rasbourg was once part of Germany, often switching hands between Germany and France until after WWII. It's located in the Alsace region of France which has many food and drink specialties. One of the best foods I ate there was something called a "tarte flambee" which is a very thin pizza-like crust with cheese baked on top of it. It was out of this world delicious. My friend, Kathryn, and I ate it both nights we were in Strasbourg. I tried out the local wine, Riesling d'Alsace which was very good. My wine teacher had mentioned that I should taste this wine. Before I continue on, I must explain what happened to me last Friday morning. On my way to the train station (Paris has 6-7 of them i think), the metro I was on stopped. There were announcements made in french about what was going on but of course I didn't really understand them, until they made an announcement that told us to get off the metro. I grabbed my suitcase and walked off the metro at the stop Port Royal, which of course doesn't have any other metro lines. I tried to get on the metro going the other direction but the line was completely suspended. Apparently there was an accident at the major station, Chatelet, which caused all trains to be suspended for the next hour or so. I realized that I couldn't wait that long so I tried to hail a taxi, something I've never done before. I finally was able to get a taxi and made my way to Gare L'est.
We made it safely to Strasbourg with no other issues. We checked into the hotel and then began exploring the city. Unfortunately the rain had followed us from Paris, making it a very cold, wet, and windy day to sightsee. We realized that the next day would probably be nicer for sightseeing and walked back to the hotel after a few hours. The best part about the hotel was that we had a tv in the room. I hadn't watched television in over a month and I was dying to see the Olympics. I was able to watch lots of skiing and skating events, as well as bobsledding.
The next day we went to the Cathedral Notre-Dame de Strasbourg, which was gorgeous. The architecture was very different from other cathedrals I've seen in Europe. I also went to Petite France which was a cute little area of the city. Later in the day we decided to go take the bus to the Jardin des Deux Rives, which are gardens located on either side of the Rhine, one side is France and the other side is Germany. There is a pedestrian bridge that connects the gardens, which we walked across. It was so bizarre to walk across the bridge and be in a different country! I was so surprised that we didn't need to show our passports or anything!
In Germany, everything was, of course, in german. In Strasbourg, everything was written in english, french, and german. Kathryn and I wanted to get some lunch while we were in Kehl, the german town were in, but when we tried to read the menu, we had no idea what anything was. It was amusing and frustrating at the same time. We wandered around time until finally we found a menu in french. We have never wanted to speak or see french more than when we were in Germany! After lunch, we headed back to France and to our hotel and watched some more Olympics :)
At night, Strasbourg gets very quiet. There aren't many places to go after 8 or 9pm so we didn't really do much after dinner. I was feeling a little sick so I tried to go to bed early but woke up at 4am with the worst headache of my life. I didn't really sleep the rest of the night and by morning all I wanted to do is go home. I got some medicine which helped my headache. Kathryn and I attempted to find a place to go to breakfast but there weren't many places...we eventually found an amazing bakery that also had pretzels, a local specialty. With nothing really open on Sunday, we checked out of our hotel and headed to the train station, hoping to exchange our tickets for an earlier departure. Unfortunately, we couldn't get an earlier train so we just chilled in the train station for 3 hours. Unbeknownst to us, there was a major storm hitting western France and Paris, causing every train arriving and departing Strasbourg to be delayed. Our train was only delayed 25 mins, however we got on the train and ended up spending the next two hours sitting at the station! With a bad headache and the onset of a cold, I was not happy to say the least. We finally made it back to Paris around 7pm and I went straight home and slept for the next 12 hours.
Overall, the trip was very enjoyable. Delays in travel are bound to happen, c'est la vie (as the french say). This week has been good, I got medicine from the pharmacy so I am doing a lot better. On Wednesday my International Business class went to the Selon D'Agriculture, an
agriculture expo which showcased foods from different regions of France and of the world, as well as lots of farm animals (yes, as in chickens, baby chicks, roosters, cows,
ect.), horses (all kinds), ponies, dogs, cats, and donkeys. Apparently this expo is very popular, as they were expecting 100,000 people to come to it that day. It was interesting and definitely not something I would expect to see in Paris.
Ok enough for now! I'm going to Champagne on Saturday, so I'll be sure to update afterwards:)
Au revoir
-MEP
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