Strasbourg

11 June 2011

It was only about a half hour or so until we arrived at the Holiday Inn here in Strasbourg from when we left the gas station. We all checked in and went off to our rooms. They put us all on the same floor in rooms by each other like they did in Belgium. We like it better this way. We are next to Tom and Kate and across from John and Gianluca. At every hotel except for Luxembourg (when we only shared the hall with the professors) we have been next to the boys. I guess they’ve got to keep them together. Zane and I were letting Amarilla store her luggage in our room (she is staying with a family in a neighboring city and Kristie and Cathy are sharing an apartment in the city center) while we were going to go on our tour and such. Professor Del Duca announced before getting off the bus that there would be a student from the University that would be in the lobby at 3 to answer any questions of how to get places and what to see in the city, so we decided to go down there. I’m glad we did, because only Tom and Gianluca were down there. Olivia was so cute and friendly. I don’t think she understood some of the things that I was asking her, but I was all over the place, so it’s understandable. We came back to the room and Zane changed to go swim with the other guys that were going down there. I went into the little “health room” (aka: workout area) and watched him “swim” (he gets really bored and spends more time seeing how long he can hold his breath or do hand stands or other fun tricks) while Tom, Gianluca, and Prof. Del Duca swam laps around him. It was fun to watch. Zane came up and got ready and we all headed to the lobby where we were to meet at 5:25 to leave for our guided walking tour. We were naturally some of the only students in the lobby and the guide was getting inpatient by 5:30. Eventually everyone came down and we were off. We took the tram to the center and walked swiftly to the Notre Dame Cathedral. The guide was going really fast and I wasn’t quite sure why he was so adamant about getting to the Cathedral so quickly, but I soon found out. We were able to go inside and they were having a showing of the Astronomical Clock and we only got to it with a couple of minutes to spare. He pointed out all the little details of it and the history behind each thing. It was absolutely incredible. I was super excited for it to go off, but it was only “5:30” (the clock runs a half hour behind for tourists, so it was really 6pm) and it wasn’t as extravagant as I was hoping, but it was still amazing to watch. He pointed out different little symbols in the cathedral and we got to go back in the seats as he was showing us the stained glass windows and the differences in them. We had to leave quickly because there was a mass that was about to start. We went outside and listened to the beautiful bells ring for I swear 10-15 minutes and were able to take pictures of the incredible details on the outside of the building. Our guide explained that it wasn’t always as tall as we were seeing it. It was originally built in the 1200s (I believe, this is all going off of mine and Zane’s memory and if it’s wrong I apologize) and after some time they built an addition to it to make it taller; I think they added different levels 3 or 4 times. But it wasn’t until the 1400s that the spire was built because the people wanted it to be the tallest building in the city and it was for a long time. It wasn’t until skyscrapers started coming around that it was no longer the tallest building in France. However, I believe it is still the tallest cathedral. Zane and I want to try to go back and climb to the top one of these days. We went through the center a little more and got to see lots of little restaurants and shops. We ended in Petite France, which is this cute little part of town. Most of the shops and restaurants are just off the water. The houses were adorable; they had taken the really old homes and refurnished them into expensive apartments. We started losing part of our group to different restaurants and soon enough we were on our own. Almost all of Zane’s classmates were staying at this restaurant where the guide left us to try the local noodles (I have no idea how to spell it), but it was a little out of our budget, so Zane and I headed back towards the hotel. We rested for a bit and went back down to the lobby to ask the concierge where a grocery store was. She said it was too late and they’d all be closed until Tuesday (Monday is a holiday here). So we went back to the center because we weren’t going to pay 13 Euros for a sandwich at the hotel. We went back to this little place Zane saw by the cathedral. He order the tarte flambee (I’m probably spelling it wrong) and I got chicken that came with a salad, fries, and crème brulee. Mine was alright, but I have to admit Zane’s was sooo good! I guess they’re known for tarte flambee’s in Strasbourg (we’ve got to learn how to make them!) After dinner we headed back to the hotel for the night.

