April 27-29 Friends, Family, Fun

April 27-29 

This is going to be hard to believe. I can hardly believe it myself and I was there. Yes, the sun was out on Saturday. It was shining brightly. And I didn’t wear a winter wool coat. And it was even warm enough to take off one of my jackets. It was glorious! 

At noon on Saturday, I met Bruno Rojas in front of the Cathédrale. Who is Bruno Rojas, you ask? First, he is the great-nephew of my friend, Pamela, in Spokane. Second, he is a student at the University here in Strasbourg. He is just finishing his Master 2, and will begin his Doctorate in September. He’s studying and doing research in… um… some kind of neurology of the brain. Third, he is Mexican and American and plans to apply for French citizenship. He speaks 3 languages fluently. Those are the facts. He is delightful and I had a great time.

We first took a little gander through some side streets I didn’t know about. Then we stopped at a brasserie that I did know about but hadn’t been to before. My goodness! The spring beer was pretty good there. Then we went to a nice Alsatian restaurant for some traditional food. Super good. We talked a lot about Alsace and Strasbourg and what a great city it is. We just chatted about a lot of stuff. He told me many times how much he also loves Spokane and his auntie Pamela (aka Pammie).

(LOL. I see that I posted mostly pictures of food!)

Here’s one of the restaurant from the outside.

On the way back home, I wandered a bit and came upon a protest. Here in Strasbourg, and in France in general, there is quite a bit of angst about the «massacre à gaza.» It was an impressive procession. I felt sad as I watched the people go by. Some were angry, some looked determined but many just looked sad. What a world we live in these days!

On another note, I came across a French tradition for when a couple marries. The friends of the bridegroom take the bridegroom around to public places where he has to make a spectacle of himself in some way. I first came upon this group when I saw the bridegroom striking an unusual pose in the doorway of a shop. I missed most of his “task” but I did get photos of them walking away. I don’t know what the tee-shirts mean but you’ll notice that the bridegroom is wearing a pink headband and has pink training wheels duct-taped to his feet. The bride and her friends are also out and about doing unusual things in public. I saw them earlier but didn’t get photos. Here take a look….

Sunday, April 28 was a very long and interesting day. I went to Europa- Park in Germany with Sandra and Franck (Fabi’s son). This is the largest amusement park in Europe and apparently has been decreed the best. We were able to do “only” 10 attractions —11 for Sandra and Franck since I decided having a cup of coffee was more enjoyable than the Blue Fire roller coaster. Here are some photos…

Moving sidewalks from the parking lot to the entrance…

For €6 you can buy a photo of you on a ride…. or you can take photo of the photo with the “forbidden” sign.

For lunch I had a pulled-duck sandwich.

This roller coaster is the newest one. The wait to get on it was 2 hours so we didn’t try. I wouldn’t have done it because people turn upside down on the loops.  NOT!

Some Fun Facts: Europa-Park is divided into 16 European themed areas—meaning you go from Switzerland to Germany to England and Croatia and other places like fantasy land. There are over 100 attractions with 14 roller coasters and other fun things like cabarets, bands, shows… Every year, there are over 6 million visitors. That is 500,000 a month and about 42,000 people a day. It’s revenue is about €150,000,000/year. Can you imagine a world where that amount of money was spent on relieving poverty?

Sandra and Franck go to Europa-Park at least once a week and they have a Facebook presence about their weekly outing. Take a look—you can translate anything you want to know about under the posts and comments. It’s called Les F&S au Parc.

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61556692473504

We left Europa Park at about 6:00 and went to Fabi and Francis’ house for a fabulous authentic Alsatian choucroute dinner (45 minute drive). Aline and Cedric and Mia showed up and the whole fam damily was there. It was a jolly gathering with lots of laughter and jokes and teasing and I understood about 67% with help from Fabienne. The choucroute was beyond delicious and I got the left-overs for this weeks’ meals.

This is the book that Franck just got finished writing. It’s about a video game that he and his friends have played for years and years and it’s still very popular. So, he interviewed people about this game and then wrote it up.

Franck and Sandra are reading another book here—a satire about concerts because that’s their second love.

Now for the dinner…

This is….”meatballs” made out of pigs-liver. I know it sounds awful but it’s really delicious and it gets tossed in with the other stuff…

The “other stuff” includes boiled potatoes, ham, knack sausages, another kind of sausage, large pieces of lardon (bacon) and sauerkraut.

You put it altogether on a large platter….

NOTE: Choucroute: =Sauerkraut, but it’s very little like what you get in the states. This is one of my very favorite dishes and nobody makes it like Francis.

Monday April 29. Today

It’s was my last day of class and oh,boy! was I tired! One of my classmates—one of them from Saudi Arabia, brought coffee and figs to “celebrate” my leaving. The coffee was incredible—made with cardamom and saffron. It’s usually served in these little tiny cups but we had paper cups. The figs, too, were soooo delicious. It made leaving this group quite bearable. 

One of the last things we did was to take a photo of “the chicas” in the group so here we are—moi, Carolina from Argentina, Tsu Yun from Taiwan and Rabat from India.  (I’m sooooo tired in this picture!)

PS. The “dots” above our heads are part of a coat rack.

So there you have it. Next Sunday, I leave for Corsica. Hopefully, I’ll get  another posting out before I leave.