This weekend was spent in Strasbourg and (sort or) Germany. I'll explain. This is going to be a long one. I tried to cut down the photos, although there are still a ton.
Strasbourg reminded me what it feels like to be cold. Like...really cold. The kind of cold that makes you sure the marrow in your bones has turned into a Popsicle. I had been complaining about the "cold" in Montpellier...no, there is no cold here, I had forgotten what that even means.
Strasbourg also reminded me that Christmas is coming! It's home to one of the most famous Christmas markets in Europe, which, unfortunately, doesn't start until next weekend, but they had already started to decorate.
We left on Thursday afternoon. We sat on a train for six hours. I tried to study, I failed to study. Nothing too eventful. We arrived pretty late at night with googlemaps directions in hand. Even in the dark the city was beautiful. The style is more German, which makes sense since the area has shifted between being a part of Germany and a part of France several times in its history.
We wandered in the right direction for a bit until we got lost. We were on the right street but we couldn't find the right house number, so we walked back and forth, confused. And then randomly some guy walked by us, stopped, and asked if we needed help. "I like it when people help me when I travel, so I should help you."
Okay, the architecture is completely different, some of the street signs were in German, I had been on a train for six hours... yet it was this that made me feel like I had gone to another country. Random acts of kindness. Sorry French people, as a general whole you're not the most welcoming group I've ever met. In Strasbourg though, the people seemed a lot nicer.
The guy was with a group of friends, some on foot some on bikes, and they all literally walked us to the door. They even offered us a drink of what looked like juice. I don't think it was juice ...no thanks. Brooke and I kept looking at each other and laughing. (See my post from Barcelona...a similar thing happened to us when an old woman walked us to a Flamenco club). We got to our airbnb place - a nice room with five beds, a kitchen we could use, and a table to eat at like civilized people - and immediately went to sleep.
The next day I demonstrated a serious lack of good judgement. I'm internally shaking my head at myself as I write this. We woke up and it was freezing cold and pouring rain. Brooke suggested we spend the morning in museums, but I had my heart set on walking to Germany. Yup...just a stroll to Germany. There's a small city names Kehl near the boarder of Germany, which is connected to France by the "Pont de L'Europe." (Apparently a lot of Strasbourgians go there for groceries because it's a lot cheaper, fun fact.) I didn't expect anything big, in all honesty I just wanted to be able to say I was in Germany. Originally we had wanted to rent a bike there, which are really cheap, and get there that way, but we decided not to in the rain. Walking? We had thick coats, she had an umbrella, I was from Seattle. Sure, let's do this.
The lady at the tourism office had lied to us, the walk was not 45 minutes, as she had said. It was almost two hours. Within the first 15 minutes my socks were soaked. Within the first half hour I could no longer feel my feet. I progressively got wetter and wetter, more and more numb, and the parts of my body that I could feel were cold, they were very cold. I. Was. Miserable. I was motivated by the knowledge that this may be the only chance I get to do this, but I wanted nothing more that to sit inside a Starbucks for the rest of the weekend.
So we trekked on...and on and on. And we finally made it. I would have liked to walk around, but at this point I was so cold I almost snuggled up next to the homeless man sleeping under the Pont de l'Europe. At least he had a blanket. So we were in Germany for maybe 10 minutes before heading back. We trammed part of the way.
When we later told a couple people we had walked there, their eyes bugged out, they couldn't believe us.
My feet were soaked and numb. I was actually getting a little worried about myself, so I made Brooke stop first at a gas station where I asked for some plastic bags, then a bar where I went into the bathroom and changed my socks, put my feet in the bags, and then put on my shoes. A brilliant idea for which I was constantly made fun of by Thomas when he found out. I don't care, I have no shame. That saved me from what I'm sure would have been frostbite. But I'm probably exaggerating...maybe.
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| Getting ready for the Christmas market |
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| Eglise Notre Dame - it was impossible to fit it all in one picture, I suggest googling it |
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| More eglise |
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| I told you they were nicer, even the tram welcomes you |
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| Almost to Germany...Wet. Cold...but almost there |
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| After nearly two hours of walking, the bridge! |
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| ...I have no idea. We saw them. We took pictures of them. |
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| Pont de l'Europe |
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| On the left, Germany, on the Right, France. |
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| In Germany |
We got back, stepped into a cafe where I paid way too much for a coffee and warmed up a bit. Then we did the museum thing. Brooke wanted to go to Palais Rohan, more of an art museum, I was more interested in the museum of the history of Strasbourg, so I went there.
I think I've mentioned this before, but I've started to like museums. This one was particularly interesting. I like history, and the museum itself was really well-organized and interactive. I would suggest it.