12 June 2011

We got up at 8:30, got ready for church, and had some breakfast. We weren’t sure how long it would take to get to church. We asked the front desk if the roads we wanted to take were safe for us to walk, but they said that we’d have to get on the freeway, so we decided against it. At about 9:45, we had them call a cab, but the driver was already there, so we hopped in. We got to the church by 10 (I’m pretty sure it’s closer than our church back in Denver!) and a nice Brother helped us get to Sunday School. The Sister who was teaching the lesson was kind enough to write down all the scripture verses on the sweetest spinning chalkboard, so Zane and I could follow along. We were able to meet a lot of people before and after Sunday School, everyone was SO nice and friendly (it was so wonderful to be in that atmosphere again). We went to sacrament meeting and I was really bummed that I didn’t know the language because everyone was saying how wonderful it was. After church we were asking the Elders (one of them was from Herriman, Utah J) how to get back to the hotel and they actually found us a very sweet couple that was willing to take us back. When we were in the hall getting ready to go, another family offered to take us to their house and feed us and then they would take us to our hotel after. We were so overwhelmed and grateful for everyone. We went back with the family to their BEAUTIFUL home in this really nice “village.” They were telling about all these different little facts about Strasbourg and about their families and it was just so nice getting to know them. We got to their house and were able to help out a little bit in the preparation (we were having a bbq J). Patricia was explaining to us that the last speaker in church had a wonderful talk, but people were getting upset because in France lunch is the most important to them and no one should cut into their lunch time, so if you go over 12:00 by even a little bit, people start to get really upset. I thought that was awesome. But she wasn’t kidding about them taking lunch really seriously. They had chicken kabobs, steak, sausages, rice, salad, fries, cake, pie, and ice cream. It was totally better than going to any restaurant! I was overly stuffed by the end of it (around 5:30). It was so nice getting to know their family and they had another family from the ward over as well as a sister who was just recently baptized (she was here on a study abroad from Venezuela and she was just the sweetest girl). The other family had brought their Jack Russell Terrier, so Zane and I had a fun time getting in our puppy fix! We had such a fun time, so naturally we were really bummed to leave. Jean was kind enough to drive us back to the hotel and he knew right where he needed to go. We enjoyed the remainder of the evening in.

13 June 2011

Zane was back in class this morning. Since it’s a holiday (Pentecost?) here, the University was closed, so they had class in a conference room downstairs. Today the third class, Comparative Constitutional Law, started (Zane wasn’t able to take this class because it would put him over his limit of 8 credits), so the schedule changed a little bit. Instead of having 2 hour classes, they’ve changed to just over an hour. He now has Professor Del Duca’s class first, has an hour break and then his Human Rights class with Professor Van Dyke, who took over for Professor Nanda today L. During his break, Zane came up and was able to take a short nap before going back down to class (we should have gone and had a second breakfast J). Since most places were closed, we decided to wait to have a late lunch, so we wouldn’t be eating out twice. Zane ended up doing his homework right after class. We were going to go to lunch around 2, but decided to wait to go out with some of the other students at 4. We ended up going out with Pam, Malorie, Tom, Eunice and Maren. We found this cute little café on the corner of the street over from our hotel. Tom and Eunice decided to continue on to find something else, while everyone else stayed to eat. Zane and I got bacon burgers… except it wasn’t your typical hamburger. It was ham, hamburger patties, cheese, and the works all on a 12 inch baguette. It was interesting, but still very good. We went with the girls to go find something to take back to Kate (the poor girl is slaving over this journal for the school, I hope she finishes soon!) and we were able to find a tiny little shop that sold some food. They were able to find some snacks as well. And then we headed back to the hotel and hung out there for the night.

14 June 2011

I decided to go to the University with Zane today because we wanted to go to the grocery store after class (because it’s just across the street) and since we didn’t know where he’d be, I didn’t want to get lost. I was glad to see he was going to a real University, instead of just a house/apartment complex, even though it looks like something that would have come out of the 70s. While Zane was in class I watched 10 Things I Hate About You on my ipod J (the poor people around me probably thought I was crazy when I’d sit there and giggle about something that just happened). During the break we went with Kate and Pam to the library because that’s where everyone else said they were going. It was a few buildings away, but we couldn’t find anyone (it didn’t help that it was huge). The girls were doing some reading and Zane and I were restless, so we went out to go walk around, but just ended up at the building where they have classes. We got online and Zane looked up when Pretty Little Liars starts up for me and we found out that it airs tonight! But of course I can’t watch it on ABC Family because of our stupid IP address. After Zane was done with all of his classes we went across the street with Kate and went shopping. We loaded up on bread, cheese, water, imitation pims, chicken with thyme chips, and a few other snacks. We headed back to the hotel and pretty much stayed in for the day. We ate our cheese and baguette for lunch and dinner, Zane went swimming and did his homework. We watched some tv and talked online with family. It was really nice and relaxing day.

