Nevermind though… because by 12.45 pm I had arrived in Strasbourg! For those of you who don’t know, I took a year right after I was done at MTA to go on their exchange program, and spent October 2001 through June 2002 in Strasbourg. It is a gorgeous city, and I was excited to rediscover it.
I had scored a real nice hotel room on special right in the heart of the downtown. Literally in Place Kleber, it took me longer to get to the bottom floor of the hotel than it did to the tram line! First thing I notice is that there’s a fifth tram line right to where I used to live, in the northeast corner of the city. I started out exploring the centre of town, and then decided to head up to the Robertsau using the new tram line. Everything was still there… the post office, the doner kebab, the residence…
… just as bland looking as ever! But a lot of good memories, that’s for sure. I took it easy for the rest of the night just chilling and walking around the downtown again, before heading off for some nap time.
It was an early start to day Quatre-Vingt-Deux as I had booked a tour at the Kronenbourg brewery. While I’m not a big beer drinker, I didn’t do the tour the last time so I made sure to book into it this time.
Part one of the Kronenbourg experience, after you realize that they actually don’t brew it in house (it’s 30 km south in Obernai) is that you get to go to Beer School. I kid you not, it’s time for L’École de la Bière. I really wasn’t aware of all of the steps that lead to making beer, but it was very informative.
Part two is where you get to see the old brass drum system. It is really quite fascinating to find out that one of these massive drums can hold at least 3,000 litres of whatever you’re brewing. Cool!
Part three and we are lead to the caves to find out more about the process whereby the beer ferments into something drinkable. These barrels…
… used to store the liquids with their capacity in litres marked on the front. We are then taken to see a collage of advertising that Kronenbourg has used through the years. I enjoyed the “What would life be if the Brits had invaded” advertising clips.
Finally, part four, which for most people is the highlight. It’s time for degustation – sampling.
I decided to stick to a light beer, Grindenberg (sp?) as although it was 5 pm somewhere, Mark Elton, it was only 11 am local time and I hadn’t had a big breakfast. I then picked up a few souvenirs, including some coasters. I really wanted to get some glasses, but carrying them with me for 3 more weeks wasn’t an option, and after spending 16 Euros to send something home earlier in the week, I wasn’t going to give much more business to La Poste.
I then took advantage of the fact that it wasn’t too deep into the afternoon to do a quick swing by the Robertsau to visit the market... using the new "E" tram line!!!
I loved going to the market every Saturday morning when I lived there; it was so peaceful going to pick up your eggs, cheese, bread etc for later in the week at individual merchants, who were very happy to sell it to me. This time around it was much later in the market’s opening time, and as such, I only ended up buying a small raspberry tart, which led me to buying a doner kebab at the same place on the corner as I did eight years ago. I took the whole lot and walked down to L’Orangerie, a gorgeous park across from the European Human Rights Commission (Strasbourg, BTW, also hosts the European Parliament once a month).
After hopping back to the hotel to freshen up, it was off to the south end of town to visit with Odile Raffner, my former professor at the institute where I used to study, along with her husband, Claude. It was so great to see Odile again – we have been corresponding for years at Christmas time. We spent a couple of hours catching up, talking about everything (including the Canadian way of live, which fascinated Claude) and drinking Alsatian wine (while sweeter than I remember, was still enjoyable). And of course we took an updated picture.
After a quick supper I was off again. I had really wanted to see the local hockey team play a game however they weren’t playing this particular weekend; thus it was off to the basketball game at the Rhenus complex. Strasbourg was in League one action against Toulon. The game wasn’t too packed so I was able to pick up a cheap ticket at 7 Euros – which actually lead me to an excellent seat – front row, just behind one of the baskets.
It was painfully obvious early on that Strasbourg wasn’t going to be victorious – they got creamed by 35 points, worst defeat in seven years – however I find it interesting to see what the “sideshow” attractions were. During time outs, they would alternate between four dancing ladies (who didn’t leave much to the imagination during their can-can routine) and Karim, a breakdancer. I found the latter much more fascinating; the amount of talent it takes to do that fascinates me. In between quarters they had a race between two children who had to put on oversize shows and a jersey and then run to score a basket.
