Strasbourg, France

We arrived in Karlsruhe on Saturday, and spent a very long day meeting people, seeing the campus, and attending the KSC soccer game. (More on that later, I promise!) We finally had a free day on Sunday, and Julian Hocker, a German student who studied as a foreign exchange student at my school, offered to take a group of us to Strasbourg for the day.

Karlsruhe is very close to the France border, so it was only a short train ride over to Strasbourg. And hey, who wouldn't want to add another country to their travel list?! I was on board, although unfortunately my host Felicitas wasn't able to come. She did take me feed me breakfast and get me to the train station on time. 

Me, Kelly, and Fer waiting for the train to Strasbourg. 

There were three of us US students, and our tour guide Julian that made the adventure to France. And it was a fun group because it was so small. Unfortunately, I left my camera sitting on Felicitas' bed. So I was totally at the mercy of my friends to take some pictures of me and for me. Thankfully, Julian is an amateur photographer. His pictures came out amazing! So in keeping with tradition, I will highlight my trip for you below! 

The train station was really cool from the outside. It was a giant glass dome, so we wander outside to be wowed by the the buildings, but turned around to be surprised by the modern architecture we just walked out of! 

The main square of the city. We often joked that Strasbourg was more like a German city in France. The buildings all reminded me of a small German village, and you could definitely see that in the main square. There was also a totally random carousel in the middle of a busy round about. It was pretty cool. 

Notre Dame of Strasbourg - I'm sure you remember my post on Paris, and how much I loved Notre Dame! Well I didn't realize that there are a couple of Notre Dames, and one of them is crunched up against the buildings in Strasbourg. It was like a smaller version of the one in Paris, and it was pretty incredible.

  

Climbing to the top of the church - for just a few euros you can climb to the top of the church and get a fabulous view of the city! I'll admit, this trek just about killed me. I felt like a old lady, but it was totally worth the view at the top. You can even sign a book, which of course, I did. So next time you're there, flip back to May 2013 and you'll find me. ;)

View from the top!

This is right before Julian kicked his lens cap and it fell outside the railing and down to the ground.

Modern with the old - One of the coolest things about Europe is finding modern art or architecture in the middle of these old buildings. We found this really cool fountain while we were wandering around. 

The Rhine in Strasbourg runs right between some buildings. We got some great pictures of the buildings and the river. 

The food. We indulged in plenty of French pastries, but everyone told us we need to have Flammkuchen. I was told that this is a typical dish of Strasbourgh...though this is the German word for it. In french it's something like flambee and it's very much like a super thin pizza.

Strasbourg was my first sight-seeing day, and it was a lot of fun. I was itching to try out my French, but honestly more people spoke German. All in all I think Strasbourg can be described as a little German town in France. And hopefully that doesn't offend anyone! :)

Paris - Part 2

We had about 6 hours to spend in Paris. That's it, well challenge accepted. Ryan and I fumbled our way to the main train station and found a hop-on-hop-off bus tour of the city. We figured this was our best bet to see as much as possible before we had to head back to another cramped 9 hour bus ride. There were some definite highlights, and as always the best way to tell you about them is to show you.

Paris Highlights

The Louvre - we were able to skip the long lines, and get in for free by using our student IDs. The Louvre is free to students, who knew? We saw the Code of Hammurabi, the Mona Lisa, Venus di Milo, and the skipped out of there.

In front of the Louvre

  

Notre Dame - This was actually my favorite place in all of Paris! It's so beautiful, and in such a scenic location off of the Seine river. Walking a short distance there is a bridge over the river covered in locks. Apparently this is not unique to this bridge, it's done all over Europe and Asia, but it's a really cute idea. You write your name and the name of your love on the lock, and throw the key in the river. If I was ever to do this, I would want to do it on this bridge over the Seine in Paris.

Me in front of Notre Dame

 

1. The Eiffel Tower -this was the worst part of my whole day. The solicitors there were relentless. I had a Jamaican man grab my arm and start braiding a bracelet on me. When I told him I would only give him one euro he exclaimed "But Miss America!!" haha Ok, so now it's a funny story, but at the time it was annoying. (You can kind of see the bracelet on my arm in the picture below.)

Using that High School French - my favorite moment was when I successfully ordered a chocolate croissant and water for breakfast. Ok, I know that's not that hard, but the cashier spoke no English and I got exactly what I wanted. Score one for Lacey!

This is my, "I can't believe I'm in France and spoke French!" look.

Learning How to Eat Snails - Ok if you know me, you know there was no way I was eating snails. Ryan ordered them as a part of our super French dinner. (I had croque de monseir and even creme brulee for dessert!) When the waiter brought out the snails it was with some crazy utensil neither of us had ever seen, so I asked the waiter if he would teach us. Which he did, happily! 