15 June 2011

It was really nice today because Zane only ended up having one class because we went to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) which took place of Zane’s Human Rights class. So Zane was back by 10am and he was smart and did his reading for the day. At 1:45 we all met up and headed towards the court. It wasn’t too far away. We passed the European Parliament building that was absolutely incredible! I was kind of hoping that we were going there, but instead we went to a little more dated building (they said it was only built 10 years ago, but I don’t believe that). It looked like it was supposed to be a science museum, so I was basically the only one that enjoyed the inside of the building. The elevators looked cool to me for some reason. Prof Del Duca asked the guide if we could quick go take a look in the courtrooms upstairs and she had said that one of them was being used and she’d quick ask if we could go to the other one, but he still led us all up the stairs. The first one we went to had a guy getting his make-up done and a camera crew was setting up. The courtroom was nice and big, but I don’t remember the details of it as much. We went across the way and Prof Del Duca was explaining to us about the rooms and the significance of having both of the round and other history behind them, but as we were following him and in and he was trying to get us to go in, we saw a guy coming towards us (got up from a round table with about 12 people) shaking his head behind the professor and shooing us. He said that the President Judge was having an official lunch and we were not allowed to look in or to be up there. It was funny and embarrassing. From what I saw, it didn’t look much like to courtroom to me though; I would love to see it all set up. We then headed downstairs to a nice, big meeting room and waited for the Vice President to join us. For the following hour we were addressed on how the ECHR is set up, what they do, and the kind of cases they take, ending with about 45 minutes for questions (mainly from the professors). We then split up and we were part of the group that headed back to the hotel (I wish I would have realized then that the Parc du L’Orangerie was just a block away… we could have gone then!) We went swimming, to the sauna for a little bit and even tried out the nasty steam bath (I was assured that they’re not all like that). A little while later we headed towards the laundry mat. We somehow were gone for two hours doing laundry before heading back to the hotel for the night.

16 June 2011

Sadly I don’t really have anything to report for today. It was rainy and we stayed in and watched movies, played games, and talked to family. Zane did his studying while I napped and we just had a nice lazy day at the hotel.

17 June 2011

Today I walked to Zane’s school to meet up with him after he was done with classes and boy did I regret it! I don’t know what I was thinking for wearing a sweater cardigan and power walking to the University that’s a 20 minute walk for Zane (meaning it took me 35 minutes, but in my defense I hit just about every red light) at noon when I am NOT adjusted to this insane humidity. But I was dying when I finally reached the school. I had about 3 minutes to cool down before Zane got out and we headed to the grocery store. We were able to load upon imitation pims and baguettes for the weekend and head back (luckily taking the tram back). When we got back we tried going down to the pool, but there were probably about a dozen other people down there and for a girl that barely knows how to swim, I immediately turned around and went back up to the room. We stayed in the room for a bit while Zane started to read, so he wouldn’t have to worry about it this weekend before I talked him into going out with me because I was dying of boredom. So we walked to the center which was actually a really nice 10-15 minute walk. We window shopped for a bit before heading towards Petite France deciding whether we wanted to try spaetzle or have another tarte flambee. Well before making it to that part of the city we found a place that had tarte flambee on their menu (I love that they all basically display their menus outside for you to look at) for 6.90 Euros, so we went there. We shared a traditionalle one because we didn’t think we were very hungry (later regretting we both didn’t get one because it was SO good!) and shared a bottle of Evian water that was freaking 5.50!!!!! (Ugh) We walked around the center until it started to get dark and slightly rain on us before we went back to the hotel for the night.

