Month: December 2020

February 17, 2020 – “I’ll Be Back,” Arnold Schwarzenegger, 1984 (OOTD # 610)

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Sciences Po winter break: day 3

I sure would like to go back. I spent about 1.5 days in Vienna, Austria, one of the longest stays in a single city during our trip, but I still didn’t get to see as much as I would’ve liked. For one, I never got around to the Schönbrunn Palace, which I’d really been hoping to see. We also never saw Salzburg, another city in Austria that is home to Mozart’s birthplace, which is still on my bucket list.

After spending a glorious night sleeping in real beds in Prague, we caught a bus onto our next destination, Vienna. Our bus left in the late morning, which allowed us to sleep in a little bit. The real luxury though was that we didn’t have to take a night bus, which meant we weren’t forced to try to get a full night’s sleep on a bumpy bus. It was still a long ride, but it was significantly less miserable than some of the previous ones.

The downside though to taking a daytime bus was that it ate into the time we were actually able to spend exploring during the day. We didn’t have time really to do anything in the morning in Prague, and by the time we got into Vienna, settled into our AirBnB, and did some grocery shopping, things were already beginning to shut down for the night.

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And that was my primary complaint about Vienna — there was nothing open past 5pm! If you’ve ever heard the Billy Joel song, “Vienna,” you’ll know it’s all about slowing down and not allowing yourself to get stressed out about work and life. I just thought he was using Vienna as a metaphor because the people there were laid-back. As it turns out, not only are the people of the city laid-back, but their entire city is too, because everything closes down at sunset apparently.

Apart from restaurants and bars, there really wasn’t anything to do on our first night in Vienna. We walked past the Museums District, peered into the darkened windows of some closed thrift shops, and admired the almost completely empty streets. You’ll notice I hardly even have any pictures from this day — there simply wasn’t anything to take pictures of at night. It’s possible we would have found more to do and see had we continued to walk towards the City Centre, but by then, we were tired and ready to head back in order to be well-rested for the following day.

That’s about it for today. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my life during my semester abroad in the Paris, France. Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest,Instagram, Facebook, Bloglovin, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Sweater: Vintage (thrifted, Street Scene Vintage)

Jeans: Hollister

Coat: A vintage shop in Budapest  (thrifted)

February 16, 2020 – Czech It Off the List (OOTD #609)

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Sciences Po winter break: day 2

I think Prague was honestly my favorite city that I visited during my week-long backpacking trip through Europe. And that’s saying something, seeing as there was some pretty stiff competition from cities like Venice and Budapest, which were also captivating in their own right.

I think perhaps part of the reason why I remember Prague so fondly (apart from its beautiful architecture and colorful rainbow buildings) is that it was the first night I got to sleep in a real bed after two nights of sleeping on buses. We did the whole night bus gig thing on purpose in order to save time and money, but it certainly took a toll, and by the time we hit Prague, we could really feel the fatigue setting in. I think I was holding up better than most of my friends, partially because I think I was able to sleep the most comfortably on the buses on account of being the smallest, and partially because I think I’m just a generally resilient person.

We arrived too early in the morning to check in to our AirBnB, so we started the day in the train station café for about an hour before calling what was possibly the cheapest Uber I’ve ever taken in my life to get to our apartment. From there, we freshened up, enjoyed the experience of laying in a real bed, and then headed out for another long day of walking.

The one thing I was absolutely certain I wanted to see in Prague was the famous John Lennon Wall. It was on our way to the Old Town Square plaza, which was the starting place of the walking tour we booked, so it ended up being one of the first things we saw.

I guess I was spoilt on the graffiti of the West Bank Border, which is huge and sprawling and stretches all along the checkpoint between Israel and Palestine, because I wasn’t hugely impressed by the John Lennon Wall. Apart from the portrait of John Lennon at the center, there weren’t really any other major works. I did think it was cool how contemporary and diverse the issues represented in the graffiti were though — in comparison to the West Bank Border graffiti, which really only covers the injustice in Palestine, the John Lennon Wall depicted political struggles all over the world. The most recent one I remembered seeing in February was the Free Hong Kong slogan. I wonder what has been added since I was there earlier this year.

