Blogs from Alsace, France, Europe - page 24

Class has begun! The boat tour was a pretty interesting way to see the city. It took about an hour, and there were headphones so you could listen to a commentary about Strasbourg. Fun fact: the city has 27 bridges! I have officially started classes! We got a list of courses we could pick from on Friday, and this week we went to any classes we were interested in, we just have to hand in our course selection by the end of the week. Monday I went to a class about the history of the European concept. The prof seems nice but he has a southern France accent that I’ve been told is really hard to understand. He speaks very very slowly though so I didn’t have any troubles. My evening class is about culture and ... read more

La Fin de Semaine Saturday Taryn, Katherine and I met at a street market to shop for fruit and stuff. I bought a loaf of bread and a bagel for less than 2 euros. I also bought a few oranges, apples and a kiwi, a pear for under 2 euros! We’re going to try and shop there every weekend if it runs throughout the year. Next we headed to Ikea (round 2) to get a few things we hadn’t picked up the week before. On the way back we also stopped at a grocery store called “Simply”. We carried 2 (almost) full-length mirrors and 3 huge bags of Ikea stuff around the grocery store and FINALLY found toilet paper (we had all been using pocket sized Kleenex). Toilet paper seems to be a difficult commodity to ... read more

We woke up, got ready and checked out of the hotel. We headed back to the downtown area. Lori was hoping shops might be open. We found a café and had a light breakfast because we were still stuffed from last night. Most shops were not open so Lori and I walked around just window shopping. When we went by the cathedral, mass was going. We went in and I sat down and enjoyed listening to the service and the choir. Their singing was unbelievable angelic. After the service we walked back to the car and took off for Riquewihr. This is a little town close to Colmar that Kirsten and I visited. Kirsten recommended I take Lori here. Well Kirsten was correct, Lori loved it. All the cute little shops were open so after walking ... read more

I hate City Night Lines because the chairs are gay to sleep in. Strasbourg is pretty though. It was hot and sunny for most of the day but then it got really humid and started raining a bit. First we had breakfast in town - chocolate croissant and espresso. Then we walked towards city center crossing nice canals. The houses are a mixture of German and French, lots had the pattern like the ones in Nürnberg had. Notre-Dame of Strasbourg is a ridiculously massive church but its beautiful. Also, we wentinside and walked around it. The palace or chateau, which is very close to the church, does not look impressive at all after seeing the church even though it is an alright building. Then we went on the boat trip through Strasbourg. It took 70 minutes ... read more

Some of you may know of the world wide, internet based hospitality club called Couch Surfing. The idea of that club is simple … if you are travelling to a certain destination do a search and see if someone will let you sleep on their couch, or even meet you for coffee and a chat. Lorenza, our friend Florence and I came up with a similar idea after consuming a few glasses of Alsace wine. Our idea was simple enough …. Select destinations and try and travel the world, solely using the connections we made when we visited my cousin’s place in Alsace. We named our wacky idea “Niedermorschwihr Surfing”, the name is a bit of a mouthful, but the idea is a good one. On the day we came up with the idea we could ... read more