Strasbourg! La plus belle ville du monde...

This is ridiculously overdue, but what can I say? It's been pretty busy this month.

For the weekend of May 13-16, also known in the Christian calendar as the Ascension of Jesus into Heaven, I went to Strasbourg, France with Inga and Rebecca, two American friends also studying French at CIDEF. First of all, thank goodness I go to school at a Catholic university that feels obligated to give us time off to go to church/be with our families/get one last vacation in. We left on Thursday morning and came back on Saturday afternoon.

Angers is in the west of France and Strasbourg is so far east that it's practically Germany (more on that later) so it was really interesting to watch the landscape change during the train ride to and from Strasbourg. Angers is part of the Loire Valley, so it's flat and green, but almost a bright, colored-printer-paper green. If you've seen any aerial photos of the classic chateaux of France, that's what we're dealing with. It's also very immaculately kept, for the most part--all gardens are neatly trimmed, etc. By the time we got to Strasbourg, the trees and grass had become wet (because of the rain, but the colors struck me as "wet") and the green had become a deep evergreen. It actually reminded me a lot of Southern VA/Northern TN/West Virginia. It was a very pretty train ride.

Unfortunately, it rained for the first day, and it was very, very cold. My fingers were numb when I held my umbrella. Our hotel was kind of a dump, but that didn't matter too much because a) it was cheap and b) I'm a college student. I've always, always seen worse. But the TV didn't work and the shower head was crazy with practically no partition to keep the water from spraying everywhere. The internet also didn't work in our room, and we had to pay to use the computer downstairs.

The food, though. Glorious! I've been subsisting on mostly fruit and yogurt lately, so I wanted to eat some MEAT. From about 1870 to 1919, Alsace and Lorraine were a part of Germany (or Prussia, at that time). Napolean III had picked a fight with Bismarck, and the French army was absolutely destroyed. Typical. The Prussians took the two departments in retaliation because they are so rich in carbon. As a result, "French" children went to German-style schools, spoke German as a first or second language, and basically became full-blooded German citizens. In the rest of France, maps showed Alsace and Lorraine shaded in black, and the country was literally in "mourning" for their lost brethren. It became this deep wound on the French psyche, and is one of the reasons that France jumped so quickly into WWI at the height of nationalistic sentiment in Europe. At the end of WWI, Alsace and Lorraine returned to France, which was confusing to everyone by that point. Even today, Strasbourg and the rest of the area retains a lot of it's German heritage. Strasbourg is even right on the border of Germany. There's a line on the city map, like: FRANCE / GERMANY.



The moral of this story is that there is a lot of fantastic food in Strasbourg. For lunch, we had Flammekuchen, which is a really crispy, thin pizza with creme fraiche and mushrooms and bacon. We also saw a bunch of the little pastries and breads that are unique to the region. But the best was the dinner on Friday night, when we all had regional specialities. The image above is what I ate: Baeckeoffe. It's basically three meats, potatoes, and carrots cooked with white wine and cooked in a "terrine." I loved the terrine so much that I picked one up for myself to take home. Honestly, it was a little dry, but I'm sure that's something I can learn to adjust. I was seriously jealous of Inga's pork knuckle with sauerkraut. Mmm. It looked delicious. I noticed that many restaurants in this area had what I can only describe as "family" seating. I'm very used to very small tables that only seat two people, four at the most. However, at two restaurants in three days, we were seated at one end of a long table that sat anywhere between six and ten people. I watched hostesses seat two different parties at the same table. It was interesting. I kind of liked it. It fit with the cozy atmosphere of the region. We also ate lunch one day at a sushi restaurant that had a conveyor belt that moved all of the dishes around the room. It was really cool, actually. And one of the cheapest meals I've eaten all semester!





We also visited the cathedral, which is huge and beautiful and will probably always stick in my mind. It's very gothic and mysterious looking because it's made out of sandstone. Inside, I lit a memory candle for my grandfather, whose mother was from Germany and who was Catholic. Never let it be said that I am not thoughtful. Also, Petite France was absolutely stunning and basically straight out of a children's book. The buildings are all timber framed and white with steeply sloping roofs. Interestingly enough, it's called "la Petite France" because it used to be the area where all of the french prostitutes did their business. Now it just sounds (and looks) like it should be a part of Disneyland. It was in this area that I was able to get my pretty terrine for only 25 euro!

We also went to a few gardens, but other than that, we just wandered around. I loved it, though. Strasbourg is definitely a city I would love to come back to. Only about 10 days left in France! It's a weird feeling, but more on that later.

Blah blah blah no title here.

I really can't believe how fast this semester has flown by. I'm down to three pages in my planner before my flight on June 6. Scary! (I'm also almost done with my journal. I had to buy another one last week.) I took a test today in one of my Socio-Cultural Studies class, and my final is just three Saturdays from now! (Yes, a final on a Saturday. I don't get it either.) It's kind of weird, getting my final exam schedule and having all of my teachers start talking about it, but I guess it's getting me in the zone. Meaning I'm stressing out some. (a lot.) Sara says I need to find something else to worry about.

On the one hand, I feel like I've just gotten here. I remember almost falling asleep on the train, I remember getting to the foyer and being locked out, and being just awkwardly new here for like a week. But on the other hand, I feel like I've been here forever. I think about all the stuff I've done, like the excursions, and all the material I've covered in my classes, and I realize that yes, I have been here for three months already, and the time to go home is coming up, possibly a bit quicker than I'm ready for. Just thinking about studying for the history final makes me want to curl up into a ball and sleep.

