Adventures in Strasbourg and my first (slow) trip on the autobahn!

Little France in Strasbourg

Hello, everyone! I figured it was about time that I updated my blog. Plus, since I have been sick yet again the past two days, I felt like I needed to do something productive. Wow, I am about a month and a week away from my return home. It feels really surreal. I know it's coming, but I've gotten so used to my French life here, it seems strange to imagine me going home. I guess I'll do some reflections first before I talk about my most recent traveling adventures.

We make good statues

Firstly, I gotta say I am going to miss my host family so much. My host mom is the sweetest woman and has really been like a second mom to me, even while she's been going through some really difficult, stressful, and emotionally-trying times. She always checks to make sure I am alright and I have really appreciated her constant concern for me and making sure I am happy. I have also bonded so much with my host bro Alban. It is amazing how tight we are; he has truly become like a brother to me and that was something I didn't expect. Even though he can sometimes be a harsh teacher of French, he also compliments me when I do well and pushes me to become the best French speaker I can, which I appreciate. Although Rudy and I aren't close, he is still nice and I won't forget how helpful he was when I was super sick with the stomach flu.

Niki and I

I have made some amazing friends as well. Since almost everyone comes from places other than the Pacific Northwest, I've been learning a lot about the rest of the country though the stories my friends tell me and when they describe their homes and lives. I love that. Not only am I learning about other countries (most especially France), but I have learned to both appreciate and critique my own home more. It will be sad leaving everyone, but now I know I have some great friends across the country that I can visit.

The view of Petite-France from the covered bridge

Ok, enough philosophizing. Now to describe my trip! I went with the lovely Niki to Strasbourg. She has a friend, Erwann, there who did an exchange at her high school a few years ago and lives there. We stayed with him and his four roommate, all guys. They were all really cool dudes. We got in about 11pm Thursday night on the train. Erwann picked us up and we dropped off our luggage before he took us on a walking tour of the city center of Strasbourg. Sadly, I left my phone so I don't have any pics of our night walk. One thing I'e noticed about cities over here in Europe tend to have cool uplighting on a lot of buildings, which makes things uber beautiful at night here. Then, we met up with two of his roommates who were already out and I had a great local beer.

Grand Cathedral of Strasbourg- still not complete after many years

The next day, we went to Erwann's school because he had a meeting. After his work was done, he took us on a tour of some parts that we hadn't seen as well as showed us the sections we had seen only at night. We saw the Conseil d'Europe which is where the European Union is located. They had some cool buildings, especially the Parliament building. Niki, Erwann, and I also did one of our favorite past-times there: taking a picture mimicking a statue. Always good times. Haha. That night, we went to happy hour and each got a litre of beer for only 5 euros. I wasn't really listening when we talking about what we were ordering and then Erwann came over and dropped this huge thing of beer in front of me. Some of Erwann's friends came out and we hung out there for a while. Afterwards, we went to a local brewery and tried an Alsacian specialty, flamekouche. It is basically pizza with a different crust. It reminded me of a thicker tortilla. The traditional toppings are onions, lardons (small pieces of bacon), creme fraiche, and cheese. I had it without the onions. It was delicious!

Parliament of the EU

The following morning, Niki and I wandered around the centre-ville area and found some food. I gotta say, I know I am going to miss the really nice food places France has. You can get a lot of really good, local food for cheap here and that is awesome. Anyways, we had time to meet Erwann because we were going to go Germany after he was done with class. So we tried to walk over to him. But somehow, we ended up going the exact opposite direction of where we needed to go. Some nice Frenchman noticed us standing regarding the map and gave us directions. We then wandered for a really long time, getting frustrated because we couldn't even find the tall cathedral, which we were trying to use as a marker to find our way. Eventually, we navigated back and met up with Erwann.

Enjoying a yummy beer in Strasbourg

Next, Germany! We went on the Autobahn (my first trip), but unfortunately the part we were driving on had construction. So we only went like 65mph. Lame!!! Anyways, we arrived in Baden-Baden (which literally means Bath Bath, which makes me happy). They are known for their hot springs and
baths. There were fountains all over the place here, which I loved. Baden-Baden is a very wealthy, ritzy place. I felt so poor. Haha. We mostly just wandered around here; we had no agenda, which can sometimes be very nice. My only goal was to try an apple strudel and I was finally successful, although it probably took 30 minutes to find a place. I also had this amazing white chocolate hot drink.

Baden-Baden fun

I gotta say, like in Italy, it sucks going to a country where you can't speak any of the language. I really felt like a complete idiot. At least in Italy, I could figure out certain words and had an inkling of pronunciation  That was not the case here in Germany. I have no clue where to even begin. Luckily, Erwann knew some German so he was really helpful and was able to talk to the waitress since they didn't really speak any English and definitely no French.

One really sad thing was I saw more evidence of the effects of World War 2 on this trip, since these two cities were more impacted than the Grenoble area in some ways. For instance, while wandering lost in Strasbourg, Niki and I found this huge plot of land that was a lovely garden on the waterfront. That was where the great synagogue stood, before the Nazis razed it during the war. There were some pictures there of what it used to look like and it was amazing. In Baden Baden, they also had these little individual plaques on the sidewalk in front of houses. They have the names of the Jews who used to live there and showed where they ended up and which

One of the many traditional hot spring baths

concentration camp they died in. It was super sad to see. World War 2 has become so much more real since I came here, for obvious reasons. Every French town has a memorial to WW1 and WW2 in it, for example. I feel like WW2 is so distant from most Americans, since we didn't have our civilians affected, just our soldiers. One thing I've loved about my history class has been learning about France's experience during WW2, which I've never really learned about before.

Well, this week, I am going on one of my last excursions to Nice and a few other cities in the south. I am super excited to go where it is going to be warm! At last! Blog post and pics to follow in the next week. A tout a l'heure!