Though the landscape of Toledo, Spain perhaps gives it some competition, I think Prague’s Old Town Square and Charles Bridge that leads to it was perhaps my favorite sight of the whole trip. I wish I had photos that did it justice, but I was honestly so in awe of it that I forgot to take pictures. What I’ve included here are actually some of my friend, Ebba’s, photos.

In Old Town Square, we saw the Prague Astronomical Clock, famous for being on the list of the top 3 most disappointing tourist sites in the world. Comment down below what you think the other two on the list might be. I’ll give you a hint — I’ve seen them and have even posted about them on this blog before!

While I generally hate tours for the way that a big group of people speaking different languages following a conspicuous leader carrying an umbrella or a flag immediately gives you away as a tourist, I will say, I appreciate actually getting to learn about the various buildings I see when I travel. I think if you can stomach the mild discomfort you feel when a local glares at your group for standing around and clogging traffic, it’s worth it. I’ve done them in Jerusalem and Bordeaux. If you’re a solo traveler (which in this case, I was not) they’re particularly valuable as a way to meet people and make friends.

Our last stop after our walking tour concluded was to cross the bridge and hike our way up to St. Vitus Cathedral. Because a trip to a European city wouldn’t be complete without a visit to a church, right?

Honestly, even more spectacular than the church itself was the view from the top of the hill where the church is located. And that’s quite a statement for me to make, as the St. Vitus Cathedral is perhaps the most spectacular church I’ve ever seen, at least from the outside — and that includes the Notre Dame (though perhaps it’s unfair to judge that one, as I saw it from behind a construction fence), the Sacré Coeur, St. Peter’s in Rome, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

That evening, we tried to go out to an ice bar, where the entire room is supposed to made of ice, but the ice room ended up being closed. We instead headed to a different cocktail bar, which was motorcycle themed, though that wasn’t really any of our styles. I enjoyed my martini though.

Finally, after a long day, we headed home and slept possibly as well as I ever have in my entire life in a foreign country in a bed that’s not my own.

That’s about it for today. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my life during my semester abroad in the Paris, France. Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest,Instagram, Facebook, Bloglovin, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Blouse: H&M

Turtleneck: FreePeople

Jeans: Hollister

Coat: A vintage shop in Budapest  (thrifted)

February 15, 2020 – Frankfurt with a ‘U’ (OOTD #608)

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Sciences Po winter break: day 1

Here it is: the first day on my whirlwind week-long backpacking trip though Europe.

I know “backpacking through Europe” normally refers to longer trips — weeks or even months — and it’s probably better that way. I would have loved to have months to travel, to actually get to spend more than 24 hours in each city I visited. But that sort of travel is expensive and time-consuming, and as a student, those are two adjectives that I can’t necessarily indulge in right now. One day, I’d love to go back and really live the nomadic lifestyle for a longer period of time. But for an only one-week winter holiday in the middle of a semester, I made the most of the time I had.

I hit seven countries in total in one week — Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary, Slovenia, Italy, and Spain. In each country, my friends and I had between 12 and 48 hours. Our shortest stop was Slovenia, with just a half day, and the longest stop was Spain, which I visited on my own at the end to see my friend Emma for two days.

Up first on our agenda, though, was Frankfurt, Germany. Notice the spelling there — Frankfurt, not Frankfort. Once again, as was the case with Versailles, there’s a city in Kentucky with a similar name to a much more famous European city. In this instance, though, the pronunciation is the same but the spelling is different.

I’ve been to Germany only once before, and that was on a day trip to kill time during a long layover. That time, I visited Munich, in what was my first visit to mainland Europe ever. I was there for Christmas Eve in what is possibly the most famous city for Christmas festivities (save, I suppose, for Bethlehem — which I’ve also visited — and the North Pole — which I have not).

