This weekend, I had a school trip to Strasbourg, France and Freiburg, Germany. It was a very busy two days with a lot of traveling, but it was a fun experience. We met at the train station at 7:45 on Saturday morning and our train left for Strasbourg at 8:20. It took about two hours to get there but I was exhausted so I just tried to sleep the whole time. When we got to Strasbourg, we dropped our bags off at our hostel and then had some free time to explore the city and get some lunch. The town has a huge German influence because it is right on the border between France and Germany and has changed between the two nationalities several times due to different wars and political situations. Because of this, all the street signs are in both French and German, and the local people have developed a language that is a mix between French and German that native speakers of French or German don't understand. The German influence can also be seen on many of the buildings and the inclusion of German on all the menus and public signs around the town.
After lunch, we met our tour guide in the town center for a walking tour of the town. We began by seeing the Notre Dame de Strasbourg which is the famous church in the town square. The church is huge and has the second largest spindle in Europe on the top of it. Then, we continued on to see le Petite France which is a cute area of Strasbourg by the Ill river. It got its name from the French soldiers with influenza who were treated there back in the day. After the walking tour, we had a boat tour on the river that lasted about an hour. It was so nice to relax and see everything from the water while sitting and listening to the audio guide.
After the boat ride, we had more free time to explore before dinner. My friends and I were pretty tired by then, so we found a cute café and sat there for a while talking and people watching. Then, we all had to meet at a restaurant at 7:30 for dinner. We had a private dining room downstairs which was so nice, and our three course meal was included in the trip so we didn't have to pay for it. Our appetizer was a tarte flambée, which is a sort of very thin pizza made with an onion-cream sauce. It was surprisingly good and I was proud of myself for trying it because it looked a little questionable. For the main course we had a leg of chicken with little pasta like things on the side and vegetables. Then, for dessert we had crème brûlée, which of course was my favorite part :)
After dinner we were so tired that we just when back to the hostel and when to sleep. In the morning, we met downstairs for breakfast around 8:45 because our bus for Freiburg was leaving at 9. It took about an hour to get to our first destination which was the Black Forest and Lake Titisee. Our drive to the lake was beautiful because the roads wound through the mountains and all the trees were different shades of red and orange. I was so tired, but I stayed awake the whole time to look out the windows. Once we got to the lake, we had about an hour and fifteen minutes to walk around and get lunch. We found a restaurant with a terrace overlooking the water and got a table. It was so hard not having any grasp of the language because the whole menu was in German and the waitress didn't speak any English. We basically had to point to what we wanted on the menu and couldn't ask any questions. I got a soup with chunks of beef, some meat ravioli, and lots of vegetables in it. It was really good and it warmed me up because it was kind of cold by the water. For dessert, I had apple strudel with a vanilla sauce. It was awesome and I realized how much I miss my mom's apple pies in the fall.
After lunch, we got back on the bus and drove about 40 minutes to Freiburg. We had another walking tour of the town and saw a church that was so similar to the one in Strasbourg which was a bit strange. After the tour, we had about 45 minutes of free time so we found a cute little restaurant to sit at. I got a very interesting creation called "ice cream spaghetti." It was basically soft serve pumped into long strings that looked like spaghetti, and I got the kiwi one so it had kiwis and kiwi syrup on it. It was so good and I seriously wish I could have it again somewhere. After that, we got on the bus again and drove back to France to visit a wine cellar in the town of Barr. We got a tour of the cellar where they make the wine and the place where they store all the bottles. It was cool to see some of the really old bottles all covered in dust and looking ancient. After that, we went across the street to have a wine tasting that I just watched everyone participate in. I was pretty bored the whole time and I really wish we could have spent the whole day in Germany instead of rushing back to go to the wine place. After the tasting, we got right back on the bus and went back to Strasbourg to catch our train back to Paris. There was a ridiculous amount of traveling on Sunday which was really draining but I enjoyed seeing the two different cities. I wish I could have experienced Germany for more than four hours, but it was cool to see the culture and to try some of their scary food.
