With my finals being completed on Friday and 4 days ahead of me until I flew out of Frankfurt, I had to decide what to do with those last few days in Europe. Since I only bought a two month railpass this summer, and I am “broke” (because I’m hopefully moving to Florida in the next two weeks), I decided to stay in unexplored territory: Metz. Now I know what you’re thinking…that’s where you’ve lived 6 months of you life the past two summers! This is true…but there is more to Metz than a really nice train station and a few restaurants, and I needed to find out there is. Friday night after my thermo final, I decided to wait around GTL until my friends Jonathon and Chris finished because they were leaving for Croatia and home respectively that night and I wanted to say goodbye. Chris came down the stairs and told me to hurry up, they were going to the Irish pub and a taxi would be there in 20 minutes. We ran to Aloes (our residence), dropped off stuff, and ran back. I decided to go to the pub with them because it was the last time I’d be seeing them for a long time. The Irish pub was packed with a bunch of GTL students, and we had fun with Irish Car Bombs and giraffes of beer as usual. The End. The next day I went downtown to explore the cathedral and pick up a Longchamps bag for my mother (she’s going to look so cute with it!). The Metz Cathedral is enormous and more beautiful than you would expect a small town like Metz to have. Inside it says this spot was the home of a church in Metz since the 5th century. Can you imagine? I’m not sure exactly what the dates of this cathedral are, but it’s beautiful.
On Monday I decided I was going to rent a bike and go on the trails for the day outside of Metz. I’ve 
heard it’s really fun just to ride around and come across old Roman ruins (Yes,they’re absolutely everywhere in France). I was going to go alone, even though I didn’t really want to, but all my friends were taking a deformable bodies exam Monday night (whatever that means). At lunch I ran into Gaston and Tee, and they said they would accompany me! They’re both on crew and pretty extreme guys, but they said it was okay that I’m not an athlete. They must have had fun, because they invited me along the next day as well. But believe me, I was in no shape after Monday to go anywhere near a bike or running trail. Our bike ride took about 4.5 hours and 16 miles around Metz, the river, rocky trails, grassy paths, another town, and the vineyards (on a hill of course). I was dead, I had blisters, and parts of me hurt, that weren’t supposed to hurt. But all is well, and I had a great time! We even saw an old Roman aqueduct. At the aqueduct we even found a wild apple tree. After Gaston and Tee tried a bite, I had to. But don’t worry, it’s Wednesday and I’m not dead yet. We made it to the vineyards I had been dying to see since this beginning of the summer. I was sad that the vineyards are only open for tours or tastings on Fridays and Saturdays, but it was great fun nonetheless. I will say that without my bike buddies, I would never have gotten that far, and I definitely would of turned around at the first hill. But I made it. Also, all the map reading was done by them, I didn’t go near. I was afraid! A couple of times, we had to turn around, and more than once they guessed at the direction to go. Oh well… all is well.
Yesterday was spent packing and cleaning our room so we don’t get fined (in euros). Right now I’m riding on a plane while everyone else is dead asleep (we stayed up all night). Oh well…C’est la vie! Au revoir France! I’m officially done with my electrical engineering degree!
The following pictures are of the Metz Cathedral, some gardens in Metz, the main Shopping Street, and the Opera house.
These next photos are of Georgia Tech Lorraine (the school building I went to everyday), the swans in the lake that I fed my leftover baguettes to, and the running trail around the lake that I used tons. What a great place to spend two summers!