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| Eglise Notre Dame once again |
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| More Christmas... I told you these would make up half the photos |
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| Don't judge me, it was a survival move |
A few photos from the history museum:
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| Fruit faces, one for each season |
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| Printing Press in Strasbourg. Gutenberg lived there |
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| GOAT!! Seriously, everyhwere! |
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| Am I sensing a little bit of propaganda? "It's chic to speak French" |
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| A young student's notebook. First in German, as they were forced to during WWII, then in French, as Strasbourg was restored to France after the war |
We met back up and found Thomas, who had come a day later. And then...soup. All I wanted in the world was the boiling hot soup and tea. We went to the store, bought food for dinner and breakfast, and came home. Boiled some boxed soup, threw in beans and frozen veggies and thawed our hands and feet while we ate.
At that point I was exhausted, but Brooke wanted to go out, and since I had semi-forced her to walk for two hours in the rain to Germany, it was only fair I go to a bar with her. This is sort of where it got interesting-bordering-on-creepy. We went to a bar the lady at our airbnb place had suggested, upstairs it was a bar, downstairs it had live music.
You know in Yes Man when the main character finally says yes to going to that concert, the one that the kid with the fliers always standing outside his work keeps trying to convince him to go to? And the singer has that weird voice changer thing that makes her voice sound like an alien? (I think I'm thinking of the right movie...I hope). Yeah, this guy had one of those. It was bizarre.
At one point a man in front of us turned around and we started talking. I figured any French practice is good practice, and he was nice enough. "Why don't we grab a table and sit down?" He asked. Okay, sure, I suppose. More French practice?
It was a little awkward, speaking to a middle-aged French guy we had just met. He started "tu"-ing us (the informal), I wasn't sure if we should do the same...? I'm still not clear on when and how to vous-to-tu switch happens. Then he insisted on taking us to a tram stop so he could use the map show us how to get to where we wanted to go the next day. At one point I looked over at Brooke and whispered "I have pepper-spray," half-kidding, and he got in between us: "what?"
"Oh...I was just saying it's nice to have a local show us around." *odd half-laugh*
Personally I thought he was harmless, just a little strange, but Brooke was getting freaked out, and so we said we were tired, we had to go, goodbye. And we went home where I dried my soaked clothes with a hair dryer.
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| Typical travel stance... |
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| civilized dinner |
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| Our room |
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| Ready for day two |
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| Polish beer bottle...our airbnb people had good taste |
Petite France
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| Getting ready for the market |
The next day we got up, I put the bags on my feet again (shoes were still wet), and we went to go see Petite France. It's the picturesque part of the city (as if any part isn't). It was a little more Petite than we had expected, so we walked through it rather quickly, so we decided to go to another museum. Thomas went to the history one, Brooke and I went to the museum of Alsatian culture. I liked the history one better, but this one was good as well.
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| More prep work... |
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| There was a little kid station where you could color and make a paper house... we are children apparently |
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| Roasted chestnuts |
Then we walked to see the European Parliament, European Court of Human Rights, and the Council of Europe. Look at what a good international studies student I am, seeing all the political buildings and such.
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| Sorry Europe, but this string thing was a stupid idea. At first I was sure it was under construction, but apparently this is just their idea of decoration |
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| European Court of Human Rights |
Outside of the court, attached to the railings on the other side, were a bunch of protest posters which I thought were really interesting:
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| And more Christmas preparations |
We came back, had lunch/dinner (...? it was 3 pm), and then went to see the Cathedral Notre Dame. Listen, I've seen a lot of churches here...like waaaaay too many, but this one is fabulous. The odd thing was the concert. There was some sort of a very loud, very annoying band playing inside. It completely clashed with the general atmosphere of the church. And the acoustics were all wrong and blegh. But I got to see the astronomical clock which was neat. It was dark so my pictures suck, google it.
After that we wandered into another church where there was a free concert (less annoying). We listened to a girl a year older than me sing opera. She was really good but it wasn't my cup of tea. It's one of those things my mom would have dragged me to and she would have loved while I would have sat there appreciated how good the performer was, but would be wishing for the end every second. (Okay..so maybe there were like one or two songs I actually liked...)
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| Inside the Eglise Notre Dame |
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| They had a huge nativity scene set out. Sorry my camera isn't good in the dark, I didn't get a good shot of all of it. |
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| GOAT! |
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| I don't know how this got so out of order. This is the astronomical clock |
We went to the store for more soup, came back and stayed in. Brooke wanted to go out again, but I had had it with the cold, and I had been planning to start studying a little bit anyways (which inevitably failed). We ended up meeting a 23-year-old Canadian girl who had spent the last two years living in France. I was really curious and she told us all about it. We talked for something like an hour and a half, maybe two hours, before she went to sleep and we did the same.
I couldn't really sleep though, which sucked.
The next morning we got up, went straight to the train station, and made the six-hour long journey back home. About 45 minutes away from Mont it started to get warm again, aaaahhhhh! I missed it!
Overall the city was absolutely adorable. Even at those times when I was cold, wet, and hungry I still found it gorgeous. It looked a lot like Leavenworth...just way less cliche (but without that awesome mustard and hot shop store).
