Strasbourg

Friday afternoon during lunch, Alex looks at me and asks, "so when do you want to go to Strasbourg"? We had been toying with the idea for two weeks, but since it was Alex's friends who we would be staying with, I hadn't pressed the issue. Now it had gotten down to the day we should have been driving down and he was just contacting people to stay with. It was decided not to burden people for two nights so we would go down on Saturday morning and leave Sunday after brunch. The main excuse for going was that Alex had left some things at his old school, International Space University, while he went back to Canada for the summer before returing to Germany. The lady with the keys to the locker would be there on Saturday. Since I wanted to go, I offered to drive my car so we could lug it all back with more ease than on a train.

Now that we had finally made up our minds to go on Saturday, we had to figure out what to do on a Friday night. Luckily Casey had already decided to have movie night at his place. So Simon, Alex, Sergi and I met up at Casey's apartment with beer to order a couple pizzas and watch European Vacation. Sergi and Alex had never seen it before and had a real laugh making fun of the Americans in Europe.

After a few beers and a silly movie, we took the party outside. It was my first experience at Scheinbar. It is a small little lounge that plays 60's music literally two blocks from my apartment that was a favorite of the BMEs before me. When I stepped through the red velvet curtain, I instantly knew why. It is all done in red lights with little disco balls and red and orange beads lining the top of the bar. It was crowded with young locals chatting and scoping their surroundings. I'm sure our group looked a little odd with one girl and four guys. Casey made the comment that either it appeared that I was a very lucky woman, or that they were gay.

After a couple drinks there, Casey lead the way to Brusslerplatz and M20. Simon immediately caught on to the theme of bars that Casey enjoyed. This bar was also small, but instead of a motif of red circles, this one had brown boxes. Apparently everyone was having a good time as we did not realize it was now past 2:00. Simon had been planning on being home at midnight and we were slowly loosing our early departure to Strasbourg. Simon and Sergi left to catch a train back to Wahn, but Alex, Casy and I moved on to a bar all in blue. There was a little dance floor in the back with a DJ spinning God knows what.

It was then Casey spotted a few girls eyeing Alex and thought it was a good time to play wingman. Casey strikes up a conversation with an attractive blonde. Apparently it was her 23rd birthday and she was living in Germany for a short time before she went back to her home in France! Casey and I thought this was perfect for our shy French Canadian. So Alex started talking and apparently she enjoyed is accent, but then he just backed off and started dancing alone. Casey and I looked at each other and just rolled our eyes. Soon after the strike out, we made our way home since we still needed to get to Strasbourg. Nothing like getting up and driving 3 hours on 3 hours of sleep!


Alex and Sergi showed up right on time. I didn't know a Spaniard could be so punctual. I on the other hand was not ready becuase mornings and I don't get along. But we eventually hit the road and the drive down was quite beautiful as we had taken the same way to get to Koblenz. Sergi wouldn't know because he slept the whole time which made me very jealous.

When we got closer to town, Alex decided it would be a good time to mention that he had never driven into town before so he didn't know how to do it or where to park once we got there. Just like in Luxembourg, I got nervous and we spent a 1/2 hour going in circles and driving in and out of garages until we parked at the shopping center. Once that was taken care of we made our way to the city center and the Cathedral. It was pretty touristy with all the shops selling souvenirs, but you could tell it was also still used as the town's center. It looked like a classic village with timber and plaster houses curving with the small alleys.


We took one of the alleys to the river where we hopped on a boat tour. We went all around the city listening to a recording in three different languages describe the sites and history. The boat also went through the locking system. I had never gone through locks before and the boat barely fit. Going from the lower section to the higher one was an extra treat. The lock was right in the middle of a walking street. As the water rushed in and slowly lifted the boat, people stopped with their children to watch. Once we had reached the higher level, I could now untie the shoes of the people who were once 10 feet over our heads. As the boat tour went on, we wished we had sprung for a covered boat. By the time the tour was over, we were all frozen to the seats and scurried away to find some warm drinks.

