Last Day

Well today was my last day at the office. And it was an interesting day, I needed to do a presentation about my internship in the afternoon, so in the morning I spent most of the time cleaning my desk, backing up my files, throwing away my sketches and notes (which I DO have scanned), and running over what I was going to say during my 30 minute presentation in my head.

It also caused me to look back at the past 3 months, and the past 3 years. I think it's pretty crazy, how far I've come. I mean, sure, I know that tons of people go to university, and tons of people get "real" jobs or internships. But let me be excited about my life for a second, I think that it's pretty great that I basically stumbled upon my university program (through my desire to be .. different or difficult and go to Dawson, which led to my discovery of their ID program, then the actual industry and then the Carteton BID Program). And I vividly remember, sitting in the information session, having the director boast that students have done internships in NYC, Japan and... Holland. I thought that was sooo cool. And here I am, 3 years (or four perhaps) later and I've just finished my internship here in Venlo. Nbd.

I also think it's awesome that this dose of reality has made me much more excited about going back to school, and eventually getting a job. I'm so happy that, as of now, it looks like what I wanted to do when I was 15 turns out to actually be what I want to do, especially since in this day and age, people change majors.. alot.

Back to my last day of work. To my happy surprise on the way into work I ran into one of my favourite co-workers that was supposed to be on vacation, she was in the office for just 2 days, so I was pleased to get to say good-bye to her, and she got to see my presentation, which was nice, because a lot of people were on vacation. Having finished most of my work on Monday, I took an actual hour lunch, which is a rarity, and my fellow intern told me  that he would miss me, because he was the only intern left. It really feels like yesterday (but was 2 months) that there were 4 interns, and we were joking how we would leave one by one, until there was just one left. Well that day has come! Too bad for him, alone at our shared table-island.

After lunch, I tried (in vain!) to reduce my 74 page report to a reasonable file size without reducing the resolution of the pictures and making my drawings look like they had been soaked in water. But they can deal with the massive size and reduce it as they see fit.

I think I am a pretty good bad public speaker. I mean there are tons of people that love giving presentations and want to be politicians or something. But, I get nervous, I hate it, I feel like the world is ending and I never remember what I say because it is such a rush. But, I never die. So today, I didn't die. Because of that I think the presentation went well. And at this rate, with me not dying and all, perhaps I will eventually get over my fear.

But after the presentation it was great. I had made some Canadian Nanimo Bars, which actually didn't really turn out much like Nanimo Bars (but they don't know that, and they still tasted good) and so everyone tried some "Canadian" dessert, and I got to say good-bye, and everyone said how nice I was, and I said how nice it was to work there. I got some nice advice for my trip. My mentor even got me a little going away present, which was super nice:

Nice and compact, Perfect for Travelling

 Although, honestly, the "last day" of work isn't the best feeling in the world, it's like, sorta strange. Next time I might pull a Micheal from The Office, and leave a day early to avoid good-bye. Which I actually almost did here, because until Friday I thought that my last day was Wednesday. But if you leave without saying good-bye, you don't get cool Swiss Army Knife Card things.

I also got to leave work early, which was fun. I was going to ask the receptionist if I could keep my badge as a souvenir, but then I offered her a square and totally forgot. I have gotten to know the receptionists a little because everyday I need to get a bicycle key from them. Not today though, I walked home. I thought about taking the bus, but thought, why not walk. So I took a small detour around the back of the Complex and along the Maas.

Near work, Cutting through the fields to the path along the water. 

Sheep are in the background, and are the cutest!

Burrs with flowers. They were the bee's favourite

I was sad to see the sign violated :(

She is rocking the polka-dots, but its gum.. ew

Paris Part 2: Museums

So during my stay in Paris, I got the Museum Pass, which was 54 Euros for 4 days. Only after I had bought the Pass did I realize that I was, in fact, an under 26 resident of the EU (not technically, but Sarah said my Visa would probably have worked okay), and that would have gotten me into pretty much every museum for free. But in an effort to justify my dropping a large sum of money on this Pass, it is worth mentioning it did save us alot of time with Ticket-Buying and Line-Ups (most notably at the Louvre and Chateau Versailles), I'm not sure if a couple hours in a line is worth 54 Euros, but it might be. In chronological order I will relay my exciting museum experience in Paris, overall it has to be the busiest bunch of museums I've ever been in.


Orangerie.
This mueseum is on the opposite side of the tuileries(Gardens) in front of the Louvre. We actually weren't planning on going here at all, except that as we were leaving in the morning, with the Louvre as our first stop in the city of lights, I said to Sarah. "Hey how about we try to buy our museum pass somewhere else before we go to the Louvre, I bet there is going to be a massive line up." And that's how we ended up at the Orangerie. There was no line up!

