Knowing that I had a lot of exciting things planned later in the trip at the Olympics, and aiming to see smaller cities this time around in Europe, I opened the map, chose Strasbourg, and hopped on a train. Just going somewhere on a whim feels so exhilarating. What's going to happen? Who am I going to meet? Sounds like fun.
Here's the Swiss countryside flying by on my way to Strasbourg.
Look at that little village nestled in the foothills of the mountains!
Here I am in the center of town, surrounded by old French buildings. Notice the second floor on the building behind me. See how the rest of the building extends out and hangs over the first floor? Thats because hundreds of years ago when these buildings were built, people paid property taxes based upon the square footage of the ground floor. Basically, you paid upon how much ground space you were using, not anything else above. So this was their clever way of getting around having a larger building without paying more taxes. Pretty smart, huh?
Here's the couple I stayed with in Strasbourg: Gaspard and Stephanie. They've been together since they were 12 and 13 years old, and now they have two young daughters. We all really got along well, and enjoyed making food from fresh ingredients from their organic garden.
Here I am with one of their two rabbits. This one was named "nibble".
Check out this organic herb garden...so many fresh herbs here. Just walking past here was a delight.
We rented some bicycles and they took me on a tour of the city. Here's part of the Berlin Wall outside of one of their government buildings.
Here's Gaspard and Stephanie on their bikes in the park.
Beautiful park with people in a rowing boat, across from a huge weeping willow.
Here's me pretending to read at an outdoor book stand. You're welcome to just take a book and leave a book. Lovely.
I'm really excited about being in front of that waterfall. That kid has no idea.
This is one of the main churches in the city. I love how old buildings are treasured around here. Lotta history there.
This restaurant is a local favorite. They serve these fresh, thin crust pizzas and brew their own beer.
Check these out! They're kinda like breakfast pizzas if you ask me. Lots of ham and cheese.
Here I am with Gaspard, enjoying a great lunch. I love hanging with local people. New friends!
Look at that sky! This is the view from the restaurant.
The buildings behind this cafe have a strange reputation of possibly having a hidden underground passage beneath them especially designed for "little people" who once lived here.
One of my favorite pictures of this whole trip! Look at those colorful buildings, the beautiful cloudy blue sky, and the sunset reflecting the bridge onto the glassy, still canal. Gorgeous.
Stephanie decided I needed to have proper crepes while in France. So she made delicious homemade ones!
I liked mine with jam or ham and cheese. No nutella, yuck.
The lovely family at the dinner table. Stephanie was so great - she made meals for her family all the time!
Gaspard takes a nap in the hammock in the backyard while I read. Lovely afternoon.
This foot bridge takes us from France to Germany. The cleanliness on the German side was incomparable. They sure do take care of their country.
The park on the French side had a lot of art installations. This one was about the story The Tortoise and the Hare. Can you find me?
Here's another which I'm pretty sure had to do with Alice in Wonderland. So much fun around here!
On the German side, there was this installation about recycling. It says "Stop the plastic monster". All of the letters are made up of different plastics that were littered and gathered from around town.
This tall structure was a great walk up - you could really see forever, especially on a beautiful day like this! Here I am showing you where I went :)
This is a very charming tradition on bridges in Europe, especially in France. Couples secure a lock to the fence in honor of their love. Here's a collection of some fancy ones with engraving! Usually it's just some old lock.
Ice cream with the family. What a lovely time I had in Strasbourg. Thanks guys!
Getting on the train to Amsterdam. This is what I looked like when I had everything with me.
The Strasbourg train station sure looked a lot like a UFO or something from Independence Day, don't you think? Pretty cool sky.
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