   

French Wine - best Savignon Blanc I have ever tasted. Period.

The Obelisk - This stands where the guillotine used to be. It's weird to think about all of the horrors, lives lost, and blood shed here.

The Ferry- I don't have any pictures of this, but I wish I did. On the way back we rode the Ferry and it was like a moving mall. It was full of restaurants and shops, it was actually a really fun way to travel. 

So this was my first trip to France, every glorious 24 hours of it. I had a blast, and while I know I didn't get to see everything I know someday I will drag Andrew there to knock some items off of my Bucket List. 

Paris - Part 1

Background

Gearing up to write a post on my brief day trip into Strasbourg, France, I realized that I have never talked about the first time I went to France. And trust me, you never forget your first time in France! Plus it's kind of an interesting story...

Back in 2007 my amazing parents took me to London for spring break of my senior year. (Yes my parents are awesome, no none of my other siblings got to do anything as cool, yes I'm a spoiled brat.) We talked about possibly taking the chunnel over to Paris for a day. My sweet parents had of course already been there, but they wanted me to have that experience as well.

SIDEBAR: How cool are my parents? I know I already stated that above, but seriously I begged to go to London. They had already been there, done that. Then I begged to go to Neuschwanstein, again they had already been there and done that. But they are awesome enough to go do these (REALLY EXPENSIVE) things with me all over again anyway. I love them.

Anyway, the Paris thing didn't really work out. Spontaneous trips in Europe are often quite pricey. So when I went to London in 2010, I knew that I really wanted to go to Paris! I was determined to make it happen...but not by myself. No way was I doing this one alone, so I waited until I made some friends to plan it out. Well as it turned out my best friend on the trip turned out to be a boy. We got along so well people sort of assumed we were brother and sister. (Which is incredibly weird because we look NOTHING alike. And also incredibly weird because we ended up having the exact same birthday. When we announced this oddity to the group they thought we were twins....)

My "twin" Ryan and I in Paris! 

Anyway I had to call Andrew and make sure he was cool with it. Not that it was any more than a formality, no way would he have any kind of problem! This is an adventure and a great opportunity! (Yeah he still talks about my romantic trip to Paris with another man....) Once I had the green light we had a choice to make.

Oxford vs Paris. Which would you choose?

The only weekend I could schedule a trip was during the weekend we were supposed to go to Oxford. What a dilemma! Another passport stamp? The city of lights? Or to see the famous school, which we all know Hogwarts was designed to look like. After talking it out with Ryan, you know my twin, we decided we had to do Paris. So being the take charge leader I am, I went ahead and booked everything.

Next time Oxford! 

Would you ride a bus for 9 hours?

For about 30 euros round trip we booked a coach (one of tour-like buses) to Paris. This involved getting on the bus in London, driving to Dover, riding the bus onto a ferry which crossed over into Calais, and then driving into Paris. We arrived in Paris with enough time to figure out the Metro, get stuck trying to exit the Metro (apparently we bought the wrong ticket so we couldn't get out of the gates. It as like a Metro jail, but somehow my French and the attendants English helped us figure out what we did.), and find our fancy hotel rooms. We called it a night and planned to meet up the next morning for our Paris adventure!

Neuschwanstein: More than Just the Disney Castle

When I told my parents that I was coming to Germany, and we worked out a plan to do our own trip afterward they asked me what I wanted to do. I told them that I didn't really care, I just wanted to relax and go along for the ride. Well, except for one thing. I had to see the Disney castle.

Ok, ok, make fun of me, but it's probably Germany's biggest attraction. All because of some guy named Walt Disney who copied it's structure for Sleeping Beauty's castle at Disneyland.

While the Disney thing was appealing, what really intrigued me about seeing Neuschwanstein was it's creator, commonly known as Mad King Ludwig. So I was really excited to take our little tour of the castle and hopefully buy some historical books on the King who built it.

My parents within the castle walls.

Unfortunately, just like Disneyland it was really expensive and had it's fair share of disappointments. Namely:

1. The hike to get to this place sucks. I'm not kidding, it's a steep walk from the parking and shopping in town. It's not too terribly long, but for this kid who had just spent a week walking all over Europe, my poor little calves were dying. Did I mention it was raining?
2. There are only like 10 rooms that are finished. Neuschwanstien was never completed. King Ludwig was declared insane, taken to Munich, and then died before he could finish the castle. The tour is incredibly short. I mean, don't get me wrong...some of the things you see are impressive and gorgeous....but there just isn't a lot of it. 
3. The so-called English speaking tour is incomprehensible. Our tour guide's German accent was really thick, and her voice didn't really carry. Couple that with a crying baby, and it was pretty frustrating. (We found out later that the tour guides are all just volunteers.)