My classes haven't been "hard" in the typical sense, but there's definitely an added layer of confusion and twistiness when it's all in another language. I'm not studying the French Revolution, I'm studying la Révolution française. And France doesn't have a National Assembly, it has une Assemblée nationale. And those are the easy translations. Plus, in the time period we've covered in history class, France has had a few monarchies, a few revolutions (1789, 1830, 1848), two empires, and five Republics. I'm going to have to make the biggest timeline ever... But yeah, it's like that with all my classes, the whole language thing. But it's getting a lot easier. I haven't started thinking in French yet and English is still the first thing that wants to spill out of my mouth (I say "thank you" way too much around here) but I can at least correct myself and write out complete sentences without having to erase something. It's the little things in life.

I'm leaving for Strasbourg tomorrow morning with Inga and Becca for just a few days. It's supposed to be raining the whole time; wonderful. It's my last travel of the semester, so I hope it's worth it! I was supposed to go to Cinque Terre, but all of the trains were full, so we had to cancel our reservations. I certainly thought I would have been able to travel more than I have, but it's really, really surprising how expensive it it. We also didn't get a lot of breaks, so I would have spent the money if I could have visited a city for more than a day and a half. However I have gone on some spectacular excursions to places that I wouldn't have been able to get to by train, and I've been able to stay pretty sane. I can't deal with lack of sleep due to traveling. I've saved a lot of money, too, so I won't be broke when I come back, and I'll be able to save for a car/an apartment after college/etc.

So, yeah, I have almost exactly 25 days left! That looks like such a big number to me, but it's really not. I changed my flight so that I fly into Jackson instead of Memphis, and I'll be stuffing my face with Jerry's Catfish the day I get back. I can't wait. I can't wait to bake and cook. I keep having dreams about Kitchen Aid Mixers.

Sidenote: it's amazing how much chocolate they have here. I really don't even eat that many sweets at home, so I'm going to have to kick this habit in the bud ASAP starting June 7, but Monoprix literally has an aisle dedicated to chocolate. Not one side of an aisle, but TWO sides. Chocolate. Everywhere. It's a cross between a dream come true and type 2 diabetes waiting to happen. I just bought a three pack of milk chocolate bars because I know that I'm going to want them Sunday when I get home from Strasbourg and everything is closed. It's going to be weird to like, be able to get milk and eggs on Sundays when I get back to the States.

And driving. I might need to borrow my neighbor's kid's toy jeep to practice for a few days before I trust myself with the Sebring. That, and I broke my rosary that I hung from the rearview mirror that had been blessed by the archbishop of Rome, so Jesus won't be protecting my travels anymore. I curse the hastiness in which I tried to move it from my car to mom's before my trip to VA. I've never been so nervous driving in my life. Haste makes waste.

Also my bed is going to be really, really tall. French beds are obscenely low--like, the top of the mattress hits the middle of my calves--and my bed at home is obscenely high. The top of the mattress is at my hip and I've gotten pretty used to having to hop a bit to get up into it. And I've been using this crappy roll pillow because I never got around to getting a normal one, so my firm, square pillows are going to be awkwardly large but divine.

Saw my baby boy on skype last night, and I can't wait to cuddle up with him for a week straight. I can't wait to take him to school with me too! Such an interesting mix between a guard dog and a teddy bear.

Like I said, it's the little things.

As much as I'm having conflicted feelings about leaving France, nothing is going to compare to hearing that the plane is beginning it's final descent. I may kiss the ground. And buy an American flag and wear it around my shoulders like a cape. It'll be good to be home.

Spring Break, Part II

Picking up from where I left off, we were in a taxi cab on our way to the hotel by Charles de Gaulle. Ibis in Roissy-en-France is probably one of the worst hotel experiences I've had in a while. The staff was generally unhelpful, unavailable, and un-nice (I know that's not a word, but I'm trying to keep with the "un" theme here). The room we were in is small and dark with only one window, but surprisingly the bathroom was kind of nice. Even as I say all of this, I'm going to have to deal with it all over again in a month when I stay there before my flight home. At least I know what I'm getting myself into this time around, though. And I know where I can go to eat dinner (hint: it's in another hotel).

On top of this, the news was not good and it was becoming clear that Mom wasn't going to be able to get out anytime soon, so she started crying and I almost wanted to peace out and go back to Angers and sleep for a couple of weeks. But I was a good daughter and started looking up other options. Like taking a ferry across the Mediterranean and flying out of Tunisia. Or taking the train to Madrid and flying from there. Or taking the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Or boarding a trans-Atlantic cargo ship as a passenger. Never, ever let it be said that I am not resourceful.

We ended up not taking any of those options and Mom rebooked herself for Thursday. By Monday morning, we were getting out of Ibis and back into the hotel that we loved so much in the center of Paris. The room was smaller, but we had a little bit of a balcony. There was just a shower though, and one with only a curtain, so water got everywhere and it was generally not fun. I wish we could say that we branched out for food, but I tend to find places that I like to eat and then keep going back, so that's what we did. We also finally got to go see the Eiffel Tower, and even though we didn't go up into it, we did walk around a little bit. It's always just nice to get out and walk around a little bit. Tuesday night, we went out for one last dinner and I had the best crême brulée and hot chocolate yet in France.

Wednesday, I went back to Angers. I left Mom at the hotel and I stayed perky and smiley so that our parting wouldn't turn into a sea of tears. Mom watched me until I turned the corner, which, yes, did make me cry a little bit but IT'S OKAY! because I'll be home very soon. It turns out that all of the attractive french men are in the army and wandering around the train stations. The TGV I took back to Angers was brand spanking new with bright seats and a very "modern" design. I liked it. I hope I get to ride in another one like that soon. It honestly felt like I hadn't been gone at all; it felt like coming home. I spent the rest of the week just hanging out, catching up on TV shows, sleeping, and reading.

I know. I live such an exciting life.

And that's it! Class started again and now I'm one week closer to being home!