After some of the best hot chocolate I had had in a while (it could have been because I was so cold, anything warm would have tasted like yummy goodness) we stopped by a local shop to pick up some Alsatian wine for our aperitifs or "pre-dinner drinks". We were staying at the party house apparently. It was the home of two French guys and a girl and so was the only place large enough to house a social gathering. Soon, eleven of us were sitting around the small coffee table on whatever we could find to sit on sharing drinks ranging from tea to 15 year scotch and stories. A few hours later and once we had killed every bottle that had made it's way to the table plus a few extra beers from the beer-run to the kiosk downstairs, we went our separate ways. They had to stop by a birthday party while Alex, Sergi and I needed dinner.

We went into this little pub where every table was on a different level. There were lots of old timber supports exposed and lots of good beer on tap. I started with a trappist ale to go with my Alsatian pizza. It was a thin crust topped with cream cheese, ham and mushroom. It was so yummy, the three of use split four when under normal conditions each could have fed two people.

For my second beer I thought I'd look at the menu. I was overjoyed to see that they had La Fin Du Mond and Delirium Nocturnum. These Quebec and Belgium beers are some of my favorites, but I normally don't order them because they are too expensive. But in Strasbourg they were a third of the price they would be in the US. That puts a beer lover in a bit of a pickle. Do I treat myself to a favorite that I can get in the States but normally don't, or go for something new that I may not enjoy. After the waiter had stared at me for a few minutes waiting for me to make up my mind, I went with a Dubbel. I hadn't had carmel goodness like that in a while and it was certainly a treat.

After dinner, we made our way to another local bar to meet up with some more ISU students. We were walking around the bar when I looked up at the TV and saw Georgia and Florida game! I stopped dead in my tracks and Sergi ran into me. I was so happy to see that Georgia was beating Florida. Even though I don't care for either team (putting it as nicely as possible) I don't care for Florida more. Unfortunately, the people we met were not in the mood for American Football so we quickly departed.

The group ended up at Le Kokrigan. It was in the basement of an old house with arched bricked ceilings and a live band. There were giraffes of beer and strange pink drink by the pitcher being passed around. Among those in the group was an extremely loud French Canadian who spoke terrible French when drunk and a much shorter Canadian we ended up lovingly calling the drunk dwarf. It had really appeared like the guys in this group had never seen a girl before, and there were at least three in our party! I was able to talk to a Costa Rican, a Rastafarian, and a Norwegian before the drunk dwarf came over, landed in my lap and proclaimed, "I have the jaw of a hippopotamus, Grrrrr"! Sergi and I kept the comical drunk dwarf busy so that Alex could talk to a cute Asian girl he had been dancing with. However, by four in the morning, Sergi and I were about done while the Asian girl asked Alex to go to an after party. Sergi and I wished him luck, put our dwarf in a cab, and slowly made our way home.

When we got to the apartment, we saw Alex on the doorstep. Apparently the girl couldn't decide whether to like him or leave him so he gave up on the party. The afterparty at the apartment lasted until the sun was rising and Sergi was falling. Morning came all too quickly, but we knew we had to get going. After a quick shower and some chocolate bread we hurried around to do the site seeing we had initially come to do. But first there was the trip to ISU for Alex's belongings.

ISU is quite a large building to house only 50 students a year. They have many displays of the world's accomplishments in space. I know this because we spent an hour there waiting on someone with a key. Apparently they had changed the keys on the locks earlier that week and did not give the TA her set. The security guard never showed so our reason for travelling down there was in vain.

We made our way back to the city to take in the Cathedral but did not have time for any of the museums we were hoping to get to. We went back to the Turkish restaurant for another Lufka because Sergi had fallen in love with them before we made the long journey home. Let's just say I was not as chipper as I could have been Monday morning.