balls and soccer net was being projected up into the sky, soon followed by a mass-release of balloons and a Fireworks display that would put Booms day or the Fourth of July fireworks show on Mud Island to shame.
I don’t mind being in crowds, I have a pretty clearly designated personal bubble, but at an event like this I was mostly comfortable, at least until the pushing began. When the team arrived, the crowd began to literally heave, I was being pushed forward but there was nowhere for me to go. There were streams of people fighting there way to get closer to the stage, and people fighting to get away from it. Boys were shimmying up traffic light poles, street lights, and decorative poles with floral hanging baskets, all in an attempt to catch a glimpse of there favorite players…I’m not gonna lie, I was standing on tip-toes in hopes I might catch a glimpse of David Beckham too… However, once my foot had been trampled on by the man in front of me, and our claustrophobia was growing, we had both had our fill of the soccer celebration and began our up stream exodus from the scene.
As we walked away, after struggling for nearly thirty minutes to make our way through the crowd, I was again amazed by the mass pandemonium that was taking place. There were cars parked everywhere, crooked and illegally in any fashion just so that they could get to the rally. There were Real Madrid flags hung out hundreds of windows, sounds of the teams rally song could be heard all over the city from recordings being boomed over loud speakers to car horns tooting along as they drove. And still, even as the rally was in action, people were still streaming out of side streets and down the roads trying to make their way to the Plaza to show support for their team.
Making it back to the room safe and sound but exhausted, we immediately turned on the local news in hopes that we could see what was still happening back at the victory celebration – Real Madrid had won the Spanish National Championship game. Obviously being unable to understand what was being spoken, when they showed pictures of the stage and roundabout, where nearly 400,000 people had just been gathered, completely empty, we assumed that these must have been shots from earlier in the night, possibly during set up? Then footage began rolling of Police officers firing tear gas and rubber bullets into the crowd, and people fleeing the scene. Those who were not inclined to leave were being forcibly pushed with the policemen’s shields and beaten with clubs…talk about police brutality…From what we read on the internet the next morning, we learned that fans had begun lighting firecrackers in the crowd which the police had thought were gunshots…the obvious course of action would be to fire teargas and rubber bullets into the crowd…this action lead to a mass frenzy of people trying to leave the scene, several of whom were trampled by the crowd. In the end more than 100 people were injured, a quarter of whom were so seriously injured they required hospital attention…Man am I glad that we chose to leave when we did or else this weekend could have ended on a real downer…
This weekend we are taking it slow and going to Paris for the weekend…We’re not going to be doing too much sightseeing, maybe head down to Versailles for the day, but mostly just relax, this pace we’ve been running has been pretty draining and I could defiantly use to sleep in. Pictures from this weekend are up in two albums on my web shots…I hope you’ll check them out.
Lots of Love,
Hillary

Dag! ~ Thats Hello in Dutch...

So we arrived in Brussels not knowing what language they spoke...I had brought the French and German Phrase books...They speak Dutch...