18 June 2011

Today we left for Kehl, Germany, at 10am with Pam. We asked the front desk how to get there walking and she looked at us weird and gave us a map and showed us the tram and bus route, so we just followed the routes (I’m sure we could have saved time if we hadn’t, but not all the streets are listed on the map and we had no desire to spend an extra hour getting lost). We went the usual way up to the University and just continued on. We saw some nice buildings and then we got to a bridge over a decent sized river, so we started taking pictures because we thought it was the Rhine and that we were crossing the border. We were wrong; we were just passing into the ghetto part of France. We ran into this cute bundle up family that started speaking German to us and eventually started to ask us how to get to Strasbourg. I felt like such a pro in being able to tell them how J and handed them one of our maps that we had. After talking to them I started to get really excited, since they spoke German, knowing that we were getting really close. We finally approached this large park and didn’t really see a road going through it, so we turned left and walked up on a slight incline until we realized it turned into the bridge that really DID cross the Rhine. We took our appropriate pictures and stared at this gigantic boat that was underneath us. We turned right onto the first road we could and it was actually a really long street that had a lot of shops and led to an information booth and beautiful church. We bought pretzels and a pretzel roll (I was so glad Katie introduced me to them, so I knew what I wanted to get). We went in and out of stores (we’ve hit an H&M in every country we’ve been to- Zane is not a big fan of this fact).We found a Woolworths and I’m pretty sure I’m the only person on this planet that didn’t know what it was (I need to watch O Brother, Where Art Thou? again) and tons of 1 Euro stores. We spent hours going through different stores and buying little things here and there. We searched for a stein for Pam’s brother, but they were nowhere to be found, we even had to ask someone where we could buy postcards! (it’s clearly not that touristy of an area). I think the only store Zane was okay with was the media store he found his cd at. Later in the afternoon we sat down to eat at a little fast food place. Zane and Pam got bratwursts with fries and I had delicious kroketten (because I did not have enough while I was in the Netherlands). After lunch we started heading back, but got distracted by a lego store. We probably spent another hour there and we even ran into Cathy, Kristy, and Malorie there (they spotted Zane in the store J). There were so many cute toys, I wanted to get so many things, but I wasn’t about to spend 30 Euros on a small teddy bear even if it was Steif bear! We started to head back again, but instead of going the exact same way back, we wanted to find the cool walking bridge we saw on postcards. We walked through this beautiful park (the same one that we ran into, but on the Germany side) and admired the art work and cute houses. We finally got to this incredible bridge and had such a good time walking across it. It was so cool that it even had benches in the middle of it for you to sit and overlook the river. The whole time we walked across, I could smell chocolate, but we couldn’t tell where it was coming from. (I thought there might be a chocolate factory across the way.) We enjoyed walking all through the park on the France side as well. We got to see a few guys show off their mad kite flying skills, a waterfall fountain, and they even had a small scaled solar system. As we were walking out of the park all I could smell were horses, I was bummed that I couldn’t go to a chocolate factory or even see the horses. We were able to find our way back to Strasbourg safely and without getting lost J. About 5 minutes from the hotel it started to down pour (without any warning of a few droplets or anything!) and the wind was blowing so hard that the rain was just coming down sideways. We took shelter in a door frame until the wind let up and walked as fast as we could back to the hotel. We had to clean off from the massive puddles we went through and ate our pretzels for dinner. We ended up staying in for the remainder of the evening.

19 June 2011

Happy Father’s Day!!

This morning we were debating on getting a taxi or bikes to get to church. We were a little worried with how dreary it was looking outside that we might get poured on, but we still decided to rent the bikes. We looked up how to get there and wrote it all down and then it took about 15-20 minutes just to rent the bikes from the front desk. Between those two things, we didn’t end up leaving until 10:30ish. It was a really nice bike ride, except we couldn’t figure out where half the street signs and getting lost and having to ask for directions about 3-4 times. We finally made it to church 15 minutes late, but still had a really nice time. After sacrament meeting all of the kids got up and sang “Mon Papa” for Father’s Day and gave all of their dads a little gift. We said hi to all of the people that we had met last week before getting back on our bikes to get to the hotel. It was much faster going downhill and knowing where we needed to go and were back in 15-20 minutes! We returned the bikes (which btw it was so tall that I could barely reach the pedals, we even had to switch bikes b/c I really couldn’t sit and pedal on it!) and went up to our room. For lunch/dinner we had a plate of fries at the lounge bar downstairs while talking with Zac and so Zane could have a nice little Father’s Day gift by seeing our Max! We also tried chatting to as many people from our families as possible and stayed in for the night.

