European Reprieve

Oddly enough, living and working in a foreign country can sometimes create an artificial bubble around you. You get so focused on trying to do the work that you do and at the same time adjust to your environment and pay more attention to the people you're dealing with that you rarely get a chance to sit down and think about important things outside of your immediate experience. Traveling is a good fix to get your mind off of everything in which you've immersed yourself, but it doesn't quite expand your own thinking about the work that your doing and how it relates to areas outside of your own context. For me, this reprieve, rejuvenation, refocus, or whatever you want to call it, came at a conference in Luxembourg from which I just returned. I'll talk about the conference later, but for now I'll recap what I actually did in the last few days.

I traveled with a colleague and friends from Texas A&M, Emily Yates. Although I knew about the conference since the end of last year, Emily was the person who introduced me to the possibility of going to the conference not through another trip that was organized by Miami University, and for that I have to thank her.

We hopped on a red-eye plane to Frankfurt on Monday night/Tuesday morning at about 1am, which wasn't ideal but it was the only option. We spent some quality time in the business class terminal before we left Doha. When we arrived in Frankfurt a short 6 hours later, we were excited to get to the car rental desk to pick up the car we had ingeniously decided to rent. We got in the car and started looking at the map, only to find out that it was a manual instead of an automatic. I don't drive stick, and it had been a while since Emily had. After stalling the car no less than 3 times just trying to leave the airport, we decided to trade the car in for an automatic only to find out that the rental company (and 5 out of the 5 other companies) didn't have any automatics available. So... we switched to plan b) take the train. This ended up turning out for the better because we didn't have to stress over traffic and navigation and instead enjoyed a lovely ride down the Rhine valley next to an old man from Germany named Joachim who was particularly interested in sharing his love for his country with us. By the time we got to Luxembourg it was 2 in the afternoon and we were exhausted, so it's all we could do to take a short walk around town before eating dinner at a great pizzeria on one of the place's and grabbing gelato on our way home. I even got to exercise my French skills by asking for directions and ordering food!

Wednesday morning we took our time getting up. I decided to get up and run in the park area down in the ravine of Luxembourg city. At one point I just sat in the grass while watching the steam rise off of me in the cool morning air, listening to birds chirping, church bells ringing, and water flowing in the creek nearby, and enjoying the smell of pure wetness... none of these things I get to experience in Qatar. The conference started later that day so we decided to spend most of our free time that day walking around the city. We stumbled upon an fresh produce market in the middle of one of the large squares in town, called Place Guillaume, and ate fruit, cheese, and bread for lunch. We did a little shopping, a little museum meandering (at the Musee d'histoire de la ville du luxembourg), and a little more walking before we had to be at the Abbaye du Neumunster for the start of the conference. Of course at this point my feet were crazy tired and I didn't want to walk all the way across town in a pair of work heels with pointy toes so I donned my pair of white Ked's with my work skirt and button-down blouse to sport the young-urban-professional look most commonly seen in DC (and that wasn't the last time I'd do it either...). When we got to the Abbaye, we caught up with my Dad who was also attending the conference, heard some great people speak for the opening of the conference, and took part in what became a very brief cocktail hour when we realized there was no food involved. We ended up eating dinner with my Dad at this funky little place near the pizzeria we ate the night before (I had a whole plate full of raw beef... a delicacy apparently) and called it an early night.

All day Thursday was the conference, which I'll describe further in another post. The conference ended with a splendid "soiree" that involved 4 different live acts for entertainment (including 2 a capella groups, a jazz band, and a small orchestral group) and a 4 course buffet.

Friday was pretty much a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants sort of day. We had planned on getting on the 7:24am train to head to Brussels for the day and then come back that night to head to Frankfurt the next morning. So naturally as I was taking a shower around 6:30am I was pondering the possibility of just packing everything up and leaving for Brussels with the intention to stay the night there instead. Naturally Emily was thinking over the exact same idea so we packed our bags in less than 10 minutes, grabbed a quick breakfast, and still made the 7:24 train. We made this trip with one of the people we had met at the conference, a former student of my father's at Miami University who now worked in Sweden on residence halls. He was fun company, but we parted our ways when we got to Brussels. We checked into the first hotel we could find, and headed out on what would turn out to be the most exhausting day of walking I've ever had in my life. The only other time I can remember walking this much in one day was when I was in Ireland in 2005 and decided to walk 12km to the next town and back in the middle of nowhere on the Northwest coast. It was a good thing, though, because we ate our way through Brussels: 2 rounds of Belgian waffles for lunch (one with chocolate, one with strawberries), beer & chocolate as a midday snack, mussels and frites for dinner, and more beer after that... all within a span of 12 hours. We also had the chance to check out the Grand Place, the Musee Royaux de Beaux-Arts (which housed a great collection of Flemish Renaissance painters including Bruegel, my fave), Mannekin Pis, and the opening night of the Brussels Jazz Music Festival completely by chance. To think we did all of that in 12 hours is pretty impressive... and exhausting.

Saturday morning we woke up way earlier than we wanted to catch the 7am train to Frankfurt. We caught a last helping of pork in a cheese and bacon covered pretzel at one of the food stops in the airport. By the time I got home 6 hours later, I wanted to collapse. But it was the good kind of exhaustion - the kind that makes you feel incredibly accomplished and pleased with a good traveling experience and at the same time makes you feel happy to be home.

ps. pics as usual are on My Picasa photos.