Foreign Frustrations

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After an 11-hour night's sleep I am fully revived and living on European time. Jet lag ain't got nothin' on me

So today we all had our first experience reserving train tickets. What we thought would be a 20 minute venture to the train station ended up being an all-out 2 hours of chaos. Not knowing how train reservations worked and not knowing how to speak the language and trying to coordinate 3 different weekends with 20 different people was cause for the concierge manager to come out and tell us to either hurry up or leave and come back tomorrow. Finally, I thought I had my three weekends booked so I headed back to the hotel. Turns out, the guy booked me for the wrong weekend in Prague and the wrong day to Rome. So after all the stress and money it took trying to get all this arranged in the first place, I now have to go back again on Tuesday (Monday is a holiday). But my trip to Bad Honnef this upcoming weekend to see Mona is perfect except for the fact that I have 6 minutes to change trains in Offenburg...

Anyway, other than that stressful few hours today was pretty nice. We started off with a tour of Notre Dame de Strasbourg, went to the German district of Strasbourg, took a river boat cruise on the Ile River, and ended with a full 3-course welcome dinner at Alsace a Table.

New Discoveries:

-French McDonald's serves a McBaguette

-Syria wants a democracy says the violent protestors at Place Kleber today

-Nutella goes on EVERYTHING

Tonight is one of the girl's 21st so we're all about to head out on the town and see if we can't make the French hate us even more!

Aurevoir!

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Photos

Notre Dame de Strasbourg
At the Cathedral there was a stone dog that if you rubbed its nose brought you good luck.

Rue de la Rape
Guess we'll be avoiding this street...

Mime Romance
Morgan and a street mime

Comments

[gramps & jackie]

sacre bleau
Love your comments and tickled to death you are enjoying the adventure.

[Uncle Jack]

Just getting up to speed
Congrats on your foreign adventure - should be loads of fun! Yeah, the trains run on time, so switching is get out, run to the next & get back on. Try to find a female to work with in train stations, etc. they're usually a bit more forgiving. But then you're a pretty girl, so that may work better with males. In stores, etc., try to talk to the sales people first before conducting any business. Don't worry too much about the language. The French usually don't like our murdering their language anyway. You will pick up some vocabulary automatically (greetings, food, etc.) & it's ok to try it out. Just listen to the local pronunciation & be courteous to all. Have tons of fun! UJ

[Grandma Diane]

What an experience!!
Sounds great so far!! Love hearing about your trip--so far. Your mom and Carson were here for the weekend. Kids (Danielle and Carson) went tubing yesterday, and to Schlitterbahn today. Carson looked after Danielle, but they don't talk much. Had a great two days together. Going into SA. Weds. to do riverwalk and to eat with them on Wed. Have a great time, and do stay off that Rape street! :) LU