We spent very little time in this museuem, this is an art museum with the main feature being Claude Monet's Waterlilies. With our Rick Steve's book in hand we hit the big sutff, like the lilies and some Cezanne. The fun part of Waterlilies is that they were actually painted for the Orangerie, so they weren't taken from some other place and plopped into the museum, but were actually painted on the huge canvases with this place in mind. But honestly, it's pretty underwhelming. I think it might be because I don't really "get" impressionism, or maybe it's because the guy was going blind, but the lilies, didn't really resemble lilies all that much. I am still happy that I was able to go and see the waterlillies though, lilies in general being my favourite flower, and we also discovered that we didn't really want to pay too much attention to the Rick Steves book, so that was a good learning experience, because I think we would of died actually trying to find stuff at the Louvre....

Louvre.

Outside the Louvre

So this place is MASSIVE. And (thankfully- for my own justification of paying 54 Euros and detouring to the Orangerie) the line was also MASSIVE. But with our handy dandy museum pass we just skipped right on through. Unfortunately, the same can't be said about the line for the bathroom once inside. But it did give me a bunch of time to read the map and decide which direction to head off in first.

The wannabe historian I am, I wanted to see the history of the Louvre, a section of the museum that probably gets ignored quite a bunch. I thought it was pretty cool, but definitely could have been done WAY better. A section like this, that relies mostly about the story it is telling rather then the artifacts themselves, needs to have way more interaction, display boards, and all in all, design. The section had old pieces of columns and architecture from previous incarnations of the building, and also cool diaromas that showed the Louvre through the centuries and how it transformed into how it looks today (completed in 1989).

After that section, I wanted to head over to the French art and paintings, however, somehow we got sidetracked to Greek statues. They were pretty sick too. But mostly, we just saw people, people and more people (it is the most visited art museum in the world). So, then we decided that actually looking (and fighting through crowds) for something that I had arbitrarily picked only 20 minutes earlier was pretty silly. We decided to wander throught the Louvre like water, chosing the path of least resistance, because seriously, everything in that place was pretty darn cool, and there was absolutely no way we could see it all. I really enjoyed the architecture and the decoration of the building itself. It was a royal palace and all.

Lotsa people :)

However, before we left, I did decide to be a tourist, and said that I should probably see Leonardo's Mona Lisa. That was like swimming upstream and drowning in people. Oh well, you only need to do it once and you've done it. Now I can sound all sophisticated, " I really think nothing compares Leonardo's skill in creating the Mona Lisa, have you seen it in person? Oh I have, it's absolutely divine" But actually that is the silliest way to sound sophisticated, because people that have seen the Mona Lisa aren't exactly an exclusive club.

But case you do want the experience of seeing the Mona Lisa:

And now you have basically seen it, through bullet proof glass. 

And then we were all museumed out for the day?

NOPE we went to the:


Conciergerie
I am not really sure if this is classified as a museum, but it isn't a church, definitely not food, and I really feel like landmark would be pushing it.  It also did have handy dandy information pamphlets and info plaques around, so museum works.

Inside the conciergerie

The Conciergerie is, from what I gathered, an old "jail" building (although on my museum pass it lists it as a former palace.. which I don't think I gathered from my visit). It's actually where Marie Antoinette was held before she was killed for treason. When I say jail, I don't mean prison, I think it is more where people are held, not where they serve their sentence. So drunks and the like (and the queen). The concierge is the guy who's in charge of it all, keeps the keys, makes sure everyone is fed, etc etc.
Beside the Conciergerie is the Palace de Justice, which is like, an actual building still in use. 

Courtyard at the conciergerie

And the:


CRYPTS
This was another museum that people just walk by, or over. Located underneath the square at Notre-Dame it showcases the old remnants of buildings that used to be at the same place. We went in to get the most out of our museum pass, not something that was on our top list. But I was also excited for Sarah to go to new places that she had never been before either. It was similar to the History of the Louvre in terms of "this could be so cool, but in Paris they just put objects in a room write up an info card and call it a museum."

So that was the end of our day one Museum adventure! On to day two!

Chateau Versailles. 

Line up outside of the chateau

Definitely one of my favourite things that I saw in Paris, and it isn't even really in Paris! I can see why King Louis the whatever decided to pick-up his court and move it out there, it's awesome, I say.
Originally I wasn't sure if I was going to go here, it's pretty out of the way (40 minute train from Sarah's place) but I am so happy I did. I just want to gush about how beautiful it was, and how big! So many rooms and we didn't even see Marie Antoinette's Palaces/Estate, that is a 30 minute walk through the gardens.

