Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Flammenkueche and Apfelstrudel

Bonjour! or should I say Guten Tag?

Wow, where to begin? There's so much to tell! This weekend I went Strasbourg and if any of you ever find yourselves in France, I highly recommend paying this wonderful city a visit. Located right next to the border between Germany and France, it has a bit of an identity crisis which only makes it that much more unique. Everyone speaks French (with a slightly different accent than the Parisians), but most of the streets and buildings have German names (which are a lot of fun to attempt to pronouce). The Alsace-Lorraine region has long been a disputed territory between France and Germany, so although today Strasbourg is a part of France its German roots are easily apparent. That is also the region where much of my family on my dad's side came from, which probably made the Alsace historical museum a little more exciting for me than for my fellow travellers.


Gutenberg- The guy who invented the printing press.
 He's quite the celebrity in Strasbourg.


We left Paris late Friday night by the TGV (the train of great speed) and began our weekend adventure early Saturday morning. We started with the cathedral, located in the heart of the city. It was actually the world's tallest building for a few centuries and is famous for its astronomical clock which is one of largest in the world (sensing a theme here?) and has apparently proved to be unusually accurate. 

From there we explored La Petite France, a part of the city known for its medievel houses. It's very picturesque, in a sort of Busch Gardens way, but without the cheesy music. Then I managed to convince one of my friends to go to the Alsace and Strasbourg historical museums with me. The Alsace museum was incredible. From the outside, it appeared tiny, but once we were inside it turned out to be a maze of cultural objects from the region-- everything from clothing, to religious objects, to children's games and farm equipment (it felt like Mary Poppin's bag, who knew all that stuff could fit in such a small space?). 


As far as meals went, we tried out the local specialties. Tarte flambée or flammenkueche is very popular in Strasbourg. It's basically a thin crust covered in creme fraiche, onions, bacon and cheese. I also tried a variation of the tarte, but it was more of a potato based dish that still had the creme fraiche, bacon, onions and cheese. To drink, we tried some hot wine which is often sold on carts in the streets during winter. For dessert we shared black forest cake and apfelstrudel (apple strudel).

Tarte Flambee

Apple Strudel (yum!)

Flamingos at the Parc de L'Orangerie
Sunday, I had a lot of difficulty convincing my friends that taking a train to Strasbourg to sleep in was a very expensive way to miss out on a lot of stuff. Consequently I spent a good portion of the day exploring by myself. Strasbourg is the center of several European institutions, so I started the day by walking around the Parliament, Council and Human Rights buildings. Located right next to them is the Parc de l'Orangerie, known for its gardens and small zoo. As I was walking back through the city, past the university (where I spotted Kant on top of one of the buildings- shout out to Dr. Gatti) and a few other cathedrals, the sun finally came out for the first time all weekend (that's what they get for sleeping in). I stopped by the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, then managed to coax the sleepy college students from the hotel in time for dinner.


Anyway, that's the basic summary of my trip. I got back yesterday morning (we got up around 4:00am to catch our train, eww) and since then all I've been doing catching up on homework and going to class. Nothing much is new with my host family, except one of the older brothers is home on break from college this week. He gave me quite a scare on Friday before I left for my train. I was eating dinner in the kitchen, and I guess he had forgotten his key, so he hopped the gate and walked right in the door. I of course had no idea who he was or even that he was expected home, but thankfully vaguely recognized him from family pictures around the house.

A la prochaine fois!

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