Twas the Night Before Christmas...

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Bonjour everyone!
I am writing you from one of my new favorite cities in the world, Strasbourg, France. (Really expensive, but hey, it's France) This place is called the Christmas Capitol of the world and it surely lives up to its name! I've never seen so many beautiful Christmas lights and festive markets and shops with cakes and candies set up so elegantly. The boutiques here remind me of the scene in a Christmas story where he's looking in the window of the big department store with the magical Christmas display. Every shop is like that and there's always a crowd looking in the window and dreaming of eating all the cakes and sweets. The Christmas market here is the largest in Europe and it is ten times better than the market in Nantes. The architecture, however, is my favorite part. It is highly influenced by Germany, seeing as how Strasbourg is on the border of France and Germany, and the buildings are painted in all colors and the signs are usually in French and German. There is a much bigger variety of cultures here, French, German, Turkish, North African, and of course of us tourists that come for the Christmas season. Yesterday, we arrived at about 1, found our hotel, and immediately went to get something to eat. We then went and explored through "Petite France" which is a island on the river and is the heart/downtown of Strasbourg. We couldn't believe the beauty of this place! We spent several hours just walking and taking pictures. We went through the big cathedral here, Notre Dame de Strasbourg, I believe it's called, and I absolutely loved it, it's gorgeous. (I put of pictures of it) Lauren and i are going there tonight for Christmas midnight service and I cannot wait. We made reservations for tonight and tomorrow night to have some nice Germanic/French dinners, luckily we were able to get reservations. After exploring the downtown, we came back to the hotel to take a little nap and then headed out again for dinner and a promenade. Today, we got up and had an early lunch at a little Turkish family owned place that actually had really good pizza. I got a hot wine at the market afterwards, it was delicious! After that we went to the Rohan Palace in the downtown and went through it's art museum, it was quite impressive and only 2 euros for entry since i have my trusty student id. Hee hee, little do they know that I've graduated. After that, we did a little shopping; Lauren had to buy new gloves and a scarf, so we went to the famous Galleries Lafayette, France's premiere department store. I have to say, I'm more than tickled to be able to buy some of the exact same brands and items in the U.S. for an extremely smaller price than here in Europe. I kinda feel bad for the Europeans, they are taken great advantage of. Lauren and I then went to a Haagen Daaz cafe, where we spotted some German ladies and I got really excited, and drank some delivious coffee drinks. Hot drinks are always a must here, it's cold, not like Iowa of course, but their so available indoors and out, so you always want one. Poor Lauren wants it to snow so bad, it would be her first white Christmas, but I'm ok with the foggy cold here. We are now back at the hotel just relaxing and are going to change before going to dinner and then on to church, I can't wait to sing Christmas songs in French and perhaps German too!

I hope this blog finds everyone warm and away from the icey roads and blizzards; Christmas won't be the same without my friends and family. I'm not quite sure what I'll be doing on Christmas day, other than eating at 8pm, I will write another entry within the next couple days, perhaps once I arrive in Paris.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Happy Kwanza!

xoxo
Cara

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