Day Quatre-Vingt-Deux I decided to have a bit of a lie in and then overdid breakfast (hey, for 8 Euros, you would too) before heading outside. Now while I tend to usually find things to do during this vacation, this time, it found me. It turns out that this day was the celebration of the 65th anniversary of Strasbourg being liberated during the war. So it was with grand splendor that they put on a ceremony, which just happened to be right outside my hotel. Literally.
Later on that day they also lined up all of the military vehicles (or replicas – not really sure) along a side street branching off of Place Kléber which was pretty darn cool as well.
It was also the 20th anniversary of the tram beginning!
I decided, that after having tarte flambée (read: flammekuche – erm, sorry, “Alsatian pizza variation”) on Friday night the other dish I needed was Quiche Lorraine. Yes, I know that I was in Alsace, but Lorraine is next door and I figured les Strasbourgeoises would do just fine. Which they did, as I enjoyed Quiche Lorraine, some more Kronenbourg (this tends to be the cheap beverage in France, and it’s good to boot) and a wonderful cinnamon-sugar crepe with a scoop of ice cream that was just the right temperature to cut with a fork and knife! All this, with good company in the case of two Aussies now living in Karshule and a great view of the cathedral for 12 Euros. Yes, it was just perfect.
After doing some more walking around it was time to meet up with Nicole, who used to be the cleaning lady on my floor in the residence. She, like Odile is retired and as well it was nice to catch up!
Later on in the day, before it was too late, I went hunting for somewhere to eat that wasn’t a sandwich. Sadly, that lead me to Rotting Ronnie’s. But much more exciting was the department store all lit up!
I grabbed a chicken sandwich before heading over to one of four downtown cinemas – all within 5 minutes walk of each other – to see Le Petit Nicolas. I used to watch films all the time in Strasbourg (and it turns out, eight years later, the student price is still 4 Euros) and this one had been recommended. And it did well to live up to expectations – Nicolas is a young boy (about nine) who suddenly suspects that his mother is pregnant and is convinced that he will be kicked out of the house. It was a great film to just sit in front of and laugh, and there’s a wonderful cameo near the start of the film in regards to another popular French film that came out a few years ago… I was happy that I got the reference.
The European Parliament was having its monthly session starting on day Quatre-Vingt-Trois and as a result, I had to vacate my hotel room. I ended up switching to a chain motel up in the north-west corner of town… next to Auchan! Auchan is your run of the mill hypermarket… with everything you could imagine in one place. For the most part at least.
Back downtown I stopped off at the Gare Central to pick up a couple of magazines for the upcoming train rides, and saw this sign:
It turns out that they’re working on extending the Strasbourg tram over to Kehl! Very progressive thinking, Strasbourg.
Finally it was time to make my one last friend connection. While I failed earlier to reach my former juggling teacher (turns out he wasn’t in that day, natch), it was time to meet up with my old Chiffres et Lettres club. Sadly there were only three members left from when I used to be there, but it was great to catch up with them and I was happy to share the news about my upcoming cameo on the tv programme.
And then we got down to work – 2 sets of 20 rounds! It was hard to shift my mind back into playing the game in English after a monstrous amount of time playing it in English. However, I didn’t do too bad, scoring 116 and 112 in the two sets, including a time near the end of the game whereby myself and the newest player to the game were the only ones to find the top scoring word.
It was my intention to go see the EU parliament session but alas C and L got out later than I expected so I headed back up north to go get some final things at Auchan. And stop at Flunch. Flunch is basically your run of the mill all you can veggie eat place – so I took advantage of that and gorged on mashed potatoes. Yes, now we’ve descended into describing eating habits, it would appear.
In any case, this would bring my time in Strasbourg almost to an end… but I will be back again someday!
Cheers,
Vick.
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