FROM THE BANK - Day 14,15&16

FROM THE BANK - Days 14,15&16
       Friday December 31st 2010 (NEW YEARS EVE!!) – Sunday January 2nd 2011

                    Frankfurt - Strasbourg - Home

Cathedrale de Notre-Dame
(Strasbourg)

From Frankfurt, I carried on via train to Strasbourg. Strasbourg is a city just a tad smaller than Saskatoon, but knowing Europe, probably has at least double the population.

Strasbourg! with
Lisa, Kevin, Kate and Line

It was truly lucky that I ran into my friend, Kévin, in the train station. Excellent timing that his bus arrived at the same time as my train. I know Kévin because he came to Saskatoon two years ago for a full year on the Rotary Exchange. He had some of his fellow Rotary friends with him that had also gone to Canada (Regina, Saskatoon and Winnipeg).

you can tell this is where France meets
Germany

The five of us were lucky to make it to the apartment because the trolley workers were on strike and every time we came to a full stop we crossed out fingers that we would start going again. Thankfully we made it, and were able to prepare ourselves for New Year’s Eve. We were a very international group: Kévin (France), Line (Denmark), Kate (Belgium), Lisa (Germany) and of course, myself from Canada. And we all spoke English.

a realllly old house or restaurant..

We met up with two of Kévin’s other friends and went out for supper at a delicious Indian restaurant. This is when something absolutely ridiculous (well, for me, probably not for anyone else though) happened.

I spy Kevin!
in a gorgeous city!!

So, we’re just waiting in the restaurant, and I hear one of the girls, Lisa, talking about her teacher from Saskatoon. The thing that caught my attention was that she referred to her teacher as Kim. Not Mr. Kim, just Kim. I knew she went to Marion Graham Collegiate while she was there, but there was no way that it could be possible. She saw me giving her a quizzing look and so I asked: ‘Were you in Outdoor School?’. What are the chances of meeting a fellow ODS-er in Europe? Good enough I guess! Turns out Lisa was in the semester before mine, the one I was originally going to be in, so we knew a lot of the same people and did the same things and what not. Like I said, it was ridiculous.

wonderful

it was huge!!

After supper, which was really late by the way, we headed out to check out New Year’s in Strasbourg. I tell you, the French are crazy. When it comes to New Year’s at least.

this house may have been
older..

For hours before and after midnight, people were lighting off fireworks in the streets. Aiming them at people, at houses, down the street, anywhere. And with the narrow European streets and the echo factor, they were incredibly loud. Walking around was entertaining enough, not to mention the guys who were wearing (I think..) only flags of France and having a firework battle in an alley.

Oh it was great.

wonderous

The next day we spent more or less the whole day and evening wandering the streets of Strasbourg and exploring a bit. Not much was open so there really was not much to do, but we still had a very, very good time.

Did I mention that Strasbourg is absolutely beautiful? You’ll see in the photos, but they really get into decorating the streets.

On the Sunday, my last day, I spent the WHOLE day on the train from Strasbourg to Marseille. When I say whole day, I mean WHOLE DAY. The trains were packed. Like literally overflowing. I did not have a seat for the first couple hours and just hung out in the hall until a very nice man said I could have his seat in the booth. Add that with the fact that the French trains are seriously lacking in speed, as well as seats, it was quite the day that I was glad to be over, but sad to be done my adventure.

HUGE tree