So while the tour was kind of a bust, there were some fun highlights from the trip as a whole:

• Learning my mom is a beast. Remember that awful hike I told you about? Yeah, she left me and my dad in her dust and didn't turn back. haha I think a lot of people assume that my mom is kind of weak, but she always surprises me with her feats of strength both physically and emotionally.

• The horse drawn carriage ride down. So after a crappy hike up, we decided to just pay to take the horses down. And it was fun! Especially seeing all the people struggling to go up hill. haha

• The gift shop didn't disappoint. I told you all I wanted was to learn more about King Ludwig, and in the gift shop I found this awesome coffee table book. The history of Mad Kind Ludwig is an interesting one. He made his people pretty angry with his spending on all of his castles. (Neuswanstien was one of about 5 that he built for fun.) His advisers had him declared insane, and took him back to Bavaria's capitol, Munich. On his second night there, he took a walk with his doctor (you know, the one who declared him insane and had him removed from the throne) and they were later discovered dead in about 3 ft. of water, completely clothed, and with some signs of a fight. We still don't know exactly what happened.

• Hearing stories about when my parents lived in Germany.  There is a really beautiful waterfall just behind the castle, and you can see that there is a bridge in the mountains. This called Queen Mary's bridge, or Marienbruke. This is a great place to see the waterfall, and get an awesome picture of the castle. Apparently back in the day, this Bridge was wood, and didn't have the steel enforced railings and beams that it does now. So it was plastered with signs warning that death was a possibility if you were to fall. 

The Marienbruke bridge

Back when my dad was stationed in Germany, my mom's parents came to visit them. They decided to take the to Neuschwanstein as a highlight of their visit. My dad, being the adventurous soul that he is, took one look at the bridge and the Warning possibility of death sign and took off. Now I never met my grandpa, he died before I was born. But apparently he decided that he too wanted to be adventurous that day and took off after my dad. This of course freaked my grandma out, and it didn't help things when my dad returned alone. The way my dad tells it, my grandma was just sure that grandpa had fallen to his death and it was all my dad's fault. (Of course he returned a several minutes later and all was forgiven, but those few minutes of panic are one my dad will never forget!)

My mom and I on the Marienbruke bridge

       

Lessons with Archer: Being Selfless

Archer is my best friend. I tell him that everyday, but it really didn't start out that way. I'll be honest I was not happy to get Archer as soon as we did, and I only consented because Andrew wanted him so badly and wouldn't give up! 

I told Andrew no way was I ever getting a German Shepherd, they are big and scary, and they shed! No way would we get one so soon after moving into our new apartment, why add the extra pet rent right away?

Well about 2 weeks later Andrew was off to the breeder to pick up this little guy. The last male of his litter from a barnyard breeder.

Even though he was incredibly adorable, he was also a puppy. Our experience with Archer led us to swear that we were never going to get a puppy ever again. It is a frustrating process of teaching, nibbling, scolding, praising, and cleaning. (I'm guessing this is a lot like human babies.)

 We welcomed sweet puppy Archer into our 725 sq. foot, one bedroom, 3rd floor apartment back in December of 2012. Just picture it, two Texans toughing it out in the freezing snowy conditions, with a brand new puppy that needs to go outside every 30 minutes. I had to really get over myself in order to take care of this sweet pup.

Archer wasn't really a cuddly puppy like I wanted, he was more of a crazy hyper puppy who's probably going to smack your face with his head as he tries to look around at the world. I didn't really get close to him at first. Andrew took charge, and while I was still expected to take him outside on my turn, it seemed like he was really more of Andrew's dog and not mine.

    

This all changed when Andrew went on a school trip for 4 days. I became the sole care giver, and what I realized was that this dog didn't want to be lonely any more than I did. We started to really bond because all we had was each other.

Life hasn't been exactly peaches and roses here in Utah. I miss my friends and family. Then to make matters more complicated, I worked an hour away from where I lived, with people who were on average 20 years older than me, and I did my school online. I had no friends that I could actually hang out with.  Archer literally became my best friend. 

Headbands

Well dear reader, I have a confession to make. I have an addiction that comes out the worst when I'm over in Europe. And that addiction is to headbands. Let's take a moment to reflect on my European headbands, and how I have worn them over the years:

Germany 2013 - the bigger the better.

Germany 2013 - Fell in LOVE with this blue number! 

Germany 2013 - fun! And when I'm feeling brave, I wear it as an across the forehead band. 

Paris 2010 - Feathers

London 2010 - simple

London 2010 - weaved pink and gold

London 2010 - go big or go home! 

So I hope you've enjoyed my walk down headband memory lane. The sad thing is that I almost never wear them here in the US. It feels out of place or too crazy. In Europe, it's just so fun to wear crazy headbands. I definitely need to wear these beauties more often over here.