Lame Story, Bastogne, Castles, and the Winery

Jerry Seinfeld: You kept making the stops?!
Cosmo Kramer: They kept ringin’ the bell!!

American Song of The Week: Theme song from Beauty and The Beast over the P.A. in Cactus (Wal-Mart).

This week’s travel tip(s): Expect the Unexpected, and when it happens turn it into a positive. A train will be missed, a bus will be missed, the credit card will get turned down, the ATM won’t give you any money, the German lady with the broken finger in front of you in line at the cell phone store will try to speak English with the luxembourgan worker and take much longer than she should, the iced tea will be carbonated, the french fries will be served with mayonnaise dipping sauce instead of ketchup, Diekrich beer can be bought at McDonald’s, when you return an electronic item you will be treated like a potential terrorist, and the girl that was hitting on you will have a boyfriend, ok so that’s a joke but everything else is true. So the positives…the mayonnaise dipping sauce is excellent, if the ATM won’t give you money then you can’t waste money, because the German lady was trying to speak English it caused me to miss my bus and I got to experience the following.

So the story about missing the bus…I’m at a Cactus (Wal-Mart) and it was supposed to be a quick trip because luckily it was a night with no homework so I was supposed to meet some friends for a little while. Well in this country small specialty stores all close at 6 PM. Large stores such as Cactus close at 8 PM, this is still taking some getting used to. A little side note, but the ministry of foreign affairs office in Lux City, who I have to deal with to legally be here told me they are only open from 8:30 AM-10:00 AM…they laughed and said no when I asked if that included Saturday. So anyway back to the original story, I finally get finished at Cactus after many unnecessary delays and run out front to catch the bus. Well of course as I’m running up to the bus stop it is pulling away….the next bus doesn’t come for 30 minutes. I then decide to sit down next to the lady at the stop who is eating her apple and has absolutely no intention of speaking with me, as is the culture here, no one ever smiles or says hello to strangers. So she’s eating her apple and I decide to pull out a slim jim, some chocolate filled crackers, and my surprisingly carbonated iced tea, still haven’t adjusted to that either.The bus finally comes and takes us through a couple stops in an affluent part of town. We come to a stop and a man and woman, about age 55, stand up to get off. All of a sudden the woman starts screaming at the bus driver in what I assume is French. She was screaming because as I look back the man (her husband?) is standing outside the bus with his wrist caught in the door and his hand inside the bus. Fortunately he did not appear to be in any pain but was more concerned about keeping his wife from cold cocking the bus driver. All I can think of is Elaine standing outside the subway with her arm stuck in the door and somebody walks by on the subway and takes her gyro out of her hand. Anyway, the bus driver finally explains to the woman that the doors automatically close and there was nothing he could do. The best part about this story was that the man was standing with his arm stuck in the door and it appeared not to phase him in any bit. My sister Katy might say sarcastically, “wow, great story”, but I guess you just had to be there.

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday of last week (Sept. 4,5,6) were all orientation days either at the Chateau or various sites in Luxembourg. Friday’s orientation took some of us to Bastogne, Belgium. This is close to where the Battle of The Bulge was fought in WWII. The Nazis completely surrounded the city for miles but General George Patton and his men stood strong and held down the city, with the hardest times coming in late December 1946. On Christmas day of ’46 the men defending the city were told (and I paraphrase), ‘this is the greatest Christmas present you could give to your families and the people of America, fighting for freedom so they can enjoy their Christmas day. I apoligize for butchering this incredible quote. Eventually Hitler and his men retreated and the Allies/United States came one step closer to an overall victory.

Memorial at Bastogne for the U.S. soldiers.

There is a cemetery nearby where 6,800 German soldiers are buried. Allied countries such as Belgium are still very hostile towards Germans because of WWII. Since the cemetery is in Belgium it rarely has any visitors. If someone is a German veteran of WWII they do not mention so as you could imagine why.

Saturday was an action packed day that all of you would enjoy. The morning started off with Ian waking Collin and I up late. We missed the first bus so we were an hour late to school and missed our first orientation session. After lunch we split into our travel groups at the Chateau and my group headed off on a bus to Southeast Luxembourg. This put us in Schengen on the borders of both France and Germany.

Because of the Schengen treaty that was signed in 1985, all countries in the European Union have taken down their border patrol and customs between each other to make easy flow of traffic more possible.

Next we headed off to the St. Martin Winery. Incredible experience. The vineyards are all local and the winery does all of their work in a cave under the hillside. The pictures here do not give this place justice. We learned the entire fermentation process from a man that looked like Uncle Vernon from Harry Potter and then of course wrapped up with some samplings which lead many college students to making purchases.

The final leg of our tour lead us to the east coast of Luxembourg at el chateau de Vianden. This castle has been a possession that has been swapped many times between different countries since it is close to the border. It is approximately 700 years old and was built with one large addition about every 100 years. Austria in its hay day took it away from Luxembourg the most. Sorry for lack of history, it was a very quick trip.

An interesting side note, this sign below was posted in the window of a garage on the walk up the hill to the castle...

The bus then went back to the Luxembourg City fair. This fair began as a Shepherd’s fair for all the farmers to meet 663 years ago but is now simply your local carnival, but with excellent German food. I went with the Luxringer with sauerkraut and .25 Liters of a Bofferdinger to wash it down. We then left the fair and made a few stops at some local bars that of course played American music, just to a techno remix.

Sunday was family day. ‘Dinner’ was at 12:30 and took about three hours to eat. We first had a chicken noodle soup, followed by salad, then a wonderful zucchini filled with beef. Dessert followed and we had the choice of muffins, cookies, or a banana yogurt cream that was eaten only with a nice cup of coffee. Sorry Dad, I had to use more than one cream and one sugar to make my coffee enjoyable. Our family just returned home from vacation in Turkey where they brought back a bottle of black liquorish tasting liquor. This is the stuff I would give someone if I was trying to keep them from ever drinking alcohol again. We each had a little shot glass sized drink in which we were to sip. Things then split up a little and we returned not long after for grilled ham and cheese sandwiches and enjoyed about another hour of conversation following. Kevin was very excited to practice his English with us and Marie was very frustrated by the end of the night having to translate our English to french or german and then the kids and Shanni’s speaking to English. Another wonderful day!

Sorry for the length but again there was so much to say. A couple of hello’s:
Jim Slater: Collin’s cool even though he is from Hinsdale. Keep me updated on the Buckeyes b/c it’s going to be real tough to catch them here.
Kara: Keep me updated on all the fiestas of your life!
Brian: Thanks for all the blues music and sorry you can’t be taking African Roots in The Blues, GREAT class. Also keep the great stories coming!
Kyle & Donny: Keep me up to date w/ the ‘skins inside information, good stories like from Michigan, and your girlfriends.
Megan McGinnis, Miami U. class of 2013: See you at Miami next year and maybe you’ll be attending Luxembourg your junior year!