My time in Belgium is really winding down; I've said most of my goodbyes at this point, and in less than twenty-four hours I will be on a plane back home. But I did manage to find time for one last adventure.
Tom spent last week in Liechtenstein at a conference retreat thing for his PhD, so, faced with the choice of spending a week alone in Gent or spending (part of) a week alone somewhere else, I chose somewhere else. My very generous and thoughtful brother Danny had offered me a round trip ticket to Paris as a Christmas gift, so I figured this would be the perfect time to cash in. As I had never traveled anywhere alone (without someone waiting for me on the other side), the whole prospect was a bit daunting, but I figured I would never gain the confidence to do it unless I proved to myself I could, so I booked my train ticket and two nights in a hostel, and tried to tell myself not to panic.
I was actually surprised at how easy it all was. It's no secret that transportation of almost any kind is an ongoing struggle for me, but being in Europe has given me at least a little bit of confidence in that area. Nonetheless, international trains, changing trains, changing stations, etc. all had me a bit stressed out. But I did it, got to Paris, and arrived at the hostel with minimal complications. I took the wrong streets a couple of times and almost got lost, but I did ultimately find my way with little trouble, so I consider that a success.
I didn't really have any specific plans for Paris, so once I was all settled in, I set out in the general direction of Sacré Cœur (since it was only ten minutes or so from my hostel), and just let myself get distracted on the way. I didn't ever actually make it to Sacré Cœur, though I did find this on the ground, so I must have been close:
What I did find was the Salvador Dalí museum, which was pretty cool.
This was one of my favorites. It's Isaac Newton, famous for the incident with the falling apple, leading to the basic understanding of gravity. The sculpture is supposed to represent Newton's legacy. According to Dalí, history has robbed Isaac Newton of everything he was as a person, and his whole life is summed up with this apple story. So in the sculpture, his mind and heart are just empty space, and he's sort of just an anonymous figure presenting an apple. Anyway, I found it really interesting.
This is a lobster phone.
I also took a whole lot of pictures that day of buildings and views and whatnot, but I'll just include a couple.
I can only interpret this sign as, "Sorry, no foot amputees allowed."
Usually when people learn a second language, they can understand much more than they can speak. This is how it is for me in Dutch; I can often follow a conversation but don't necessarily have the tools to respond the way I would like to. In French I have always had the opposite problem. I can speak French decently well (although long periods spent NOT speaking it tend to diminish these abilities a bit and it always takes a little while to get back into it), but I have the hardest time understanding it.
This was confirmed when I took a standardized French test a while back, and my scores were something like:
Reading: 23/25
Writing: 24/25
Speaking: 23.5/25
Listening: 12.5/25
Oops.
Anyway, I met some French people who I'm sure I could have had absolutely lovely conversations with, except I could hardly understand them. Oh, I caught words here and there, and I understood when they told me I had wonderful pronunciation and spoke French much better than I thought I did, but all of that was a bit useless when they'd talk to me about a building or the weather or something, and I'd just stare back blankly.
Even my speaking was hindered a bit by the fact that I have spent so long in a Dutch-speaking country. Yes, French is one of Belgium's official languages, and even Flemish Belgians learn French in school, but by and large they do not want to speak it. They much prefer speaking English. (Try explaining this to the French, though, who are quite superior about their own language and don't understand how anybody could prefer to speak anything else.) Anyway, though I have a hard time speaking Dutch in Belgium, my brain was very enthusiastic about it while I was in France. I substituted ja and nee for oui and non constantly, and I'm fairly certain I uttered the sentence, "Je parle niet zo goed français." Smooth, Erin.
Anyway. The second next day I got up early and set out for the Musée d'Orsay, incredibly excited at the prospect of seeing some Van Gogh in person. To get there I had to take the Metro, which I expected to be a challenge in and of itself. Underground transportation has always intimidated me and I had never attempted it alone anywhere in the world. It always seemed so complicated and I was absolutely sure I would get myself lost at least once. Alas, I did not get lost. I didn't even get almost lost. That alone made the day a success for me.
There are no pictures allowed in the museum, and I'm a rule follower, so I don't have any, but it was incredible. And HUGE. I definitely have to go back because I didn't even come close to seeing everything. Not only that, but they are opening a new Van Gogh exhibition and so they have moved almost all of his paintings to that area which, of course, was not yet open.
Going to a museum by yourself is kind of an interesting experience; I think that was definitely one thing I did not mind doing alone. The great thing about it is that you're only bound by your own whims. So if you want to skip a room entirely, you can do that, or if you want to spend twenty minutes in front of one painting, you can do that too. Or if you're about to leave but remember that there was one painting on Level 5 that you wanted to take a closer look at, even though it's really far away, then you can go back without irritating anyone else. I don't even remember the last time I had been to an art museum (other than the Dalí museum the day before, but that evoked different kinds of emotions), and it's something I should probably try to do more often. Depending on the painting, it can be humbling or inspiring or sad or funny, or sometimes nothing at all if it doesn't really resonate. Of course everyone else already knows this, but it was something I had to remember for myself. And there really is something different about seeing the art in person rather than just googling.
I did take a couple pictures in the gift shop, where I was trying to determine whether a Van Gogh or a Monet coloring book would mess your kids up more. (Or maybe it would just make them really hypercreative, I don't know.)
I only took one picture of the Monet coloring book because they all pretty much looked like this.
Later that day I decided to walk around the Montmartre Cemetery a bit, because apparently I'm a little morbid like that. I took...a lot of pictures. Here are just a few.
I'm not sure if these are sepulchres or mausoleums, but there were a lot of them.
Some of them had a door open, which kind of creeped me out.
Roughly translated: "Dead? Just dreaming!"
And finally I decided to pay a visit to Shakespeare and Company, an English language bookstore that I had only ever seen from the outside, and Notre Dame, which is just across the street.
On the way:
"Rare plants." I guess it's all a matter of perspective.
This is the view of Notre Dame from out in front of the bookstore.
Since I do not trust anyone in big tourist destinations to hold my phone or camera, I tried to take a selfie, but I could only fit half my face in if I also wanted the building itself in there. Oh well.
Paris sure knows how to light up a building.
So the next day I made my way back to the Gare du Nord, got on my train to Brussels, then from there caught a train back to Gent. It was nice to be back in a familiar place, sleeping in a room with no strangers (though the three people I shared the hostel room with -- two young Argentinian lawyers and an old man who just slept -- had been very nice). It was also sort of a comfort to be hearing Dutch again. Of course, with my brain apparently always being one step behind, when I ordered a kebab at the train station in Gent and they asked if I wanted chicken, the first word out of my mouth was oui. Apparently I have a hard time switching languages. What comes out of my mouth is never English, but it's also never right.
I've had a nice week back in Gent, but today is the day I wrap things up. Today I close my bank account, have my last dinner and night in Belgium, and try to fit all of my stuff into as little luggage as possible, because tomorrow night I will be home.
