Alsacez-vous!

Our trip to Strasbourg ended up being a great weekend full of great sights, food, and relaxation. We caught an early train Friday morning and arrived in Strasbourg about 4 hours later. It was the TGV train, which means that it is faster than the regular train. I wish there were more trains in the U.S., as it just seems so much easier to me than taking a plane (although obviously takes much more time). We checked into our hotel, which was modest but clean, and had our first real flammekeuche for lunch. It was delicious, and we also tried a variation on an Alsacian (Alsace is the region in which Strasbourg is situated) classic dessert, kugelhopf (basically a bundt cake shape but ours was made out of ice cream). We walked around the city (it’s more of a really big town) although the weather was rainy and cold. After walking around for a few hours, we went back to the hotel and took a long nap and then headed out for dinner. I had coq au vin, a delicious red wine stew with what I thought was chicken and later ended up to be rooster, I don’t want to talk about that. Anna tried the traditional sauerkraut which came with various meats. The next day, we got up, had breakfast at a salon de the (tearoom) and embarked on a journey to find the museum of chocolate, for which we had a brochure. It turned out it was in the suburbs, and we had to take a tram and a bus, and then did the rest on foot. The museum was ok, it had some interesting info about the history of chocolate and had some mechanical dolls acting out scenes in “chocolate history.” At the end of the tour, we were given 100g of dark chocolate which was pretty nice. They had some crazy things in the gift shop, such as chocolate shampoo, pasta, etc. We then made our way back to the city, and spent the rest of the day sitting in the sun, looking through gift shops, and watching a Charlie Chaplin impersonater/mime. For dinner, we tried 2 other Alsacean specialties, tarte a l’oignon (onion pie?) and quiche lorraine (quiche with ham and cheese). They were delicious as expected. We had some Alsacean wine, Riesling, and that was great as well. Sunday morning, we took a boat tour of the city, as there are canals running through it, kind of like Amsterdam. It was interesting and I learned that Strasbourg is the unofficial capital of Europe, as the European Parliament has its offices there. Maybe it’s partly because Strasbourg has, thoroughout history, belonged to so many different European nations, namely France and Germany back and forth. After lunch (more tarte a l’oignon and flammekeuche), we walked around some more and then caught the train back to Paris.

While on the train, I finished a book that I had bought while in Vienna, called What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt. I had purchased the book at an English books store and the only reason I bought it is because it was 3.50 euro (very very cheap for a foreign book) and the back cover looked slightly interesting. I really lucked out though because it ended up being a fantastic book that I recommend to all.

I can’t believe that at this time in 2 weeks I will be back home! This week I have 3 exams and a presentation, so it should fly by pretty quickly, and then next week Dad comes for his meetings and we get to hang out for a little while before I go home.