In the Rain

Continuing where I left off...On Sunday V, J, and I met up in the morning and we ate breakfast at some patisserie (cake shop). I tried the Strasbourg specialty: Kouglof. It had raisins in it..but there was icing sugar on top! :D

Croissants on the left, Kouglof on the right.

I would've bought some other sweets...but I didn't really want to carry them around with me all day in the rain. And V said that next time she goes to France for groceries, she'll invite me as well! So I can buy all the French bread/cakes I want!

Afterwards, we went to the biggest cathedral in Strasbourg:

I think they call it Notre Dame as well.
In this picture it looks very normal. But when you look at it from the front, you'll notice that it is assymetric! It looks like it should have two towers: one on the left and one on the right. However, after they finished building the one tower, they realized that if they built the other tower the cathedral would sink. So they left it with just one tower. V took us up ~300 stairs to the upper floor, where the tower starts. The view was incredible..

There happened to be some sort of medieval festival at the base of the cathedral as well! There was a dance performance, someone was herding geese, and there was a sword fight! (It looked very amateurish, but they were swinging swords at each other! With all the armor! Sadly no one wore plated armor...)
Sorry about the lack of photos >< This is why I'm blogging about it, so I won't forget.

Back at the top of the cathedral, I felt like I was in some sort of game that took place in the dark ages. Because from the top, the old part of Strasbourg looked so much like a medieval town; it looked like it would contain a pub, an armory, a weaponry, and an item shop! And couple that with the music that was playing for the dance...it reminded me so much of those old RPGs I would spend hours playing.

Anyways, back to reality; we went to a French restaurant afterwards! It's called 'Le Tire Bouchon'. Apparently it's on some list of the best restaurants in France, for rich people. It wasn't too expensive though, considering how much I was expecting it to cost.
Now onto the important part, the food.

The best red wine I've ever tasted, and it wasn't even a sweet wine!

Foie gras!! We split this between the 4 of us.

Potatoes, veal cordon-bleu + ratatouille + something with lentils

It was so delicious! The foie gras was particularly surprising because I didn't expect it to taste as good as it did. Usually I'm very skeptical of 'delicacies' because generally I have to pay a lot, but it doesn't even taste good. This might be due to my exposure to shark fin soup and abalone. Yes, I don't like abalone that much, at least not from what I've eaten so far. I do like conch though.

The foie gras was really creamy, it was like eating cream cheese, but creamier. Even though it was really fatty, it didn't taste oily. The veal cordon-bleu probably tasted better than it actually was because it was the first time I've eaten beef since I arrived in Europe :P But it was breaded on the outside and it was stuffed with strips of veal and creme. I was surprised that it wasn't just a piece of veal stuffed with creme. They actually restuffed it with the meat and creme; by creme I mean some sort of mild cheese.
I was so full after the meal, the foie gras was surprisingly filling, even though I only had half of one of those pieces in the photos above. I didn't have any room for dessert.
It was only after the lunch that I realized I didn't take a group photo of us in the restaurant >< I can't believe I forgot, I was so busy taking pictures of the food. I hope V didn't notice.

V is so generous! Earlier during the day, she paid for our metro tickets when we went to pick up another friend from the station. and after lunch, she also paid for our boat tour of Strasbourg! I couldn't believe it. For all 4 of us (including herself). Because of that, I tried really hard to stay awake during the boat tour, but I caught myself dozing off so many times...I was sitting right beside V too :S

The boat tour marked the end of my trip in Strasbourg. V drove us back to Baden afterwards, and she also refused my offer to pay for part of the gas. She was so awesome, that it even made me want to be less stingy! I hope we will get to travel together again. 

In the Sun

It has been a while. I mean to blog, but I've done so many things in the past month I really don't want to spend all my weekday evenings blogging about the excursions I've missed. However, I am going to blog about this trip..mostly because I didn't take very many pictures, which I greatly regret.

On Saturday, I went to Europa Park with J, a friend I met at work. It was so much fun going with her, she was just so excited to go on all the rides! It was the first time I've been to a big theme park with a friend (Calaway does NOT count)! Europa Park is one of the biggest theme parks in Europe, it's location is south-west Germany. In addition to the rides, we also saw a flamenco performance and a play about the 3 musketeers. Unfortunately, I didn't quite understand it because it was in a mix of German and French...I wish they just stuck with one language, the mix just made it more confusing @_@

The guy in the middle was amazing, at one point he danced using a whip and he also used a lasso!

The 3 musketeers + some other guy surrounded by soldiers? Police? 

Before I continue, I have to point out that it was supposed to storm and rain all day. To be honest, I was very surprised that God answered my prayer; we got sun and 30 degree weather the entire time I was in Europa Park. It was such a selfish request... >.<

After Europa Park, we headed to Strasbourg, France to meet up with another friend, V. She was originally going to come to Europa Park with us, but due to unforeseen circumstances she couldn't. I was very glad she could show us around Strasbourg, because she had lived there for 3 years while doing her bachelors! We ate dinner with her and two of her friends. Their suggestion was to try a specialty of Strasbourg, 'La Tarte Flambée'.

It's kind of like a pizza, but on SUPER thin crust. There was cheese, ham, and onions on top. The traditional way of eating it is to cut it into strips and roll it up, like a fajita. We also had this sweet white
wine with it, which was really good.

I secretly really wanted to try speaking French, I feel so bad making them speak to me in English when I could have been making an effort to speak French. 

We were supposed to go to an outdoor classical music concert afterwards, but as we were heading to V's car, a lightning storm rolled in. But that's ok...because we took refuge in a cafe, that sold desserts! It's called 'Jeanette et les Cycleux'. I wanted a creme brulee...but they weren't selling it at the time D: So I ordered a lemon meringue tart (it's like the pie, but smaller). It was so lemony, but sweet at the same time, and the meringue wasn't sugary, unlike when I make it from the box back in Canada. I was surprised by how liquidy the meringue was though, it's not as solid as I thought it would've been.

All of us - me + dessert!

The others had chocolate fondant with some sort of cream/icing, which looked delicious. I felt like such a tourist taking pictures in this cafe. Although if I wasn't Asian I could've passed as just someone taking photos with friends because some people at another table were also taking photos. I wish I could've spent more time with V's friends, we only got to spend one evening together. They seemed like such interesting people!

The French accent is SO cute! I cannot imagine why V would ever want to get rid of her accent. She claims that her English is bad because she can hear her accent...when she said that I kinda bursted out saying how her accent is cute. There was a bit of silence before she continued talking, I hope that didn't come across the wrong way ><

And that's it for Saturday. Hopefully I won't be lazy and there should be another post in 24 hours regarding Sunday!