Nice

As a quick stop before Rome, I stopped in Nice, on the Cote d’Azur on last Wednesday. The town wasn’t too impressive (felt like most other resorts), but this was the original beach resort.

It was a scenic train ride along the Mediterranean sea


I also met an artist who was excited because I was from michigan

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Barcelona

Barcelona: tourists abound!

*Normally I would have more pictures, but bandwidth limits at internet cafes prevent me from doing that

Everyone I talked to seems to rave about Barcelona. Now I see why. Tons of young adults come here for the nightlife.

Of course, Barcelona has lots of history too.

But it’s hard to not like the over the top tourist culture in some places here.

Lisboa

Lisboa: a small village

I was lucky enough to have Alexandre’s friend be my tour guide in Lisboa. He showed me all the good views.

In Lisboa, I found, downtown was full of old, small buildings, while the suburbs where full of high-rise apartments. Exact opposite of U.S....

Sintra

I went to Sintra, a nearby picturesque town with royal palaces and castles. There I met Emma and Martin, fellow travellers from London.

I went to Sintra alone. It was the first time in a while I was travelling in touristy places without a guide. It was good to remind myself of the mantra “a strager is a friend you haven’t met” and meet new people

On the way up to the moorish castle on top of the mountain (see above picture), I ran into Fabia and Pierre, a middle-aged French couple from Paris. I had no idea I would use French again so soon! 

On top of the castle. Reminds me of the great wall of China!

At one point, I was explaining something from the guide book to Pierre, and he remarked “Nous avons de la chance d’avoir un chinois-americain, qui nous explique en francais, les choses portugaises”

Madrid

start 15:30

Hola/Olá/Bonjour

I’ve been all over the Iberian pennisula this past week. My itinerary looked like this:

13/4 Wednesday: Night train to Madrid
Thu: Madrid, with Miguel, Rich, and Ariel (Olin students studying in Madrid)
Fri: Madrid, night train to Lisboa (Lisbon in portuguese)
Sat: Lisboa, with Eduardo, friend of Porguese friend Alexandre (you know the guy who’s on my blog with food :) )
Sun: Lisboa, night train to Madrid,
Mon: Madrid to Barcelona train
20/4 Tues: Barcelona

Madrid: sunny plazas

My biggest impressions is its sunny plazas. Huge open spaces surrounded by big 17/18th century buildings. My favorite is Plaza de Major:


This plaza represents 2 things I found unique about Madrid compared to Paris:
1. Lots of sun
2. Vibrancy: people seemed more energetic (and louder). I’m not trying to make a stereotype. Just my limited observations of a part of the city.

Rich, Ariel, and Miguel took me out to some tapas bars

Las meninas

This became my favorite painting after I saw it in the Prado museum:

Las Meninas by Diego Velázquez, 1656. Picture from wikipedia

At first I couldn’t understand why art critics like this so much. But afer sitting in teh room for a few minutes, I understood.
(The following “critique” comes from my own experience, and very little prior art history training)
First this painting is introspective. At the surface, Velázquez is painting the Royal family. But I think the painting is more about himself. He does this self-portrait in a creative way. Look at his face. What is he thinking? Perhaps he’s reflecting over his life as a painter. Looking at the other paintings in the museum, I realized just how unique this painting is. About all other 16th century paintings are just portraits of royalty, dramatized Biblical scenes/history, or landscapes.

Biscuits from nuns

Rich and I heard about a convent in Madrid that sells baked goods. We found the convent tucked in the corner of a unpopulated plaza. On the door: “Biscuits for sale”. Rich pressed the button and said “Dulce!” (sweets). Door opens. We walk down the corridor into a small courtyard. No one around. We walk down a hallway and run into a big lazy susan built into the wall. We heard a muffled woman’s voice form behind the lazy susan. We put money into the lazy susan. It spins, and out comes change and biscuits (with a muffled “gracias”).

Afterwards, we go out into the courtyard and share the biscuits with our fellow voyagers from Belgium. They too read their tourbook carefully to find out about this place. Finally, the Belgian woman bursts out laughing, and we all do as well, in reflection of what just happened. A magical moment.

My Tour around Europe

My tour around Europe.

As I wrote earlier, I’m going around Europe for a month. Specifically, Western Europe - Switzerland - Scandinavia

Red indicates side trips I’ve already done. Blue is my month-long tour. Current location: Madrid.

I’m meeting various Oliners and friends along the way, so I won’t be alone the much of the time.

Traveling is done with this backpack + railpass:

At the end, I’m meeting with my parents and brother in Belgium, 14 May

Also, Mr. Rick Steves is a great help.

Travel as a political act

A day in the life of a Parisien

I’m currently in Lisbon, Portugal, on the 3rd leg of my around-Europe trip. But because of my travels, it takes about a week to post a blog post. So just pretend everything is a week in the past!

We were astonished by how well we cooked our breakfast!

A week ago I had the opportunity to stay for a few days at Guillaume’s appartment in Paris. Gui is a PhD student at Polytechnique, and we were on the same team for our start-up class.

La Rochelle- "Paris is not France"

This weekend I went to La Rochelle, a seaport town on the Atlantic coast

I also lost the Olin Challenge when I saw some random guy on the street wearing an Olin sweatshirt! 

"Steven, tu as fini..." - a song by Alexandre

A song by Alexandre, which sums up my experience at Polytechnique

Here are the lyrics:

Hey Rouje… ne ple-ures pas!

This was week was bittersweet. Although there were no classes, and exams were over, my class, or promotion, as we say in French, X2008*, stayed until the final get together Friday night. I packed up my stuff and left Saturday morning

*2008 is the year of entry of this class, X is the thing you prepend to represent Polytechnique. Why X? Because one of the emblems of Polytechnique involves two swords criss-crossed in a X form. Plus P doesn’t sound as cool.

Alexandre, portuguese friend, helping me move out!

Read on about the symphony concert, and the Polytechnique rendition of Hey Jude, don't make it bad (hint, see title of this post)

Guest post from Xavier Ziemba: weekend in Paris

Another guest blog post, this time from Xavier Ziemba. Xy and Jeff Atkinson (both Olin ‘12) came to visit me last weekend, just after my last exam. Xy is studying in Belgium, and Jeff in Italy.

Being little kids in the village in Versailles