Tales From Germany Part 2: Strasbourg

So my second installment of "Tales From Germany" doesn't even start in Germany - it starts in France. Strasbourg lies just over the German border on a small island surrounded by the Ill River. The city is primarily known for its absolutely spectacular Gothic cathedral, Notre Dame (not to be confused with the one in Paris), which also offers amazing cityscape views to anyone athletic enough to climb the 400-foot sprial staircase to the cathedral's observation platform at the base of its spire. Strasbourg is also one of the seats of the parliament of the European Union, which creates quite a few headaches for all the bigwigs that have to commute from Paris or somewhere in Benelux to attend to business that could just as easily be conducted in Brussels or Paris or the Hague. But I digress.

Strasbourg was a great trip for us for three major reasons: 1) Shewara speaks French, which made it really easy to get around in the city (neither of us speak any German). (Sidenote: even the train announcements changed language one we crossed the French-German border, which I thought was pretty cool). 2) French food is WAY better than German food. We had tea and crepes for lunch, instead of the usual German meat and potatoes mixture. We also purchased some really nice chocolates from a chocolatier on the Grande-Rue in the city center. But 3), and most important, the weather in Strasbourg was nice. For the first time (and as it would turn out, the only time on our trip) we were able to use words like "sunny" and "pleasant" and "not completely rainy and ass-cold" to describe the weather. This made walking around Strasbourg quite pleasant as we wandered through the old city streets, taking in the odd but yet sensical mixture of ultramodern department stores and shops in old French buildings.

The coolest part of Strasbourg is known as Petite-France, a small section of the main island separated by a fork in the Ill, known for its cute restaurants and shops that cater to tourists by presenting an authentic, romantic French experience. We would have bought into it if we had had enough money to buy into anything they were selling, which is when we headed back to the city center by the cathedral to pick up some 3-Euro crepes (with nutella!) and tea. (Note to all future visitors to France: Coco Tea does not mean chocolate, it means coconut. Please make note of this.)

So, I'd say that Strasbourg turned out to be the best day in our trip. It was relaxing, fun, and easy due to the lack of language barrier. Our next stop will be Heidelberg.