VENDREDI
After dragging myself out of bed and barely making it to class, giving half-assed advice to BTS students on clearly underprepared presentations, I finally made it home and, still only semiconscious, realised that I had 37 minutes before the only bus that could take me to the train station in Verdun, and I had neither showered, packed nor eaten breakfast. Obviously panic ensued. Fast forward through a lot of waiting, to arriving in Metz and almost missing the train to Strasbourg. For some reason the trains between Verdun and Metz are never on time. Regional trains never are. And unfortunately they are what stands between me and the rest of the world. Anyways, Liane taught me this cool twine knotting thing on the train. I'm sure it has a much more recognisable name, but I don't remember what it is. You probably know what I'm talking about anyways, if not, just fake it. So...we got to Strasbourg, a train station I've often passed time in, but had never actually left. Anyways, it was pretty late and we had to walk right past our hotel a couple of times before we realised where it was. We checked in with a leggy blond who wasn't wearing anywhere near enough clothing for how cold it was, dropped off our stuff and spent the rest of the evening wandering around the city. We saw the facade of the main cathedral (Notre Dame de Strasbourg) and a number of smaller, less touristy restaurant and bar type areas which would come in handy later. I must say that Notre Dame (indeed all Notre Dames) was awe inspiring in the dark. An elaborately carved mountain of stone, it was the only thing that was truly lit in the city, which gave it an almost magical presence. In that moment, I could understand religious fervour. How could you not believe in God if you lived in constant contact with such a monument to belief? I'm glad the first time I saw it was almost alone in the dark. I don't think I would have been as impressed if my first impression was one that was swarming with tourists, as I would experience in all subsequent days. We concluded the evening with a brisk and brief trudge along the banks of one of the many rivers that flow through the city. We though it would be fun to walk along the river like people did in the postcards. However, we quickly learned that when you have to climb over a railing to get to something, it's usually not worth getting to. I'm still covered in mud.
SAMEDI
We rose at the butt crack of dawn, hastily dresses, grabbed a pastry from a salon de thé (that I swear wasn't there the night before) and jumped on the early train to Colmar, a perfectly preserved "petit village" about 40 minutes south of Strasbourg. While I'll admit that i wasn't exactly thrilled about the idea of visiting a supposedly tiny town during my weekend reprieve from living in a tiny town, I'm delighted that we went, as "petit village" it was not. Much more than a tiny town, it was a medium sized city, home to beautiful, colourful buildings, wonderfully weird alternative shops and the most cleverly hidden tourist office I've never gotten lost trying to find. Colmar is perhaps best described as quaint, but still seems bursting with life and activities for people of all ages. I would love to have seen their Christmas market. It must have been breathtaking. Sections of the city look like they were made my toy makers, too cute to be true.
Others, like "Petite Venise" are painfully pretty. They must be incredible in the spring, when the weather is a little less bone chilling. Truly lovely, a must for anyone travelling in the area.
Upon returning to Strasbourg, we wandered through a used and antique book fair in one of the main squares, on our way to lunch. Maupassant for 1€50!!! Not antique of course, but books are expensive here. It was exciting (especially for the French major I was travelling with). Lunch took place at a hole in the wall italian place that we had discovered the night before. GARLIC PIZZA!!! Need I say more? Absolutely wonderful, regardless of how badly my breath stank for the rest of the day. Then church hunting. We tried to check out all the major churches in the area, most of them gothic, all of the impressive. I particularly enjoyed one of the smaller churches (whose name I can't remember); beautiful stained glass, lots of light, no tourists (except us, but we tried to look inconspicuous). We then headed down to an area called "la petite France", apparently famed for looking like Venice.
I found it underwhelming (Comar's "petite Venise" was much more charming), but much more importantly it was there that we made (or thought we'd made) a groundbreaking scientific discovery: the Strat, half beaver, half rat, native inhabitant of Strasbourg, most photographed rodent in Europe.
We found out later that it was a muskrat, but we persist in calling it a Strat. It just sounds cooler. As you can tell we were rather excited by our discovery. Apparently they're quite common in both Alsace (where Strasbourg is located) and Lorraine (where I live) but this was the first one I've ever seen. His name was Gaspard.
DIMANCHE
SNOW!!!! Lovely, soft, white snowflakes coming from every direction. Very beautiful, but not conducive to any sort of desire or motivation to be outside or productive. Spent most of the morning in the only café in town that was open (and thank God it was) and then caught the tail end of mass at Notre Dame. A children's choir was visiting from somewhere and they performed admirably. Incredible voices. We then proceeded to hide ourselves in one of the cathedral's many nooks and crannies and watched as the tourists descended on Notre Dame's famous astronomical clock. Taking up most of the right chapel, this monsterous, incredibly detailed, infinitely useful clock seems able to do and measure everything: time, solar and lunar cycles, the position of the planets, to name a few, all while retaining theological value. The clock chimes every quarter hour, to mark the 4 stages of a man's life, and at noon, a statuette of death chimes the hour while a mechanical Christ blesses each apostle that seamlessly files past him. With every fourth apostle, a rooster, perched on top of the clock, flaps its wings, raises its head and crows. Really an impressive piece of machinery.
The trip ended with 2 hours on a train back to Metz with a bunch of men who seem unaware that they were much too old to be playing stupid practical jokes on each other. And then finally we parted for our separate trains "home". Until next time...
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