20 June 2011

After Zane got back from class today, we joined up with Pam, Eunice and Tom and went to the train station. Buying tickets to Baden-Baden ended up taking forever, so we missed the train we had intended on getting and had to wait until 2:20 for the next one. In the mean time, we ran into Cathy, Kristy, and Malorie buying tickets to Germany as well. We went to a little bakery in the train station, I want to say it was called Paul’s, and had some pain au chocolat. When the girls joined up with us, we decided to buy our tickets to Paris while we waited, so we went back with Pam and Malorie to get tickets all on the same train (Kristy had purchased hers earlier, so we were finding that same train). We then walked to our platform and boarded the train. It seriously felt like one of the slowest trains we’ve been on, after we got out of France it went a little faster, but it still wasn’t going very fast. We got to see a lot of the countryside and it was beautiful. We had to transfer trains in Appenweier, which took some extra time (if we could have found a direct train it would have saved us about 30 minutes). We were able to take a double decker train from there. We finally arrived in Baden-Baden around 3:30. We tried seeing if we could see anything from the train station to be able to walk somewhere. Eunice and I decided to split up to see who could get more info, she went into a convenience store and I went into the information booth. I was able to get a map, but the lady wouldn’t show me where we were on the map and she gave me this dumbfounded look when I asked her about the huge cuckoo clock. I gave up and went to check on Eunice. She was looking at bunch of different tour guide books. I found the cuckoo clock and was all excited to see the Black Forest; it was then that I was informed that Baden-Baden is in the outskirts of it! We didn’t want to pay $10 for the book, so we just continued on. We found a map at the bus stop, but had no idea where we were and the next thing I was running to get onto a bus that everyone else was getting on. Eunice was sweet enough to buy us all a bus pass, which was for 5 people (how crazy!) Across from us a there was a girl, holding a Chihuahua in a little bag carrier, sitting across from her mom. The pup reeled use in when its little tongue was hanging out of it’s mouth (like Max’s use to when his didn’t fit in his mouth).  Eunice has 3 chihuahuas, so she wanted to go play with it, she asked if she could pet it and the mother gave this stern hard look and said “no.” We were all sad and tried really hard not to stare at the puppy anymore (it was then that I decided it would be bad to take a picture of the puppy). We found our stop in the downtown-ish area and got off (so did the mother and daughter). We decided to head up one alley and window shopped, it had only been a few minutes when Eunice and I saw the most amazing rings in the window of a glasses store. I have no idea why this glasses store sold them, but I am glad we went in. Basically, you start out with a ring that has a little screw coming out of the top of it. You can choose up to three accessories to stack on the ring, having the final one being able to screw on. I had so much fun! They only had a limited amount of trinkets because they usually order them for clients (clearly that wouldn’t work for us). I was extremely sad when she started to price out Eunice’s ring because it was getting to be over 100 Euros, so I stopped being serious about getting one. We were probably in the shop for an hour. While Eunice was wrapping up the sale, Zane and I managed to get a customer’s dog to come over to us under the table, so we could pet him. It was so sad because he had this hole in his head… it made me love him that much more. When we were getting up to go, the sales lady showed us that they have watches that you can build too (they were so awesome, you can switch out the band, layer different bands and decorate the faces of the watches) I wanted one of those also! I am in love with Eunice’s ring! It looks very vintage looking and it’s only local to Germany, so no one will ever have on like it back in the states. Zane, Eunice and I bought pretzels from this little bakery that Tom had found while we were getting the ring. We then went in and out of stores before running out of stores up the alley, so we went back down and turned down another one of the alleys. We went into a tourist shop where we finally found a stein for Pam’s brother J! We were waiting outside for Eunice who had gone into the store next to us. Pam went in first to get her, then I entered *BAD IDEA.* It ended up being the most amazing store for me… it was full of jewelry (like the cheap stuff I wear J). They had tons of the plastic/glass rings that I love everywhere. They had headbands, necklaces, and bracelets galore. Zane had to come in and stop me from my madness. I ended up getting one thing and it wasn’t even for me, so I’m very proud of myself! We continued on and noticed a forest of trees with a path going through them just up the hill. Zane tried asking someone if that was part of the Black Forest, but the guy said no to speaking English. We decided to walk up there anyway. It was so beautiful up there. We were able to play at a little park for a few minutes before continuing on. Instead of going down the way we came we found another little passageway that we thought would lead us to the hotel we had ended up at earlier. It didn’t quite take us there, but we managed to get back down to all of the stores. Zane and I left the others at their beer garden, while we went on a search to find a decently