Strasbourg Trip

CEA trip to strasbourg. saturday and Sunday March 27 & 28. Wake up: 06:30. Our train left from Paris at 8:10 am. I was much more prepared this time and made it to the station in plenty of time. we took the tgv (high-speed train) which was great. I played cards the whole way down with some of my friends. We got to Strasbourg, all 50 of us on the trip, and dropped our stuff off at our really nice hostel. I think it was made for big groups of students and it was perfect for what we needed. I was in a room with 3 of my friends from Colgate. We had lunch at some dinky sandwich shop because we didn't have much time. Then we met at the cathedral for a tour. Our tour guide, Pierre-Jean, was this funny older french man who has been taking CEA kids to Strasbourg for years. The Cathedral was great. They had this really old astronomical clock that was so intricate and cool. I'll post some pictures when I get back to Paris. After the Cathedral, we did a boat tour of Strasbourg. It was pretty fun but it was so hot and the audioguide was so soothing and we all fell asleep. But I did see the European Parliment buildings, lots of bridges, churches, cool architecture. Strasbourg has gone back and forth between the Germans and the French for centuries so it was a really cool mix of French and German architecture. After the boat tour, we had free time to wander around. There was a guy in a square who had long tables surrounding him. There were about 20 chess boards all along the tables and this man was going around playing whoever wanted to play (for free) all at the same time. He would just walk around in a square and move pieces and he always won! 2 of my friends played, and lost. Our whole group met for dinner (paid for by cea) at some huge restaurant in Strasbourg. It was a really fun meal. Chicken and Spaetzl. Spaetzl is amazing, sort of like a potatoe pasta. Dinner was festive and we all went to a bar afterwards for the rest of the night. Strasbourg was pretty sleepy but very fun.

Germany:
We woke up the next morning, had a quick breakfast at the hostel, and drove to Germany on a bus. My cold was in full force so I brought lots of tissues. We drove about 2 hours up to the mountains and Lake Titisee. It was this gorgeous alpine lake, snow all around, in the Black Forest. The Black Forest was so cool - fog everywhere, gorgeous trees, very mysterious. It was pretty chilly up there. We walked around the town for a little and had lunch there - a perfect German lunch. I really wanted sausage and sauerkraut the whole trip and finally got it at Lake Titisee. They had this quasi-grocery store where for 5€, you could get a huge sausage, sauerkraut, spaetzl and potatoes, and sour cream. It was amazing - exactly what I wanted. i couldn't even finish it! I bought some chocolate, dry sausage, and postcards (that I haven't sent yet - woops) and then we left.

The bus took us to Friedburg, Germany next - we got a tour of the city center, cathedral, bell tower, had some apple streudel, and left. It was an odd place to visit - kind of like if they took us to Naperville, IL.

Our last stop was a winery in Alsace, back in France. It was pretty cool that you can just drive over the border without being stopped or anything! Nobody looked at my passport once. I forget the name of the winery (I have it at my apt) but it was a oretty good tour. The wine wasn't great though - ok sparkling wine, baadd reisling and really bad guerstrowimer (that is spelled REALLY wrong) I didn't buy any but it was cool to actually see the vineyards in this tiny town. We went back to Strasbourg, found cheap quick dinners for the train, and then took the train back to Paris. I passed out that night, still sick and exhausted from all the traveling and running around.