This visit to Frankfurt was also very short. My friends and I — Megan, Margo, Ebba, and Garrett — all arrived via night bus from Paris in the morning, and we departed by evening for a night bus trip to our next destination. All in all, that probably means I’ve only ever spent 24 hours max in Germany in my entire life.

Frankfurt really only has one small part of town, Römerberg that looks like “traditional” Germany, with a big church and quaint little houses that look like they’re made of gingerbread and come out of a storybook. The rest of it looks like a modern city, with big skyscrapers and glass buildings. For my friends and, as tourists, this made it perhaps the least interesting city to visit. If I were a young German professional looking for a place to settle, though, I can absolutely see the appeal.

After taking photos in Römerberg (which was practically empty and devoid of tourists, since we were there at 9AM on a Saturday morning in the middle of winter), we stopped for breakfast before making our way across the famous Eiserner Steg footbridge that’s covered with love locks. I know that basically every European city has that — a bridge that’s covered in locks for couples to figuratively represent their love by placing a lock on a beam and then throwing away the key, essentially the European equivalent of carving your names in a heart on a tree — but I think they’re cute anyway.

In the afternoon, we checked out a thrift shop where I almost bought a beautiful dress (only regretfully putting it away because it was slightly big), a food market, and a botanical garden. Then, we tried to visit the roof of one of the tall skyscrapers in order to get a panoramic view of the city from above, but we were disappointed to discover that the line was too long to make it worth it.

But that was okay because we were hungry and exhausted from walking all day (and from having slept on a night bus — a common theme you will find through all of these retrospectives), and so we decided to get some dinner. After trying one tavern that had good reviews online only to find that it was full, we picked one across the seat and ate a meal of sausages, spaetzle, and beer.

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After dinner, we were off to the station to catch our next night bus to Prague. Though a bus is certainly not the ideal way to sleep, I think we were all so exhausted that we crashed almost immediately once we sat down in our seats.

As a final note: here’s the link to the Spotify playlist I created for the whole trip. There are songs meant to represent each country we visited. Give it a listen!

That’s about it for today. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my life during my semester abroad in the Paris, France. Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest,Instagram, Facebook, Bloglovin, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Top: Express

Trousers: Express

Coat: A vintage shop in Budapest  (thrifted)

February 8, 2020 – La Campagne de Champagne (OOTD #607)

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For my non-French speaking readers, the title here means “champagne country” — of course, “champagne” is a pretty obvious direct translation, but “campagne,” which means “country” or “countryside,” is less so. They rhyme, which is fun — making them a good combination for a fun blog title.

Once again, I have a blog that features a short day trip that I took over the weekend to get away from Paris. I promise, I’ll get back to Paris soon — though it may take several more posts. Up next is my week-long “ski holiday” from school, and I’ve got seven countries worth of photos to talk about before I work my way back around to home base.

This time, the second weekend after classes began, my friends and I visited Reims, a small town a short bus ride outside of Paris in the middle of Champagne country. I actually didn’t really want to go at first — I was feeling really under the weather, and I knew everyone would wan to go on a champagne tour, and I had pretty much completely lost my sense of taste and smell from congestion.

Or at least, I thought it was just the congestion at the time — but looking back at February 2020 from my perspective writing now in December 2020, I’m not convinced I didn’t actually have COVID. Back then, COVID was just a distant news story from China. It had barely touched Europe, or at least it wouldn’t in any kind of substantial capacity for at least another few weeks, and I’m not even sure we’d recorded our first case yet in the US. I had a stuffy nose and a cough and a headache, but at the time, there was no reason for me to believe it was anything outside of a regular cold that came from traveling to a new country and being exposed to new germs. Simpler times, I suppose.

