Bonjour und Guten Tag!
For everyone who thinks they know exactly when I'll be where... haha, I have fooled you in a suprise trip to Luxembourg City, Luxembourg! I just went for a day, because I had an extra day before I could meet Elizabeth in Berlin. It was a fairly quick trip from Brussels...
well... it was almost a quick trip from Brussels.
After a smooth train ride I walked right out of the small train station in Luxembourg City, quickly found the bus my hostel directions said to get on, asked the driver if it was going to the hostel--yes it was, and was set to arrive at my hostel within minutes. As the bus drove through perhaps the most scenic city I have seen, I thought, "this is too good to be true, I have never gone from the train station to my hostel so effortlessly!" And of course, it was too good to be true. Suprise! They had just started road work on the road to my hostel, so it was closed! The bus driver waved me to the front of the bus, talked to me and over his little radio, then gave me instructions to get off that bus and onto another, which would soon be coming. I follwed his instructions and on the next bus the driver drove me a little farther, then radioed some other drivers, before giving me instructions to get off the bus and onto another. Perhaps I have deleted the scene from my memory, or maybe I just temporarily blacked out, but I cannot exactly recall how many times this shuffling of Christine around buses happened.
To the credit of the Luxembourg Bus drivers, they were extremely helpful... although perhaps a little too helpful because they kept wanting to help when they really couldn't. (I suppose this is why I probably got on a few unnecessary buses.) They finally got me close to the hostel and I walked down a little path in the woods to arrive at it. About two hours after I thought, "this is too good to be true..." I finally arrived at my hostel! Phew.
Arriving at the hostel I found many other frustrated travelers wondering why no one knew the road was out and a few "so how many buses did you take?" conversations.
The best part about talking to so many bus drivers was that I discovered that Luxembourg is the place for me, in terms of language, that is. They speak a mixture of French and German... which worked perfectly for my dozen words in each language combined with their dozen words in English. (Or maybe it didn't work so well and that is why I ended up on so many buses!)
The girls in my hostel were lovely, (there were only four of us and we all spoke English and we had some great conversations.) The hostel itself was the nicest hostel I have stayed in, (once we figured out that there was a shower in the room, and not just one for all four floors!) It was in a beautiful garden area, with a wonderful outdoor cafe/bar, and right under the gorgeous palace and casemates, (tunnels.)
I had a chance to see quite a bit of the relatively small city despite only have a short while there. I saw the casemates, which are underground tunnels begun around 900 AD. Apparently they tried to blow them up in the late 19th century and they wouldn't collapse! They had a cannon placed in one of the windows overlooking my hostel. I was mildly concerned about this... and wondered if the cannon worked. (I did kind of wish that I could load it and shoot it... nothing like being a little homesick for shooting cannons:)
The old section of the town is up on a huge mountain that is still built up like a fortress, it is really the most amazing city. Every view is gorgeous! At the Palace where the Duke and Dutchess live there were guards wearing what appeared to be wool uniforms despite the fact that it was extrememly hot that day. I wondered if I could make them "break character" by asking if "they were hot in that?" There were paparazzi outside the Palace... perhaps waiting a chance to see the royal family... although one camera man just took pictures of people eating ice cream, so I assume nothing much happened. I did find it rather peculiar that in front of all the stores were pictures of the royal family. Lots of store windows said "Lottery!" with a huge royal family photo under the sign.
On Wednesday morning I went to the Historical Museum with a girl from Austraila who was also a history nerd. That history museum was the best one I have seen! Sorry to say, Amsterdam, but much better than yours! They had a little section at the end on the history of the history museum, and there were several "European history museum of the year" awards. I never knew that such a reward existed, but I'm glad Luxembourg got it!
My trip was not complete without a nerve-wracking journey to Berlin. I am proud to say that I did not miss the train while making sure that a confused elderly German couple got onto that train, for which they already had tickets, even though they insisted it was not the right one because it had arrived too early! I was a little concerned when, at one point, nearly everyone got off the train, and, after it sat for a moment, it started moving in the opposite direction. (Great... I was going right back to Luxembourg... and oh no, did the confused elderly German couple get off?) Turns out it was making a 90 degree turn.
I cannot fail to mention that to top the entire transportation adventure off, was the encounter I had on the final leg of the journey to Berlin. I had five minutes to transfer trains in Cologne, (this was after the scare of the train going in the opposite direction and getting the confused elderly German couple onto the train.) Needless to say that as I sunk down in my reserved seat going to Berlin, knowing that all I had to do was sit for five hours and get off at the very last stop, I was enormously... prodigiously relieved. I pulled out some chocolate and my "Bride" magazine I had bought earlier, (Mel I found one!) At this very moment a new passenger sat in his or her reserved seat next to mine. In all seriousness, after five hours I still couldn't figure out if this person was a he or a she. To make it worse, as I'm holding my Bride Magazine open and ready to eat chocolate, he/she begins to make conversation and I soon discover wishes to ask me very strange questions for hours! HIs/Her English was not very good, and I'm hoping for that reason that he/she did not actually mean I should get off at his/her stop with him/her. And all the while, I held my "Bride" magazine, making the entire scenerio, in my mind, all the more bizarre.
Just in case you haven't already assumed as much, I was incredibly happy when to see Elizabeth waiting for me on the platform when I got off the train in Berlin!
I'll share my news and photos of Berlin very soon!
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