Train to Ettelbréck Today was quite a long day, and I went to a ton of places, so get ready. I started out on the train this morning to visit Vianden Castle, in the far north of Luxembourg. It takes a train, a bus, and about an hour to get there. I started out finding a spot on the train and scrolling through my facebook feed on my phone… before looking up just as the train pulled out of the station and realizing what an amazing view you get from the train.  The train leaves town through a long elevated bridge and there are amazing views of the city. After…

After a whole week of just wandering around Luxembourg City and eating a very cheese-heavy diet, I’m sure everyone thinks that’s all Luxembourg has to offer. Not even close. Today, I was fortunate enough to have some locals (with a car(!)) show me around the Musel (Luxembourgish) River area, which is where many Luxembourgish wines come from. The Moselle (in English or French) River forms the border between Luxembourg and Germany, and even a tiny bit of the border between Luxembourg and France. This tiny river is a border that has affected our wine-related language. On the east side of the Moselle is Germany. Here, you can find lovely vineyards…

My first weekend in Luxembourg with no jet lag. I spent my morning wandering a different area of town. I started by visiting the Alima grocery store. I needed a bottle of water to carry around with me, as I’m finding myself always thirsty.  But I figure, since I’m here, maybe I’ll check out the market.  The market, similar to the Monop’ that I visited last time I was in the city, is quite small, more similar to a New York bodega than anything we would consider a supermarket. To find a giant market, you have to get pretty far outside of town. So I wandered the 4 or 5…

After a day of lounging and letting myself recover, I am ready to take on the world again. I slept until noon (which never happens). Even then, I stayed in bed, doing some… mildly frustrating… work things until 4 p.m.  I found a restaurant outside of town and decided to venture out for dinner. Nothing ever goes as planned.  The Plan There is a “National Brewery” of Luxembourg, Bofferding.  I’m not sure if this is an official designation or just what they call themselves. They do not offer tours in the winter months, bummer, but I think you can still visit and sample beers. This is definitely the most prevalent beer in…

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,…

After a stressful 6 months of studying and stressing about this test, here we are. It’s over and yet we have no closure and no results. Somehow, I’m ok with that, as the relief of not having to worry about it has washed over me.  Today will be a short day because I spent the first half taking this test, and the second half was spent recovering from the test.  After the test, I went back to my room, and just spent a couple of hours on the computer. Working, sending emails, just trying to give my mind time to calm down and not continue rehashing the 10 minute test.…

Today was the big day – the day I took the spoken part of the Sproochentest. A little background: the test is 2 parts, oral and listening. The oral part is 10 minutes long. You have to answer questions about a theme for 5 minutes, then describe a photo for 5 minutes. That’s it. 6 months of studying for a pretty subjective 10 minute test. (I am not a fan of subjective.) Then the listening part, which is in December, requires you to listen to a few news/radio clips and answer multiple choice questions about them. If you get more than 50% on the oral part, you pass the test…

My first civics class was today!  My last Luxembourgish lesson before the test tomorrow was today ?! I will try to keep today’s post brief because I need to study. Working I started off at a leisurely pace, chatting with Joe on the phone for half an hour before getting out of bed. Then I went downstairs for breakfast and immediately went back upstairs and crawled under the blankets. I sat in my PJs and worked for a few hours on some […redacted…] features. And can I just say I don’t know why I don’t do that more often.  I have a desk, of course. But staying in bed to…

Today will be, I guess, my first ‘normal’ day of life in Luxembourg. I had places to go and responsibilities and bureaucratic hoops and fun night life. After another pretty restless night, I got up this morning, had some chocolate muesli and raspberry yogurt for breakfast, then headed out for a 10 a.m. American Women’s Club  of Luxembourg meeting that I was invited to attend. It was a great way to meet some new people and chat in a relaxed atmosphere. Also there was a lot of great advice for adjusting to culture here. After that, I went back to my room and worked for a couple of hours until…

To sleep or not to sleep I managed to stay up until almost 8:30 p.m. last night, which was a good start. But someone in the house got up to use the restroom at around 1 a.m. and then I was awake. C’est la vie. Fortunately, 1 a.m. is mid-afternoon back home, so Joe and I spent some time chatting, which was nice. After 45 minutes or so, it became evident I wasn’t going back to bed any time soon, so we played some video games together. He called me and just chatted with me while I typed back to him, so as not to wake up anyone else. It’s…