When I learned that Vivien's friend and classmate Philippe is a gamer, ultimate player, AND a Brony, I knew he was awesome. He confirmed this further by offering to take Vivien and I on a tour of his home city of Luxembourg. Luxembourg is about a 30 minute drive from Vivi's city of Trier. So Monday afternoon, Viv, Philippe, and I jumped into his car and set course for Lux.
I had to admit that I knew very little about Luxembourg before my trip. I knew its rough location, that it's tiny, and that it's known for having lots of banks. I realize that's not much to go on, but we Americans don't exactly study Luxembourg history in school.
My initial stereotypes were confirmed as Philippe drove us into the city past many monolithic and soulless glass buildings he said were banks.
We crossed a big bridge into the city where I learned Fun Fact #1 about the city of Luxembourg: Luxembourg is built on a plateau. There are sheer walls surrounding all sides of the city, making it both a unique geological feature and probably impenetrable back in the day. Philippe said that the bridges into the city were only added after World War II.
We parked the car and began a walking tour around the city. The first thing I noticed was that I was able to read road signs again! The signage in Lux is mostly in French, which I understand far better than German. Fun Fact #2: There are four languages used in Luxembourg and Philippe can speak them all. They are: French, English, German, and Luxembourgish (which is supposedly a mixture of German and French).
As we walked around Lux, it began to look more like what I would've expected: Ornate buildings, old architecture, symbols of national pride.
What surprised me was how few people there were in the streets. We were in the city center walking through a plaza and hardly anyone was there. It's probably because it was a Monday and all of the bankers were working their 9 to 5s. Maybe this is a nation where everyone works normal hours? Philippe said it also might be because Lux just doesn't have a lot of people.
We walked in front of the Luxembourg royal building (might have been called a palace). It reminded me of England because there is both a royal family and a democracy. There was also a very stiff and unflinching guard in front of the palace.
Philippe continued to lead us along the tiny deserted streets until we stopped at a coffee shop called Leonards, mostly because it was awesome and partially because even in our short walk, we had already seen most of the city of Luxembourg.
After our coffee break, we walked down outside the fortress walls to Philippe's favorite spot in the city. Look how happy he is here. You can see the walls in the background:
More walking of course and then we eventually took an elevator back up to the top of the plateau. Viv and I made a stop in the souvenir shop and got the best postcard ever:
Luxembourg is a nation of bankers and not graphic designers apparently. And for the record it was not sunny. But there are apparently artists in Lux. You have to go underground to find their work. This is the cool graffiti on the way back to the parking garage:
A quick ride back to Trier and it was time to bid Philippe a farewell. He said we will certainly meet again because "you always meet a person at least twice." I had never heard that saying before and he admitted that it's actually, "you always meet a person twice." I told him that sounds pretty morbid and negative to only get 2 guaranteed meetings. He said, "No, that's why I changed it to AT LEAST twice." In any case, I hope our guaranteed "twice" happens when he visits me in LA someday. After all, it's not everyday that I get to meet a fellow Rainbow Dash.
This blog just got 20% cooler.
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