Whether it was COVID or not, I guess I’ll never know. I did decide to travel to Reims anyway, despite feeling a little ill (not something I would ever do now!) because I didn’t want to miss out on a group bonding trip. I’d enjoyed our trip to Bordeaux quite a bit, though I thought the group was slightly too big. The cohort for Reims was a little smaller and more intimate — perfect for traveling. There were enough of us that you always had someone to talk to, but small enough that it wasn’t like pulling teeth to make a decision or dragging our feet hauling a massive crowd around.

We’d had the pleasure in Bordeaux of being able to take a guided walking tour in the morning before our wine tour, but there was no such thing in Reims. Instead, one of our friends, Liam, who’d done an exchange in Reims when he was in high school, took us around to the major sights. We saw a church (also called Notre Dame, interestingly), a castle museum, and stopped in a bakery for croissants — typical European city tourist things.

In the afternoon, we went on a champagne tour, the main attraction of Reims. Unfortunately, I still didn’t have my full sense of taste and smell, so I wasn’t able to enjoy the actual tasting quite as much as I would have liked. I’m no connoisseur of drinks though, so I’m not sure how much of a difference it would have made. All champagne kind of tastes the same to me.

Don’t tell the people of Reims I said that, though. Their city really was lovely — It wasn’t crawling with tourists, unlike Paris or even, to a lesser extent, Bordeaux. Reims reminded me in many ways of Vichy, another small-ish town that I’d visited back at the start of 2019. That feels so long ago now.

That’s about it for today. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my life during my semester abroad in the Paris, France. Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Bloglovin, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Sweater: Thrifted (Free’p’star Paris)

Jacket: Thrifted (Free’p’star Paris)

Skirt: Abercrombie

February 3, 2020 – A Hill to Die On (OOTD #606)

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Montmartre rivals the Great Wall of China I think in the amount of steps I had to climb at a tourist spot.

Well, actually, come to think of it, there was a temple in Nepal that was supposedly 1000 steps to the top that I tried to climb, but it ended up getting dark before we made it up more than a few hundred. To be honest, I’m not sure I could’ve made it up all 1000, so I was grateful for the sunset giving me a valid excuse to bow out from the hike.

This was actually the second time I visited Montmartre within my first week or two in Paris — the first time, though, it was dark and I was there with my Welcome Programme group to visit a bar. I didn’t even bother trying to see Sacré Coeur, the grand church atop the hill, because I figured there wasn’t anything to see in the night.

The second time, though, I visited in the day — a much more appropriate time to visit, in my opinion. For one, you’re at much less risk of tripping and twisting your ankle as you climb up the steps. And secondly, you can actually see the beautiful surrounding neighborhood.

I wouldn’t call Montmartre the most spectacular view of Paris, as you can’t clearly see the Eiffel Tower, which is, of course, the most famous landmark of the Parisian skyline. Unfortunately, however, since my time in Paris was cut short due to COVID and I wasn’t able to make it to all of the tourist spots I’d wanted to visit (including the top of the Arc de Triomphe or the Eiffel Tower, where some of the best skyline views of the city can supposedly be had), Montmartre ended up being the only skyline view I got.

More impressive than the skyline view (or the Sacré Coeur Basilica, in my opinion — Sacré Coeur seemed to be more spectacular from the outside than I think it really was inside), was the cute little artist community that the neighborhood is known for. People talk about the Montmartre area of Paris for its small town feel in the middle of a big city, and I think that description is deserved.

I wouldn’t call Paris a “hustle and bustle” kind of a city — not like New York — but it certainly can be overwhelming at times. It can be crowded and dirty in places and full of tourists. That was what I liked best probably about my short visit to Bordeaux the previous weekend — that I was away from the business of the city. While Montmartre was certainly still busy and full of tourists (what a world pre-COVID times were), it still felt a little more charming and cozy than downtown Paris. Paris is beautiful and elegant and glamorous — but “cozy” it really is not, save for a few places like Montmartre.

That’s about it for today. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my life during my semester abroad in the Paris, France. Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Bloglovin, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Top: Amazon

Jacket: Thrifted (Free’p’star Paris)

Skirt: Forever21