Story #1
After searching all over the city for a place to eat, we settled on Chez Yvonne. This was the cutest, most homely little restaurant I had ever seen. Old paintings on the walls with quilted French sayings next to them hung everywhere. These were sandwiched, inexplicably, by photos of possible French celebrities. Eclectic?
Anyway, the kind old lady who seems to own the place leaves us waiting at the bar for a few minutes after she greets us at the door. She then shows us our seat. After what seemed like 17 and a half minutes, she comes to take our order. We had decided that we were going to get some Foie Gras and a typical Alsatian dish, sauerkraut and sausage (Alsatian is Alsace...the region Strasbourg is located). We would share. The patient old waitress said no. We had to all get a dish. She sped off.
Round 2, she comes back 10 minutes later. Ali, the most francophone of the three of us, starts the ordering. After some hesitation, she says what she wants. A little timedly. Then Alisha and I order. She gets our order, but points to Ali and says "I don't have time for you!". The gentle and warm old lady gets someone else to come talk to us. She speaks in English to us with a smile. Perfect. We give our order.
Round 3. The sweetheart of an old lady throws a menu on our table and points to the drink section. After 5 minutes, she comes back and asks us what we wanted. We tell her we aren't thirsty. "OH! You three are REALLY speacial! ASNDAFKNFDSK!" As she storms away, we can feel how much she is working to get our tip. We decide to leave. We ordered and dashed. We are rebels.
Is there better food? And drink? I think German food is vastly underrated.
Story #2The Christmas market was AMAZING. I was expecting maybe 30 booths with some mass-produced pieces of crap. Nope. There were hundreds of booths with mostly hand-made pieces of mediocrity. You could find everything from candles that never died to Santa Clauses that never gave presents to snack huts that never made anyone skinny. We ended up getting a 6-pack of beer. At least it was from a local brewery.
And the amount of people! Tons of people. And what I liked most of all, the people were old and local. We were easily in the 99th percentile of coolness. I'm usually in that category when I'm alone, so it was nice to be back up there as a collective group.
As for the set-up. Basically, there were 14 different areas dispersed throughout the city. They were easily walkable. This gave a great tour of the city. And best of all, it was all centered by its magnificent cathedral.
And the lights! The market was a lot cooler and night because every street was strewn with lights. It finally felt like Christmas.
The lights!
The market and the cathedral.
Story #3
I drove for 9 hours that day. I left at 6AM and didn't get back until 11:30PM. Long day. We went up through Switzerland, into Germany, and finally back into France.
This was my first time in Germany and onto its Autobahn. I should probably research this before I write about it, but I'm sure I'm an expert on this subject. There is no 1 Autobahn. It is the name for highway, in German. And yes, there are no speed limits on some parts. Where these parts are, I don't know. I just noticed that several times during our trip in Germany, I didn't see any speed limit signs. During these times, BMWs, Mercedes, VWs, and Opels roared past me easily over 100 mph. I tried to keep up. I really did. But my crappy French Renault can hardly get up to a normal French speed limit. There was one point where I hit 95 mph and I almost pulled over because I thought I blew a tire. I really thought the car was going to flip over.
But we made it safely.
Story #4
Russia was the guest of honor at this year's market. The Russian women are gorgeous.
What Russian woman wouldn't want a piece of this?
Story #5*Warning! History nerd alert! Quit reading now!!!*
Strasbourg has been the center of conflict for hundreds of years. Every time there is a war including any German states and France, Alsace (again, the region Strasbourg is in) is up for grabs. Both countries think its inheritantly theirs. Therefore, the city benefits from a strong influence of both. Both languages are seen all around, but French is dominant and is spoken much more often. But what I thought was really cool are the buildings. They looked very German, but then the city felt very French. The wooden panels felt German, but the giant cathedral was very French. The food was very German (sauerkraut, sausages, beer), but with a strong influence of France (quiche, wine, baguettes). I thought it was a perfect marriage of the 2 cultures.
Geneva needs to learn from this city. Instead of feeling French or Swiss, Geneva feels like...an awkward 15 year old with acne and a strange fascination with world politics. Its trying to find its place.
German and French
If only I was there, we could have been in the 99.999th percentile of coolness.
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