So this one we actually did need to wait in a big line to get in, but it was nice that we didn't need to wait in the other huge line to buy tickets. There was (no surprise) a vast amount of people, and when I say vast, I mean there were tons and they were everywhere, spread all along the horizon. So, taking into consideration the traffic the place gets, I suppose they actually did a lot right in making my experience not suck and a re-creation of the room with the Mona Lisa in it.

A very decorated room in chateau Versailles

Basically, when you go in, you can pick up a free Audio Guide. From that point on, you can go on the main tour through the different rooms. The Audio guide will either automatically start playing when you walk into the room, or you will need to input the number. But throughout the tour, you really don't get a lot of choice or chance to wander, it's pretty linear from one room to the next. We started in a series of rooms that had video and audio with a history of Versailles and then continued through the different rooms, with the audio guide telling us what the paints/decoration were and also the function and any history of the room. One of the coolest rooms was the hall of mirrors, which has 11 or 13 (I can't remember) windows with the same number of mirrors facing them, so it is nice and bright and pretty. And the room is decorated like crazy, just like every other inch of the place. A fun fact is that the mirrors were made in France (along with pretty much everything else in there) except at the time Italy had a monopoly on mirror making, so they sent someone to assassinate the Italian artisan who had made the mirrors in France, to protect the trade secret in their production methods. 

Hall of Mirrors

The chateau also features a whole bunch of modern art. I could take it or leave it personally, it doesn't exactly fit with the 18th century decor, but I suppose some people really dig it, plus apparently there have been some really controversial stuff featured there (and people love controversy).

We had planned on seeing the Gardens and also Marie Antionette's Estate, but since it was the weekend there were musical water shows going on in the Gardens and our museum pass didn't cover that. We debated seeing the gardens anyways, but we were tired and decided, instead, to boogey back to Paris and try and see another museum before they all closed. So I snapped some pictures from outside the entrance and we hurried back to Paris and the......

Musee D'Orsay

This museum is housed in an old train station and probably the best atmosphere. We discussed it, and the reason is probably that photographs aren't permitted. It was still busy enough, but just way.. calmer. This was my favourite art museum (ever, not just in Paris), I got to see a whole bunch of pieces and artists that I learnt about in Art History classes, Monet, Manet, Renoir, Delacroix, Degas the list really goes on and on. The French really did do art right. Sarah was pleased with the pre-impressionist Monet and I personally really like Manet, so we were pleased all around! Another thing I really liked is that this place wasn't huge, we pretty much saw all the French art, skipping over the arts decoratif (Vases, pretty much). If you took any art classes in school, this museum is a must, it probably holds like half of the paintings you'll study (the other half will be in the MoMA in NYC)

Musee D'Armee

Outside the Invalides where the Musee D'armee is situated

Fabulous Museum. Huge museum, but just so cool! It is housed in the Invalides and outlines the French war history. I dished out 4 Euroes for the audio-guide and it was worth it. It was actually an Ipod, so it was an app that had different categories and a map integrated all into one. Good intent, semi poor execution, I pretty much ended up using it like a normal audio guide (punch in the numbers) even though I felt like there was more that it could do, I just wasn't sure how. But really audio-guides like that are a step in the right direction. Plus I am always frustrated with museums and exhibitions that have additional content on the web via QR codes or the like, because I don't have a smart phone and I feel like I miss out. So having an audioguide like this is definitely better. 

 

U.S recruitment poster, Golden dome of the Invalides.

We started out in the World Wars section, and Sarah left to get burn cream, so I wandered through there for a while, learnt a whole bunch about WWI, grazed through WWII because we learned a lot about it in school. The part I was really excited about was the french revolution, so the next section I saw was Louis VII - Napoleon III. However the downfall to this museum is that the signage was horrible, I walked around far too much before actually finding my way into the exhibit. Once inside I found out that France has been at war with pretty much everyone, it has ruled and sucked at times, and sadly when I left the exhibit, (when Sarah re-joined me and we were hungry), the French were kinda failing hardcore with the downfall of Napoleon, so that will be how I will, forever, imagine the French militia. 

I think I enjoyed the history aspect of the museum, because most of the artifacts and such were uniforms, weapons or similar. They did have a map explaining the situation, which was cool though!

