The truth is, even if we didn't travel on the weekends I would be happy. My love works SO much during the week which means I am alone all the time. I look forward to the weekends, because I love getting to spend time with him. We can finally catch up on what's going on at his work and what I am learning in my French class. I love that! I didn't think it was possible to miss someone you see everyday, but now I know it is. However, it is really nice to get to see new places so I welcome the opportunity!
This past weekend, we took an impromptu trip to Strasbourg. Saturday morning we were sitting around and thinking about what we could do (it was such a beautiful day) when my love said, "Do you want to go to Strasbourg?" I said, "Sure, why not!?" He said, "The train leaves in 10 minutes so can you be ready in 5 minutes?" I said, "I guess we'll see!" We threw clothes in an overnight bag. I put my wet hair in a ponytail. We grabbed some stuff to do on the train, and we were off! We sprinted across the street to the station. The man said, "Train to Strasbourg leaves in 30 minutes!" (in French, but I understood!). We laughed that we had hurried so much and we still had 30 minutes. I went back across the street to put some makeup on and to raid the hotel fridge for some snacks for the 1.5 hour train ride. He went to the ticket counter to purchase our tickets and to secure a hotel room in Strasbourg.
I studied my French on the train; he read the newspaper. We admired the countryside together. I would point things out to him (my mom's favorite trees), people riding bikes (I would say, "Look, it's my dad!"), and people wearing not enough clothes in their yards to be living next to where the train passes (if you catch my drift!). He would tell me the names of towns or what the names of certain things were in French. It was very pleasant.
Upon arriving in Strasbourg, I liked it immediately. It helped that it was just a perfect day weather-wise. The sun was shining; everyone was smiling; there were people laying on the grass basking in the sun, and the shops were full of people browsing. We walked all around and took a lot of photos. We had lunch right outside the beautiful cathedral (pictured above). We liked the food so much that we went back for dinner. We just walked and walked. It was a fabulous day.
Sunday was another beautiful day. We walked around some more. We had delicious Italian gelato (the line was out the door). You can't see that great (last picture), but they would make the gelato look like a rose on your cone. In the US, I am used to getting a cone with scoops on top, This was much fancier! I had pistachio, coconut, and dark chocolate. My love had lemon, strawberry, and chocolate. They had so many flavors including 3 different kinds of chocolate, nutella, a myriad of nut and fruit flavors, and specialties like caramel, dulce de leche, etc. It was very cute and doing a lot of business! After we had our gelato, we went and laid in the sun and people watched for the rest of the afternoon.
Overall, it was a good weekend. Strasbourg is in the Alsace region which is historically German. The architecture is much more representative of German style. I prefer the old, quaint look and feel of the French style. I definitely wouldn't want to live in Strasbourg (too many people could speak English and I would never learn French!!). However, I do think it's a nice place to visit. There were a lot of super high end stores there - Hermes, Gucci, Cartier - as well as my favorites - Zara and H&M. I hope my Tour Guide de France takes me back there someday!
