Western Europe Trip — Luxembourg

At long last — the last in the western europe trip series. The “Germany” category on this blog is quickly coming to its end. Expect a post or two about Amsterdam, and maybe a few retrospectives about my time in Europe, and that’s it. I liked blogging about my study abroad experience, but now feel like I could have done a much better job. And I wish it wasn’t dragging out like this, months after the fact.

Franktfurt
Paris
Brussels
Luxembourg

Luxembourg reminded me strongly of the last leg of the Eastern Europe trip — Estonia. Both Luxembourg City and Tallinn were remarkably small capitals, cold, with small populations and no real night life. Well, Tallinn probably had a better nightlife than Luxembourg City.

Anyways, unlike the previous posts, I can’t give a day by day write-up for Luxembourg. I left the itinerary for the trip at home, and can’t really remember what we did, exactly. This is probably for the best, since the other posts were a bit too methodical, dwelling on time frames instead of actual experiences.

Also probably for the best — We only spent one night in Luxembourg. We arrived Thursday, November 10th. To my recollection, it was already dark out when we arrived at our hotel. This hotel was very funny. It was on the outskirts of a small pedestrian shopping area. The rooms were small (stereotypical European hotel small), the building itself was very tiny, and while they offered a continental breakfast, they had no dining area to speak of. This meant that the night before, each lodger had to go to the front desk, and tell them what he wanted for breakfast (the only choice was between beverages) and when. Then, the next morning at the allotted time (for us; for some their breakfasts arrived late, or not at all), you opened your door and there was your breakfast, sitting at the doorstep. Free room service.

This night in Luxembourg, me and the roommate set out to find a late-night snack, and perhaps a bit to drink. It was hard to find either.

It was only about ten or eleven, but nearly everything was closed. A few token restaurants remained open, and we finally ate at some random Italian place. There were also a handful of bars, but nothing too inviting. There were other comparisons to be made with Estonia. The time we spent in Luxembourg, it was pretty cold, with a nice wind whipping about. That late in the year, it got dark early in Luxembourg (similar to Tallinn, where — compared to what I’m used to — it gets dark early pretty much year round). And there was hardly anyone walking around. Ever. But especially at night, this was true.

The day after, we had a lecture or two, to justify spending time in Luxembourg. There was a city tour, but I ducked out, intent to find some grub. We went to a Chinese buffet (all you can eat, in Europe — odd, no?) and were disappointed when we found out that nearly everything had meat in it. A lot of seafood, shrimp even in the rice. Ah well.

Sometime midday, on Friday, November 11th, we set back for Freiburg. I forget how long the drive was, somewhere between four and five hours would be my guess. We got back late, but a lot of us were glad to be back. This trip was expensive, and while we didn’t have the busy schedules that we had in eastern Europe, it had been a draining experience (a lot of time spent just traveling?). Combine all of this with the fact that a week or so after we got back, all of our term papers were due, and you’ve got a generally so-so tour of western Europe. Still, I can finally say I’ve been there.