At the world’s first World’s Fair in 1851, London gave us the Legendary Crystal Palace…Several years later, the Eiffel Tower marked the coming of the new century at the 1900 Paris World’s Fair, and in 1982 the World’s Fair came to Knoxville, Tennessee and allowed us to grace our beautiful Smokey Mountain studded skyline with the eyesore lovingly referred to as the Sunsphere – which I can safely say is defiantly NOT a great thing from Tennessee. The same architect or engineer who thought the Sunsphere was a good idea, had obviously also won the bid for the Brussels 1958 World’s Fair construction - the Atomium. Since I am on this trip with one of the world’s biggest science and technology nerds, the idea of a thirty story accurate representation of an Iron atom was simply irresistible, a landmark not to be missed…and so I was forced to go.
On Sunday Morning we took the Metro 15 stops west of our hotel…through the city center…and to the outskirts of the city to the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair site. And there it was, the Atomium, a stick and ball stainless steel and mirrored representation of an Iron molecule. And I had thought the Sunsphere was bad. After convincing Zach we shouldn’t pay the 8 euro to ascend the structure in its elevator, and stating frankly that I would not walk up the 600-ish stairs to the highest electron, “we” were content to stand at its base and marvel at the sheer size and tackiness of the structure. Whipping out my Belgium tour book I was shocked to see that the city had just recently spent more than 30 million dollars having the Atomium restored…really?!? God forbid we let the Atomium fall into disrepair and have its electrons clouded with rust so it can no longer be used as a signaling tower to Outer space? Brussels has decided to at least capitalize on the Atomium as a tourist trap by laying at its base the source of nearly 3 hours of hilarity for Zach and I : Mini Europe.
As the guide book at the entrance to Mini Europe simply states, “Mini Europe is essential to your understanding and enjoyment of the European Union.” And I wonder how we have waited 6 weeks to come…why were we not informed of the necessity of a visit to Mini Europe at the onset of our time here in France? But now I can return to the States fulfilled, in three hours I toured the entirety of the European Union. Each of the nearly 100 miniature sites was built with extreme respect for detail at 1/25th the original size. Of coarse there were the obvious sites like the Eiffel Tower, the Acropolis, Leaning Tower of Pisa and Big Ben, but since the EU stands on “a foundation of equality for all member states,” sites like the Mnajdra in the never heard of country of Malta, which was nothing more than a pile of rocks in the sand, were also included in this tour of the European Union. While every country was included at least once, it was interesting to note that Belgium had the most monuments of any other country, 11 total, one of which was the central square in Brussels, the Grand Place, whose model cost nearly 500,000 dollars and took 19,000 hours of work to build…I again would like to note how horribly the Belgian government chooses to budget its money, is their economy based on suckering tourists into tourist traps?…Interesting inclusions of note were the scaled working model of Mount Vesuvius, which every child and Zach got the chance to force out plumes of smoke every two minutes, a model of the Chunnel complete with a train set running through it, and a resurrection of the graffiti laden Berlin Wall complete with mini people sitting on top holding hands...My favorite site would have to be the Mini Chenonceaux Chateau, whose resemblance to the actual thing we saw not but three weeks ago was uncanny.
It was our 3 hours spent at Mini Europe which forced us to take the last train leaving Brussels for Metz, putting us back at the not surprisingly cold and rainy Technopole a little after 10…Too late to run to the Cora to grab a frozen pizza to warm up for dinner…Too late for the nasty Kebab stand on the corner…and after trekking up the hill in the pouring rain to the McDonald’s we sadly were too late to eat in McDonald’s…I sat down on the wet outdoor benches in front of McDonald’s nearly in tears out of worry of potentially starving to death from missing dinner, wondering if I had a bit Vietnamese in me as I starred down the cats scavenging for rain sodden French fries on the floor outside the Play~Place. It was in that moment that a car drove out from around the side of the McDonalds, and in there hands they held a steaming bag full of Mickey D’s goodness…The Drive Thru was open! While this is all fine and dandy, the sad story is that Zach and I, as college students studying abroad in a foreign country, we have no car…so the concept of a Drive Thru is quite a challenging one. Luckily instead of having to try to trip a weight gauging car sensor to place our order (which I feel confident that Zach and I could have successfully done) there was simply a drive thru window to place our order and a window to collect our food. While this may sound like a blessing, it was in reality a source of even more embarrassment, because as we waited, standing, in the rain, among a line of cars who got to have wind shield wipers, we had to confront not just one but two McDonald’s workers, and there condescending stares as we both ordered and collected our Gastronomic cuisine.
I now officially know what it feels like to be a homeless person: I have walked in the pouring rain to eat at McDonald’s only to stand in the drive through line and be looked down upon by fast food employees…and all because we had to go see the Atomium…My pictures are up on Webshots, so check them out… http://community.webshots.com/user/HillHerb…and yes, Zach was able to capture me standing in the drive thru at McDonald’s on his camera phone…
This upcoming weekend is our second four day weekend, and we are headed for Madrid…flying…I couldn’t bear being on the train for 17 hours... Spain should be another culture shock for us…but I have my Spanish phrase book handy and am pumped about the potential for Margaritas and Sangria….

Lots of Love,

Hillary Herbert

Bonjour!