Pompidou

Outside of the Pomideau

Another SUPER COOL museum. The atmosphere was less museum, which was cool, as it actually is an art centre, rather then just a museum. The building itself was unique looking, with the stairs on the outside in a tube. My feet were tired, and one of the only reasons I went there was to use the bathroom, so for the first while I spent time in the media center, where they had a bunch of computers where you could watch those art videos that no one ever understands and are normally in black and white or at least are made to look at least 20 years old. I watched a 20 minute video of a french couple talking and two scenes were juxtaposed together between them being happy and their relationship malfunctioning. Didn't understand, but my feet were less sore by then, so I saw the rest of the museum. And the rest of the museum was really cool, less like the other, older museums in Paris, and more like a modern art Gallery. I took my time and stayed until closing (9 o'clock!!). I do wish I had taken time to check out the rest of the centre though, because they have a library there too, and a second gallery (that I think has more work by people, you know... alive.) Definitely a place to check out after the rest of museums in the city are closed if you have the energy to have a really full day.

Hallway to the entrance

I like Olympia in Black face, by Larry Rivers. 

(I saw the original Olympia at Musee D'orsay) 

And so concluded my Museums in Paris, I hope that I didn't forget to mention any, but if I did I am sure it's because it wasn't that amazing. I almost forgot to mention the Crypts, which was not the amazing, but now you know. Next up will be Churches!! 

Noord Brabant

Noord Brabant.

Yesterday, I had a bit of an adventure. But a very fun one! It started out a bit rocky (and wet!) but in the end it was really nice and fun. I went to go visit my mother's cousins, in Noord Brabant. They are on the farm, about 3 hours away from where I live in Venlo, right by the border of Zeeland.

The thing about farms are they aren't the most convenient to get to, so the closest train station is about 16 km away from where they live. So being the silly sport I am, I decided to take the train and then my bike to their place. It was actually a great idea, but the fact that is was raining put a little damper on my plans. However, stubborn as I ever was, I prevailed, and showed up to their place pretty darn wet. Agnet, lovely as always, gave me a change of clothes and then I got to see the family farm.

I actually remember visiting their old farm in Pijnacker about 11 years ago (I think! Correct me if I am wrong mother!), but since then they have relocated so that they could expand. It was by far the coolest farm I've been on, not that I have been on many farms really. Here they do mostly diary farming, with a bit of corn,( the former owners of the company didn't do diary farming at all). The farm was big, they have about 200 cows, and a bull (lucky dude). The cool part is that the milking is pretty much all automatic, and when I say pretty much, I mean completely. So instead of doing it manually (and when I mean manually, I still mean automatic) the process is streamlined and the cows are milked 24hrs a day, and when I say that, I don't mean that cows are constantly hooked-up and being milked. There are 3 automatic milking machines that take one cow at a time to milk. Each cow is milked 2-4 times a day, and does so whenever it wants to, with the incentive stemming from the powerfeed it gets in the milking station and the relief they feel from being milked. So these cows pretty much have the life, they can sleep when they want, wander when they want, sadly they don't graze, but they just chill out, and whenever they feel their titties hanging low they can dish out 10kg of milk at the milking machine(24 hours of the day!! this place is like NYC, open alll the time) .

Automatic Milking Machine

Barn

I could go on for hours about the farm and the process, I asked tons of questions because I really found it so cool. The amount of automation (and the amount of information kept in their ID necklace) was astonishing for me, it was really cool. However, it is kind of chilling when I think how easily they could do this to humans (Brave New World anyone). However as much as Big Brother is creepy, wouldn't it be cool if there were statistics about everything you do(I'm sure google has this, and really, I don't care, but I'd LOVE to see mine!) , and you get fed exactly what you need, it's also pretty similar to the last book in the hunger games, district 13.

2 week old cow!

Baby Cows are so cute. Just thought I would add that one in. There was a 2 week old calf and it was adorable, I let him suck on my finger. Also cows only have bottom teeth, fun fact that I didn't know until today.

Other then being completely fascinated by the normal farming activities, we had tea and had some lunch (sandwiches, who'da guessed it, in the netherlands) and I learnt a few more dutch words. Agnet and John have five children, but only 2 of them are living with them in De Heen, the two youngest 11 and 13. Denis, the 13 year old had a friend staying with him from Pijnacker for a couple days.

The Family and Dennis' friend Eric. 

Paris Part 1: Summary

This past weekend I was lucky enough to be able to take 2 days off work and go on a 4 day mini holiday to the most visited city in world, Paris. Paris is roughly a 4.5 hour train ride from Venlo. Connecting the Netherlands to Paris is a highspeed train that runs from Amsterdam or Rotterdam through Brussels to Paris’s Gare Nord. However, due to my very convenient location, I didn’t take the train from the Netherlands, but instead hopped on 4, short, intercity trains to Brussels and took a 1 ½ hour highspeed Thalys train to Paris. The whole weekend was pretty jam-packed with activities, because Paris has a lot to see. I will first tell you what I did, and then I'll let you know how I felt about it.

