Update from Strasbourg

Alright, no more panicking. I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth. :)

But since it’s been a while since I’ve blogged, please be forewarned that this will probably be a very long blog. So sit back, relax, and enjoy!

We left off with Melinda in Paris heading out to a stranger’s birthday party. This turned out to be quite an entertaining evening since there were only 3 of us girls, the other two were Swedish, and the rest of our party of 10 were Frenchmen. Let me just say right now that I have the greatest respect for people who can speak three languages fluently (namely French, English, and Swedish) and keep them all straight in their head during a conversation. Since Kristoffer doesn’t speak French, and I’m a monolingual for all intents and purposes, there formed two distinct groups during the evening: the English speaking group, and the French speaking group. Several of the guys bounced back and forth between the two, and all in all it was a fun evening. It ran so late, though; we ended up getting our dinner at 12:30--as in midnight+30! Crazy Europeans. They eat late, but even that was a little ridiculous. We ate at a gay bar/restaurant, which was pretty funny, but the food was good. I had steak and “French” fries. The steak was mediocre; the beef here is generally of a lower quality, but it was flavored well. That night ended with crepes and a LONG walk home, because we missed the last metro (subway train).

Saturday, March 8^th

A late start this day because of the late night out. We breakfasted/lunched at a café called JetLag (appropriate) with the plan of the day being to visit Notre Dame. When I was in Paris last, Notre Dame was under construction and had lots of ugly scaffolding and such all inside and out; also, we had came too late to go up to the towers So I was really excited to get to see this wonder of Paris unmarred by ugly steel polls and plywood.

We wandered around inside for a while, looking at the rose windows, which I had only partially been able to see before. Then we headed to the line outside to go up to the legendary home of Quasimodo! The hike (and I mean HIKE) up to the top of the towers was all stairs. The three of us, Maria, Kristoffer, and I, were all huffing and puffing by the time we got to the top. It was this crazy, tight, spiral staircase the entire way up with room for only one person at a time. Good workout! And it was really worth it, too. The view was gorgeous, and it was so neat to get to see the bells in the tower and the gargoyles.

After Notre Dame, we went to the Shakespeare bookstore, because it was an English bookstore very reminiscent of Elliot Bay Bookstore in Seattle. Kristoffer wanted to go there, I am still not buying books—we didn’t stay very long.

Next on the agenda around 5:30pm was a cute café with fantastic desserts for a snack. We were having all-you-can-eat sushi that night, but not until 9pm so we thought we could risk some coffee, ice-cream and cobbler. The Sushi that night was also very good (bad food in this country is hard to find) and we spent it with some friends of Maria.

Sunday, March 9^th

Another late night out ended up with another late start, but we managed to get to the Musee D’Orsay around 1pm, so we had a good afternoon to spend seeing the wonderful works of art. I had never been to this Museum. Everyone said they liked it better, but I think I enjoyed the Louvre more when I went there last time. Anyway, we saw works by Monet, Manet, Van Gough, Whistler, and so many more I can’t even remember. It’s really amazing the amount of art history collected in one place. I especially enjoyed watching little children running around the museum. It amazed me that parents would bring them and not keep closer track of them. Priceless works of art were well within the grasp of the sticky fingers of a 3 year old. It really makes you catch your breath!

We had lunch/dinner at the museum café; I had quiche and coffee. As we left the museum around 6pm there was a torrential downpour of rain followed by one of the most fantastic double rainbows I’ve ever seen. It was so rich and put into perspective the beautiful works of man against the beautiful works of God.

We walked past the French Parliament building on our way home, and stopped in for evening Mass at a church called the Notre Dame de Lorette on the spur of the moment. The rest of the evening was spent in with some Indian food delivered and the good company of friends.

Monday, March 10^th

We made the train to Strasbourg after some massive confusion and panic when we couldn’t find the right car number on what we thought was the right train. It was the right train, but someone changed the car numbers as we were walking down the ramp! So, to give you an idea: we were looking for car #7, and what we saw as we walked down the train was car #s 12,13,14,15,16,17,8,13,14,15,16….I kid you not. We finally came back and found a worker to ask where on earth car #7 was, and it was right next to car #8. So yay! We found the car, it said #7, but as we got on we realized that we were not the only ones confused and that there were people sitting in our seats who thought they were in car #17. We were rude and made them move, but we were so tired from running up and down the train that we just wanted our seats. There were plenty of extra seats in the car so it wasn’t a huge deal, but it was quite the drama.

Strasbourg is an adorable little French town. Yesterday I wandered around the town a little, sat in a café and in general enjoyed myself. Today, I went to the HUGE cathedral here and saw the astronomical clock kept there. In the old days a town had only one mechanical clock and it was usually kept in a municipal or religious building. This is one of the few left and it is still working! The show the striking of the noon chimes once a day, but otherwise they don’t run the clock. It’s amazing how many gears and figurines move on the clock. It’s very tall as well, reaching around 20 feet high.

Today I also went to the European Parliament and saw a “debate” on a report about Iraq. It wasn’t really a debate from my opinion, most people just agreed that the report was good and just made suggestions on what more needs to be found out and possible actions that could be taken from the results found. It’s really amazing that the entire European Parliament moves to Strasbourg for a week once a month. Kristoffer and I had dinner with the 5 Swedish Members of Parliament (they bought us a fancy dinner too!) that Kristoffer is working with, and all of them agreed that it was silly to move the parliament once a month. But because of the structure of the government they can’t change the process. Politics, politics, politics…

Tomorrow we return to Brussels and Friday we leave for Sweden! My French is getting a little better, or I should say my courage to use my Frenglish has grown. :) All in all I am enjoying myself so much! It was especially fun to stay in a hotel with never-ending hot water! (Hot water in our apartment lasts about 10 minutes.) The saddest part is the fact that today the dollar hit a record low against the Euro. Yuck. Prices in Euros are about what they would be in dollars in the US, so things are really expensive. But I’m managing to live pretty cheap.

Ok, longest blog ever! But I felt I owed it to you all. I will try to keep up a little better in the days to come. (Pictures to come as well!)