Normandy

Tonight my 15 minute commute took 45 minutes.  As a result, I had a lot of time to think about what I was going to write about these pictures.   In fact, I'd been thinking about this post for several days.  Perhaps I've been stumped about what to write because I kept coming back to the question of why I took these pictures in the first place.  After leaving Paris we traveled throughout Normandy, stopping first in the town of Chartres to see the Chartres Cathedral.  It's a massive structure, one of the few cathedrals to survive the de-Christianization purges of the French Revolution.  It's also unique because one spire is built in the Romanesque style while the other is Flamboyant Gothic.  Somehow I chose not to take a picture of the cathedral, and instead took a picture of this (what you find if you follow the path behind the building and down the stairs):

It's pretty, but whhhyyy?

Next we traveled to Mont Sainte-Michel, the island monastery on the Norman coast.

We ended our trip in Arromanches and spent a day exploring Juno Beach, site of the British landings on D-Day.  The remnants of the landing craft are clearly visible on the beach in the foreground and in the distance in the water.

The sun rises over Juno Beach

just the same, only different

I woke up to this scene this morning:

Let's go to France! Prune pour la route!  

Pictures of France have already appeared on this site.  Those pictures were taken in June and July 2009 when I was in France conducting research for a now scuttled dissertation project.  I took the following pictures during my first trip to the country in September, 2000.  Within a week of our arrival in Leuven, our faculty advisor took our contingent on a week-long excursion to Paris and northern France.  The four days we spent exploring the city were among the most extraordinary of my year abroad, not just because everything smelled of freshly baked bread and there was stunning architecture on literally every corner.  While Paris continued to dazzle in 2009, nothing compares to the wide-eyed, youthful exuberance of one's first encounter the City of Light.

But enough about me.  Bienvenue à Paris!

Notre-Dame

Paris boasts of hundreds of internationally renown restaurants.  A picnic lunch in the park behind Notre Dame is a dining experience worthy of a Michelen four-star rating.

The Eiffel Tower

A blurry Starry Night over the Rhone @ the Musee d'Orsay

Exquisite floor-to-ceiling stained glass at Sainte-Chapelle.

"There is never any ending to Paris and the memory of each person who has lived in it differs from that of any other.  We always returned to it no matter who we were or how it was changed or with what difficulties, or ease, it could be reached.  Paris was always worth it and you received return for whatever you brought to it.  But this is how Paris was in the early days when we were very poor and very happy."

- Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast (1964).

finding your place

I went to Leuven as part of a junior-year abroad program hosted by my undergraduate college.  I was one of twenty-five students, along with a faculty advisor and his family.  When we first arrived, the prevailing sense was that we had to know or to experience Leuven wholly and immediately.  Our advisor's wife offered a simpler approach.  Acclimation takes time.  Find one corner of the town and visit it regularly, she suggested, develop one habit and do it regularly.  This might have involved strolling through this park:

Or visiting the botanical gardens:

Or going to a favorite cafe once (or several times) a week.  

Finding these places and developing this routine eventually helped me to feel as if I were a part of Leuven, instead of just passing through.  Most of my time was spent here:

The square, the platz, the piazza, the markt: these spaces are central to cultural life in towns and cities across Europe.  In Leuven, the two biggest are the Grote Markt (above) and the Oude Markt (below).  Here you can sip coffee quietly during the day or meet friends for more rambunctious revelry once the sun goes down.  Here multi-generational families gather for a meal and beers of various strengths after church.  Here you can find both companionship and solitude.  Here is why I went to the continent in the first place.  

She was right.

living in Leuven

I've deliberately avoided divulging personal details throughout this blog.  Why do you need  to know about me, I reasoned.  Just make what you want of the pictures.  But Twenty-something Travels is forcing me to rethink that position. All travel is personal.  Whether undertaken for school or business or pleasure, it ultimately an individual trying to understand this new place that they're a part of.  The following are not just a random collection of buildings and streets; they are places that became a part of my daily life during the year of college I spent living in Leuven.

The main library of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.  I probably should have spent more time on the inside.

Instead, I spent it here:

One of two main shopping streets.  Although the black, thick-heeled, high-top military boots I bought here have long since passed, I still wear the vibrant, multi-colored scarf purchased at the store (winkel) on the left.

And here:

A pedestrian street lined on both sides from beginning to end with restaurants.  Every one I tried was delicious, especially the specialty pizza place, Quo Vadis, and the upscale Troubadour.  It's also the ideal place to take family members if they happen to be visiting on your birthday.  

Saint Michael's Church, the lone example of Baroque architecture in a town full of gothic.  Note the couple at the base of stairs to give you a sense of its immense size.  I have to admit that I never actually went in there, but I passed it everyday on my way to class. 

twenty-something travels

Today begins an extended series called Twenty-something Travels.  This series will chronicle my adventures in Europe from 2000 to roughly 2004, when I was in my early 20s.  Most of these pictures had been in storage until very recently (like, 2 hours ago).  Thanks to my HP Deskjet F2480, my trusty steed of a scanner, they are brought to life once again.  I hope you enjoy.

We begin in Leuven, Belgium (pruim voor de weg, anyone?).

Enjoy a Stella Artois and a croque monsieur in the shadow of the town's gothic city hall (stadhuis) and you'll never want to leave.  Trust me.  

Read the chapter "The Flames of Louvain" from Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August and you'll appreciate this place even more.

use your imagination

We here at Plum for the Road (PFTR) pride ourselves on being able to overcome adversity.  A few days ago I saw something that would have made for a perfect blog post.  While I was driving on Interstate 70 just west of Baltimore, I saw a rainbow.  But unfortunately, because I couldn't safely adjust my camera while driving on the highway in the rain, I was unable to get a picture of it. Initially I lamented, "there goes that blog post."  But upon further reflection, I decided, picture or no picture, the blog must go on!  So...you'll just have use your imagination.

The rainbow was stunning; tall with a wide arch, each one of the colors was clearly visible.  It seemed to span the entire sky.  For a brief moment, another, smaller rainbow rested beneath it.  A double rainbow!  As it happens, I encountered this sight on the second day of the new year.  Call me naive, but seeing rainbow on January 2 has to be a good sign for the year, right?  I'm choosing to believe so.  This mirage has left me feeling more hopeful than I have in ages.

Here's to a new year that has more pictures of hope than pictures of trench warfare!

In the spirit of hope and sharing, PFTR asks our viewers: what are your images of hope (real or imagined) for 2011?

decisions, decisions