First week of class – Complete!

Today started like my other days: I had breakfast consisting of coffee, yogurt, and muesli, spent 4 or 5 hours in the morning lounging in bed doing work, and then headed out for lunch. I wanted to get my bus pass, so I decided to walk to the Garer Quartier and purchase one on my way to lunch.  I took a different route this morning, as I had waited a bit late for lunch and was quite hungry.  Having seen a photo of the chilaquiles at a restaurant called Agave, I decided I’d stop there.  

Finding lunch

I walked that direction, through a much more modest neighborhood in the city, with lots of loud construction work going on.  The houses are nice, but not as ornate as the city center. So anyway, I passed a few restaurants and got to the Agave place…. and I just thought, you know, I’m not that homesick yet. Mexican food is like a meal of last resort when I just can’t put another cream-sauce-and-bacon-covered thing in my face.  And I am definitely not there yet. I remembered seeing a restaurant that had Kniddelen, which are large dumplings usually served in cream and bacon sauce, so I headed there instead. Oh well, at least I saw a new part of the city. 

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I got to the restaurant that I was thinking of, but on a Thursday, it was packed at lunch.  No longer the sleepy, half-empty place I saw on Sunday. So I was unable to eat there. Now, I’m walking around trying to find a third plan. I find a bar, the Metropolitan, that has some yummy looking tapas, so I go in for lunch. After I order a beer, I learn that the tapas menu is only served after 3 p.m. And it’s 2 p.m. So I browse their normal lunch menu, which is not super exciting. I settle on their special of the day, a beef carpaccio served with fries. This is actually a nice, relaxing light lunch. The carpaccio was surprisingly good, considering it was of the salt-and-herb variety, and I generally like the horseradish/dijon mustard type. I like a little kick to it. But this had some pickled artichokes, which didn’t go well with the dish and I just picked them off and ate them first. But then there was like… a Papa-Johns style herb/grated parmesan mixture over the whole thing, which was great. There were then large pieces of shaved parmesan, A+. There were some green olives to give it a bit of salt, and these pickled tomatoes that really made everything come together. They’re almost like sun-dried tomatoes, in that they have a very concentrated tomato flavor, but they’re still moist and have a lot of herb flavor to them. They’re almost like a pasta sauce unto themselves. Very yummy. 

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When I finished eating, it just 3 p.m., so I considered trying some of the tapas, but the waitress offered dessert and I instead went for the ‘pineapple carpaccio’.  I had to stick with the theme. This, however, was a huge mistake… possibly one among many. The pineapple wasn’t fresh pineapple, but it also wasn’t just normal canned pineapple.  It had been marinated in… something… something awful. It tasted very strongly of licorice, but was also a little spicy. Maybe this dish is not offensive to people who like licorice, but for me, this was a most undesirable outcome. So I ate the ice cream off of the top of the pineapple and tried to stack the thin slices on top of each other so it looked like I had eaten it. But man… I just couldn’t do it. 

Life comes at you fast…

I went back to my room to do some more work before class. Having a class that starts at 7 really messes up the dinner schedule, but leaves a lot of time for working. I just don’t know the transportation system well enough yet to go anywhere and be confident that I’ll be back in time for class, so I haven’t gone anywhere outside the city yet. After about an hour of work…. my insides just rebelled. Joe always laughs that I have the iron stomach and eat all of the street food when we travel. But today perhaps it caught up with me. Raw beef? Licorice? Mid-day beer? I dunno. Something disagreed with me. 

After an hour or so of discomfort, it was time to go to class. I went to my final class for the week, where we studied more interesting things about Luxembourg. More technical stuff about the rights of journalists and the state. The death penalty is outlawed here. We learned about how to vote and where the voting takes place and how parliamentary elections work. I was sitting in class and after about 30 minutes, I thought, oww, my shoulder hurts. Maybe I’ve been carrying my backpack too much. Then I noticed that everything hurt. My elbows resting on the table. My back against the chair. My sweater touching my arms. Oh yeah, I have aches and chills now. Dammit. 

To drink or not to drink

I had planned to go out after class. I got all dressed up and everything.  I wasn’t going to let a bit of upset stomach stop me. But maybe I should reconsider. And reconsider, I did. I thought about not going while I was sitting in class, trying to gauge my current health level while listening to a lecture. But, I thought, I might as well go. If I’m unsure, I might as well go because, if I’m sick tomorrow, then I definitely won’t go tomorrow, so maybe this is my last outing for a few days. 

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So after class, I put on my coat and multiple layers (it’s in the 30’s here (F)). And I thought about not going while I walked to the bus stop. And waited for the bus. And took my first bus to the bar I wanted to go to. A celebratory drink for completing my first week of classes. 