Like a child terrified of clowns, but loving the circus, or a similarly oxymoronic woman greatly suffering from arachnophobia being intrigued by spider webs, I am equally masochistic…Since childhood I have been petrified of ghosts or their potential presence, so much so that to this day I refuse to sleep in total darkness, but, oddly enough, I have always been drawn to cemeteries. I don’t know what it is about cemeteries, their serenity, their orderly layout, maybe the ornately decorated mausoleums… I love exploring them, taking in each and every monument.
As I examined my Arles for Van Gogh fans brochure, visiting the Old Roman cemetery, Alyscamps, where he painted his masterpiece “The Champs Elysesse of Arles” was of the utmost importance to me even though the site lay nearly a mile outside of the city walls. Despite his complaints of having to walk a mile to spend the afternoon in a cemetery, I was luckily able to convince Zach to join me, since I was totally unaware of the fact that I was about to walk into a classic Horror movie scene.
After fighting the strong gusts of wind and perusing through the weekly Saturday market on Arles’ main drag filled with the usual produce, baked goods, antiques, artwork, and flea market gems like cell phone chargers, random bicycle parts and failed “As Seen On TV” products, we finally had made our way to the entrance of the Alyscamps. The feeble elderly woman at the gate, who looked like she was soon to join the Romans buried within, gladly took our Euros and we proceeded down the path that sadly did not appear to be trodden by too many other Van Gogh fans…I thought that the distance from the city center must have deterred them.
Along the sides of the path, which was once a main thoroughfare towards Rome, were a series of often un-lidded stone coffins or sarcophagi, placed so that all making the journey, including ourselves, could pay our respects to those who came and fell before us. I was relieved to find that the Alyscamps wasn’t the tourist swamped site I have become accustomed to visiting, in fact, the site was totally abandoned, other than the skeleton selling tickets at the front gate, we were the only people walking around. As we made our way deeper and deeper into the cemetery, and further from civilization, Zach and I finally came upon a worn but beautiful church at the edge of the site. Assuming that like most other small churches we discover, that this one too would be closed, we were content to walk around taking in its abandoned ivy-covered exterior. As we rounded the corner to the far back of the church we found a single door propped open.
Even though there were no lights on inside of the church, there were enough dirty windows to let the natural light from this sunny, but windy, day in to illuminate the not surprisingly baron interior. Except for a few ornate sarcophagi placed in dimly lit side chapels, the church was empty. The total silence, only occasionally broken by the purring of a couple of pigeons, was eerie. I mean, we’re alone, inside of an abandoned church, surrounded by a 2000 year old cemetery…As if the being inside of the church wasn’t enough, Zach wanted to walk down into the crypt, whose daunting doorway lay downstairs beneath the alter. Not wanting to be left alone, but also not so eager to be exploring the crypt of this already creepy church, I reluctantly followed. No sooner had I crossed over the threshold into the crypt, than the silence was broken, I heard soft thuds from upstairs…they weren’t quite footsteps, but consistent thuds with a slight clatter of metal. I had become even more reluctant to continue the exploration on the crypt…the hair on my arms was standing on end and I was paranoidly checking over my shoulders just to make sure that there was nothing behind me…I took another step closer to examine another tomb partially illuminated by the sun pouring in through the windows when suddenly the soft thuds turned into slams, dense pounding from up inside the church that made the pigeons disperse and begin their swalking. At this point it was clear that I was no longer going to continue exploring and I ran up the stairs and out of the church…Outside the wind was blowing more fiercely that it had earlier in the morning and was blowing up dirt and leaves which swirled around me as I ran from the church. As I turned back I saw Zach, laughing hysterically, running behind me, and when he caught up he snidely informed me that the source of my panic was in fact the locked front door of the church, clattering in the wind.
The next day, in an attempt to stay as far away from creepy churches as we could, we headed to Nice to take in the fun in the sun of the French Riviera. The beach is my hands-down favorite vacation spot, and what could possibly be better than the Mecca of the beach bathing lifestyle…While I had planned on us going and seeing the sights of Nice, it was imperative to me that we spend several hours lying in the warm sand, soaking up the rays, feeling the cool Mediterranean breezes. Being away from school and my unlimited visits to the high pressure tanning bed, my golden glow has begun to fade and I was determined to regain at least some of it.
As we were entering the city on the train, I could see the beach and some of my fellow sun worshippers, my excitement had built so much that as soon as the train stopped I was leaping off and headed for the hotel so that I could change into my swim suit and classy beach attire, I mean this is the French Riveria, one has to be classy. I had wanted to buy a big hat, like an uber glam floppy sun hat, but Zach told me that was excessive…Leaving our hotel, which was conveniently located just a block behind the legendary Negresso Hotel, and approaching the Promenade des Anglais, or the “Prom” as those in the know refer to it as, I was brought back to another day and age when the Prom in Nice would have been star studded, a real place to see and be seen…I could just see movie stars like Clark Gable, Judy Garland, and maybe even Marilyn Monroe strolling along the Prom, dressed to the nines…and As I crossed the road nearly floating on my excitement I was brought down quickly when I took my first step onto the “beach”, if you could even call it that. Instead of the powdery white, soft sand that I have become so accoustomed to on beaches in Florida, the Carolina’s or the Carribbean, there were rocks, and not just a few pebbles, but like hardcore baseball sized rocks. Had something happened? Was there a hurricane that had taken away the sand? I mean this is the Mediterranean, I didn’t really think they had hurricanes but I mean it’s possible…No. I soon found out that the rocks have been on the beach here since the beginning, there was never any sand…since its inception as the Granddaddy of the Beach culture, the French Rivera has been nothing more than a gravel pit.
Determined to not let this obnoxious gravel stand in my way of resurrecting my tan, I braved the rocks, which aside from being unsightly, were also tremendously difficult to walk on. Finding a nice, unoccupied stretch of gravel, I squatted down and wiggled, hoping to carve myself out a somewhat comfortable niche in the rocks. Despite my determination, I could not get comfortable and was forced to abandon my effort; Zach was truly devastated because he too was also really looking forward to laying out…Instead of laying out, we continued our stroll of the Promenade people watching as we went. I was totally shocked at the number of women who felt the need to tan topless. I mean, I understand tan lines, however, I am always content to just pull down the straps of my suit, never having the audacity to think of tanning topless…and the worse part was, these weren’t just young girls my age. Most of the topless bronze goddesses were old women - old, wrinkly, flabby women with similarly characteristic boobs…

Long story short : Nice, maybe not so nice….

This weekend we are only heading on a short trip up to Belgium, going to Brussels and possibly Bruges. Pictures from this weekend’s trip are up in four albums on my web shots page. Check out “Avignon!” “Nimes!” “Arles!” and “Nice!” at . Sadly for some, I have chosen to not put up photographs of my favorites spotted on the beach in Nice…if you are interested, feel free to email me!