Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Strasbourg













Ok, so fast forward through a week of school where I was super busy but having fun!








On Friday CIEE (the group that runs my program) took all of us to Strasbourg for the weekend! We got on the train around 1:30 and Sarah had brought many delicious little snacks from some big food festival by her house. It took about two hours to get to Strasbourg on the TGV and I really enjoyed just staring out the window and enojoying the French countryside.






Finally we arrived at the train station, which was very moden and beautiful and we walked to our hotel. There are several rivers that go through Strasbourg (which later led to Hillary and I getting turned around after we crossed "the" (a) river and thought we were almost at the hostel).






Before dinner, we all went out to get a drink and somehow ended up at a looney toons bar. Like loony tunes like great america. Everything was yellow and blue and there were many pictures of sylvester and tweety. Tell me thats not a little strange. But the drinks were cheap so what can you do. I had a beer with some sort of lemon-lime something else going on. It was different but very interesting!






Then we went to dinner. Strasbourg is part of Alsace which is very close to Germany (and has been germany like 345403985 different times). The food is very hearty which is not my style. The resturant was ok except that i thought this one thing was apple jelly except that it was definitely some kind of cooked animal fat...i think...and it was disgusting or degoutant as they say in Paris!



The next day we took a guided tour of the cathedral in the morning. It is very large and very beautiful and you can see it from almost anywhere in the city. We spent the rest of the afternoon shopping around and sort of hanging out. Hillary and I also took public transit (AH!) to go visit the buildings of the EU (Its the Parliament, the Council, and the Court) and we had a very nice time wandering around in the neighborhood out there.



On our way over to dinner, there was a little marching band concert going on in a square and we listened to that for awhile before going to dinner and eating the biggest plate of sausages known to man. In some, not my best dinner ever, but the wine was plentiful and the dessert tasty.


The next day we checked out of the hostel and saw an old german castle which I suppose was pretty sweet but it wasn't totally digging it. Then we went to--- MONKEY MOUNTAIN!


Ok, monkey mountain is pretty much the weirdest thing ever. Its this big open park where there are 280 monkeys. They sort of just wander around and walk up to you and you feed them popcorn. Then sometimes the monkeys fight. I wish there was a better way to explain it but thats pretty much it. So i fed some monkeys and was really sort of amazed/freaked because we do not have things like that here!


Finally we made our way home and it was the end of a nice weekend!

Its been awhile...

So a lot has happened since I last updated this baby!

I have been up to lots of Parisian things like going to class and trying to cook dinner. One of the many exciting things was I took a trip to Tours with my friends!

Tours is a nice small city south of Paris and in the heart of the Loire Valley (where all the chateaus are). We took the train down on Friday night and made our way to our sparse little hostel. We went out for dinner and were shocked at the reasonable-ness of dinner prices. I think that for better or for worse, Paris is pretty much the most expensive place EVER.

The next morning we hopped on another train and took it to Chenonceaux, one of the most famous and most beautiful castles in the Loire valley. It was occupied by several french kings queens and mistresses, most notable the Henri/Catherine de Medici/Diane de Poitiers trio. The chateau also served as a millitary hospital during world war II. What is maybe most interesting is that because it straddles the river that divided north and south, you could in through occupied france on one side and enter vichy france on the other--just through the doors to the cheateau!

We also tried out their little wine lable at the chateau and returned back to Tours to check out more shops and eat another tasty dinner. On Sunday we woke up and were suprised to see the Tours fun run-10k-20k running past our windows, and we all went out to enjoy the celebration. We also checked out an antique market as well as the beaux arts museum and the cathedral!

All in all, a pretty great weekend!