priced restaurant that had wienerschnitzel (I was very happy to find out that it wasn’t hot dogs served with chili cheese fries). We went up and down 4 or 5 alleys at least. We had also stopped for drinks because we were dying of thirst. I got the apple soda that I have fallen in love with here (it’s like Martinelli’s) and Zane got this “cola kissed with orange” at least we think that’s what it translated to. After 40 minutes we sat out on these benches in front of the beer garden because we didn’t think it would be so good to sit at a table if we didn’t intend to order anything. However, after 30 minutes of waiting for them, we went up and told them about the places we found and decided to sit down at the table next to them. Zane took a swig of his drink and dropped his lid on the ground, (which was pretty much dirt) so he refused to put it back on. He kept drinking and I heard this guy yell out behind us saying “Hey!” and made these gestures of a dumb person (I thought he was trying to mock us or something) so I was getting really self conscious and told Zane he probably shouldn’t drink at the table any more. He was being a punk and didn’t care and within a minute or two, the guy is coming down and telling us that we can’t drink our drinks at the table because they don’t want people looking in (which btw the patio was on a platform and not even Zane could see over the fence) and seeing that we had outside drinks and that they didn’t want the customers thinking they could order them. He also said that we could only stay for another few minutes. Since I was completely embarrassed, we just got up and left, telling the others that we’d be at the benches. A few minutes later they came out and we were going to find a place to eat. One of the more decent priced places was just across the path, so we decided to go there. I was getting a little nervous because the train I wanted to get on left at 8:24 (it was a direct train back) and it was already about 7:45 when we ordered. We looked at the schedule of trains to go back and there was one that left at 8:30 and 10:47 (NOTHING in between!) We didn’t get our food until just after 8, and knowing how restaurants in Europe are, we knew there was no way that we’d be getting our check by 8:30, so we decided then that we’d just catch the last train back. We enjoyed our wienerschnitzel, but not so much the spaetzle (I was really sad about that). We decided we’d walk around to other cafes/restaurants looking for black forest cake and apple strudel. We must have looked at a dozen menus before giving up on the black forest cake. We all ended up getting the best apfelstrudel I’ve ever had with a delicious scoop of vanilla ice cream. We window shopped on our way back to the bus stop. We were happy to make it to the train station early (because we really had no idea how we’d get back if we missed this train). We got on and I found seats in a row that you pull down, so we could all sit together. There was only one other person sitting in this area and she was across from us. First glance and I thought “now that’s what I call a hippie.” I know it was bad of me, but she had her big flowy dress down to her feet with her dreadlocks and piercings galore. She had her backpack and gear spread out all around her and she had two hula hoops lying on the ground. I thought it would be kind of a pain to be backing through Europe with hula hoops! She spoke English and asked us a few questions and we found out that she was on her way to Strasbourg too! We had to get off and transfer in Appenweier again and she began to follow us. I’m not going to lie, but she did make me a little nervous. By the time we got to the platform though I wasn’t so scared. She had Tom hula hooping like it was nothing. He even did two at the same time! She was very protective of them, because he was getting close to the edge and Eunice was spinning one on her arm. We learned that she was from Canada and she had come to Europe to teach acting in Romania and was there for about 4 months. She then travelled around and started hula hooping with a few other people; she even performs with some that light on fire! France was going to be the 13^th country she’s been in (I was pretty jealous when I heard that). We all got on the next train and Zane and I sat behind everyone else (because the seats are usually in groups of 4). Zane and I were talking about how we really should have gotten on the earlier train, because there wouldn’t be so many crazy people out. One guy was trying to ask if anyone on the train had anything to relieve a toothache. That guy eventually started to go up to everyone asking them individually. They got to our group behind us and proceeded to tell Tom that he wasn’t dangerous and that he didn’t need to be afraid. The guy decides to say something to the extent of, I’m like a scorpion, I’m only dangerous when I’m provoked. Tom says that’s he’s not afraid and Sara (the hula hooper) says that he’s being annoying (at that point I was getting extremely scared of the events that could have happened). He kept mumbling words that I couldn’t make out, but luckily he was getting off at the next stop (which happened to be Kehl, so I was happy knowing we were almost where we needed to be). We finally made it back to Strasbourg. We thought the trams stopped at midnight and it was shortly after that, so we started to walk back. We then noticed trams still going around, so we found the next stop and hopped on. We then learned that I was wrong and Sara was not in fact a hippie, but rather she had studied with Romanian Gypsies.  Not before long we were back to our hotel and in bed.