Thursday
Leaving work about thirty minutes early, I arrived in Paris at 10:30 at night. I would now take the time to gush about how fun the train ride was, but I may do another post entirely about my train travel in Europe, and writing about Paris is probably more interesting anyhow.

I met up with Sarah at the train station, and took the subway back to her apartment in the 15th district. Her apartment was pretty darn small. I don’t mean to insult her living conditions/lifestyle, but I don’t think I could live in a space that small with another human being. At least there was a double bed, which was an improvement to the single bed we shared when she visited me.

So her modest and tiny place consisted of a kitchen area, which was hidden behind the front door, a small bathroom (with a washing machine and shower, no bath) and a main living area, which for the most part was a futon. I got to meet her boyfriend, who was really nice. He made us tea and slept on the floor so I could have the bed, so that’s pretty nice.

So on Friday, we woke up semi-early (we were both pretty tired, me from taking the train the day before and Sarah from showing her friend around Paris the day before. She should get paid for her travel guiding people around this beautiful city. Trying to avoid the weekend-traffic, we went to the Louvre, Orangerie museum, the tuliteries and ate lunch in a park, wandered through the city a bit, went through the Gallerie Vero Dodat, went to Saint-Michel Square and then found ourselves at Notre-Dame. We walked through The Notre-Dame then a few blocks over, went to Saint-Chapelle and the Conciergerie (at the Palace of Justice), headed back to Notre-Dame where we saw the line-up for the clock tower tour, decided to save it for another time, before checking out the crypts below the Notre-Dame Square. We went back to her place to make some French Galettes and then climbed the Arc de Triomph to watch the sunset and got some cliche snaps of the Eiffel tower.

Saturday we decided to go see Chateau Verseilles, which is about half an hour outside of Paris. It is a MASSIVE chateau and gardens. Because of the rain headed our way we decided to skip the gardens (and save 6 Euros) to head back to Paris and check out the Musee D'orsay. Staying until Closing time we then wandered toward the Eiffel Tower (I ate some Chinese on the way). Once my stomach was satisfied (and Sarah's less so, due to here egg, gluten, diary free diet) we took the 500-some stairs to the second deck of the Eiffel Tower. We stayed there until twilight and then headed back to her place with the intention of a movie and sister time, but we called it an early night (almost immediately).


SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY!
So to avoid buying food again, Sarah decided to make a yummilishous rice dish to bring with us. Sadly, she did this right after I had made myself a galette for breakfast, and while checking if the element was hot by putting her entire palm on it, she burnt the ba-jesus out of it. After putting it in cold water for a while, she put on a brave face, and we headed out to the Musee d'armee. A museum that I was particularly excited for. It featured, you may have guessed it, war! It was the history of war in France from Louis the VII to the end of WWII. I dished out 4 Euros for the interactive Audio Guide. Sadly, Sarah's burn was worse then originally thought, so she left to go get some cream from the pharmacy to alleviate her pain. After getting lost, and help from her boyfriend to find an open pharmacy, she returned to my side about 1.5 hours later and at the end of the French revolution. She was frustrated, and I was a bit bored with the museum, we quickly went to the tomb of Napoleon and the Domed Chapel before eating lunch outside. We wandered and saw some other Paris things, like Pont Alexandre. In the evening, I went to check out the Pompidou Center and Sarah headed back to her place for a nap and dinner and she saw her boyfriend who had been out of town all weekend.

So I walked to the Pompidou, which is different area of Paris, took my time, and stayed til closing. Then walked back to the Saint-Michel area where I grabbed a shawrma and sat on the Seine before meeting up with Sarah. We were going to go to the clock tower of the Notre-Dame, but it was closed *Sad face here* so instead we walked along the Seine to watch the sunset.  Sarah's need for a Bathroom led us to a cafe where I had an expensive beer before heading home again (but not after a couple of Sarah's long exposure night shots)


MONDAY!
I had my train at 3:30 in Paris Nord, so we took the opportunity to see Sacre-Coeur in the Montemarte District. This involved more stairs to the highest point in Paris, and a very nice view of the skyline. We wandered around the district, where we saw another church and a park. Saw the famous Moulin Rouge then subwayed to the train station where I enjoyed a French Crepe before leaving Paris in my Highspeed Train.


So because I haven't been blogging much, in my effort to blog more, I will take Paris and split it into multiple blog posts. Here was my first one, that summed up everything (rather quickly and without much thought) but there will be ones specifically about the museums, the Churches, Landmarks and the food. Hopefully I'll get them all posted before the month is over. So that I won't have a backlog once I have started my Europe Trip in August.