Lady Jane

I decided on the Lady Jane speakeasy. I found this place online before leaving for Luxembourg. It claims to be Luxembourg’s only speakeasy. And they are not kidding. I’ve been to American “speakeasy” type bars, and never come away thinking they were as cool as they thought they were. This one was different.  They have a weekly password and you have to join their facebook group in order to get the password every week. I, of course, joined a couple weeks ago. But I arrived at the address at 9:30 p.m. on a Thursday and had a very hard time even finding the entrance. There are so many places and so many doors. But… eventually I got there and it is exactly as forbidding as a speakeasy would have been. Quite unassuming, intentionally hidden, avoiding the coppers. The door is locked. No windows. And there’s a doorbell with a camera. You press the bell, and someone eventually asks you for the password and how many people you have. And then they buzz you in. So mysterious. 

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It’s up a very narrow spiral staircase, but when you arrive, it’s like being whisked away to a totally different place. The decor is somewhere between a Down the Rabbit Hole theme and full on green fairy hallucinations. In one corner is a tree with tiny bottles of Hendricks gin and teacups hanging from the branches. There are paintings of animals in clothing. A rabbit with a vest and a pocketwatch. There are tons of fake plants and stuffed animals: a fox, a peacock…. it’s just a rather exotic venue with old, comfy looking chairs and a secretive feel. 

The bartender is wearing a rather cool leather apron, but not a single hipster handlebar mustache can be found. There’s only one bartender, but only 10 people in the lounge, so service is pretty slow, but I really enjoyed watching the bartender craft each cocktail. He was really the star of the show, using all kinds of antiquated bar tools and techniques I’ve never seen anyone do. And no one was watching except me. I ordered a ‘Cardinal’, which was a fruity vodka based cocktail with bitter orange marmalade and several other ingredients I don’t quite remember. It was tart and tropical and delicious. But even if it hadn’t been delicious, it would have easily been the prettiest drink I’ve ever had.  I watched as the bartender filled my glass with ice, then put each of the drink ingredients, each carefully measured, into a cocktail shaker. He then dumped the ice from the glass (it was just to chill the glass), and strained the drink in through a very fine sieve. I suppose you don’t want any chunky orange marmalade in the drink. Then he took chopsticks and placed 3 cubes of ice into the glass, exactly where he wanted them. Then he made an orange peel spiral, slid a slice of papaya into the orange peel, and placed that on top as garnish. 

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They really invested in decor and in glassware, as well as really committed to hand-crafting each and every cocktail no matter how long the wait. These details really make it feel like a secret, special place. They are quite gin-forward on the menu (which is appropriate for the 1930’s but I am not a gin fan), but there are a decent number of other cocktails available. Whisky is definitely their week point, with Bulleit being their go-to (and that’s why I had a vodka cocktail). It was utterly freezing, and amusingly far too dark to take a bunch of photos of the cool stuff around. I tried my Pixel’s Night Photo option, with not a lot of success. 

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I also ordered a snack. I wasn’t super hungry, so I ordered apple and camembert hand pies. This was the perfect late night cocktail snack. The pies were actually just apple pies I think, but they come with a side of melted camembert and a side of cranberry sauce so you can dip them in melted cheese and take this traditional sweet into a new land of almost savory decadence. 

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Walking through the city at night

After a relaxing evening, I just walked back home instead of taking the bus. It was 20 minutes either way. On my walk, I snapped a few more photos of the city evolving into a Christmas wonderland.

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Resting

Exhausted, still aching, I crawled into bed at 11:30.  I didn’t bother writing a blog post. I just felt so miserable. And cold. Everything was cold. I pulled all of the blankets off of the bed and folded them in half so I’d have twice as many layers. I got up and put my long PJ’s on. I took some advil to help with the chills, and tried to get some rest to let my immune system take on whatever it was fighting. 

I woke up at 4 a.m. drenched in sweat. I rolled over and, more importantly than being hot and sweaty, I wasn’t aching. Rolling over didn’t hurt. My fever had broken. I kicked off my pile of blankets and rolled them into a Joe-shaped snuggle equivalent and I was able to finally get some sleep.  Maybe I just had a 24-hour stomach bug. Or was just exhausted. I barely dragged myself out of bed at 9 a.m. for breakfast, but I made it. I ate breakfast and went back to my room to start working, but I promptly slept until noon. And here I am, having spent the last couple of hours working and writing. Not yet out of bed (it’s 2:30 in the afternoon). But I think I’m going to be ok. I’ll stay here working for a while. I made dinner reservations for 6:30 tonight, and I’ll try to eat something cooked thoroughly.