21 June 2011

Not much happened during the day today. Zane was exhausted and managed to keep sleeping even though I kept trying to wake him up every half hour. Luckily, he had started on his reading. When he finally woke up and finished all of his homework, he was hungry, so we went out. We decided to go back to the restaurant that we found with the really good tarte flambee. When were walking and when we got to the park I noticed that there were tons of people out and music was blaring. I was thinking, “Wow, this is what we miss during the weekdays!” But then Zane told me that it was music day for the summer solstice. Just about every street and alley that we turned down we heard different music being played, whether it was live instruments or dj’s with large groups of people. The restaurant was completely packed outside because there was a group right out there playing, so we ended up going in. We each order a tarte flambee and they were delicious! We had a great time walking around, but managed to get twisted around with all the groups out and went down a different alley. I was distracted with a group of country western dancers and told Zane, “I thought we left this behind in America!” They even had their cowgirl hats and wranglers on. It was then that we ran into Cathy and Kristy J we see them everywhere! I love it! We kept walking and noticed the carousel that we haven’t seen since our first weekend here and then figured out we were going the wrong way. I was kind of glad that we did, because we were able to see more groups perform. We eventually made it back to the hotel and stayed in for the night.

22 June 2011

I met up with Zane after his first class and hung out with him during his break. I played on the touch while he was in his second class, and when that was over everyone went up to the 5^th floor for the reception that was being thrown by the dean of the law school. Unfortunately, the dean was in a meeting for Deans of Law Schools, so we were joined by two of the Vice Deans. They had nice hors d’oeuvres for us to enjoy for the next hour or so. We then hopped on the tram to avoid the major downpour that was about to happen. I hung out in the room while Zane met up in the lobby with everyone for a review session that Professor Del Duca was kind enough to hold. I then tried to get Zane to study for his finals, but he just did his homework for the next day. We went out trying to find something to eat, but to keep it close, but a lot of places had already closed. We then found a bakery and decided to go in. I was trying to talk Zane into getting an éclair, but he didn’t want to pay 2 Euros for it, so we just got a baguette. When we got back we ran into Malorie who told us that dinner was at 8 (we had heard rumors that everyone was going out with Gianluca to a place called Marko Polo, but we didn’t know what time or how much it would be). We decided to join them, so for the next hour and a half, Zane worked on his outlines. We met up with everyone and went to Petite France and met up with the girls that aren’t staying at the hotel and Olivia. There were so many of us, but we managed to find a place to sit together. Everyone, but us were having wine, but we still had such a good time. It took about an hour just to order and get our food, an hour to eat, and an hour to wrap things up. Everyone was just enjoying one another’s company and the waiter was so fun. They brought out dessert wines for everyone, so Eunice and Maren had ours (they’re even more entertaining when they’re slightly intoxicated… it reminded me of Lisa and me in high school). The waiter even gave us all lollipops as we were leaving. Zane and I traded ours, so I had a delicious pear one and he had strawberry. We then walked home and it was such a beautiful night. I am so glad that we walked! We lost some of our group who wanted to get one more drink. We finally made it back to the hotel just after midnight.

23 June 2011

Today was strictly dedicated to Zane and his studies. He finished up his outlines, we wasted too much time getting hotels in Paris and Rome, and printing off our boarding passes to Rome. We went to the sauna for a little bit because we were so cold that we were changing colors. I quizzed Zane for a couple hours and had a really good time. I am so proud of him and how much he knows. We tried to get to bed earlier than the past few nights, so he could be well rested for his finals.