Ski Team and Usher come to Strasbourg

Oh oh oh oh oh my god.  These are the Usher lyrics that have been resonating in our heads for almost three months.  Ever since Caitlin found out this god of pop (both from middle school and today) was coming to Strasbourg we knew it was absolutely necessary to go and after this weekend, I'm sure it will be a highlight of our time here in France.

The leadup to this concert started 4 days earlier on Wednesday when Audrey, after a long from Galway (I think we all remember how long it took Strassys to get to her earlier this year in November), finally arrived in Strasbourg to check up on her favorite study abroad group.  With little rest for the weary I insisted on dragging her out and pushing her immediately into Strasbourg nightlife which included a very uncomfortable bike ride home for her.

On Thursday after class Claire and I gave Audrey a tour of all the important Strasbourg monuments (yes, that can be done in one afternoon....) including the charming la Petite France.  That evening Audrey was quite the sport at dinner as Marlene and Raymond (my host parents) tried to speak to her in French despite my insistance that really, she speaks English. 

Friday was filled with activity as Claire, Audrey, and I went to a town in southern Alsace called Colmar.  Despite almost missing the train (literally boarding with 1 minute to spare), we made it to the absolutely adorable town without a hitch and spent the day wandering around and looking at all the cute houses. 



True I didn't actually take this picture and there definetely wasn't as much greenery in the dead of winter, Colmar is still cute!

Admittedly most of our afternoon was spent searching for the perfect (and cheap of course) restaurant to eat lunch at, but this allowed us to explore a lot of the town.  One spot we stumbled upon was La Petite Venise, a canal filled part of town with colorful houses crowded around the water.  Like the rest of France, all of the musuems were closed in Colmar, but we did manage to get a few cathedral spottings in so we felt accomplished as tourists. 

That evening we were scheduled to go see at play with Malou at the National Theater, Mary Stuart.  Although I had warned the Matters via text that Audrey and I would not be eating at home because of the play, it was obvious Marlene hadn't heard the news when we walked into the sight of her in full preparation of a "pot au feu"  a meal that includes soup, 3 types of meat, 2 types of salad, and potatos.  I hesitantly agreed that perhaps we did have time to eat the soup before rushing out for a night of theater and other debauchery.  However, what we definetely did not have the time or room in our stomachs for was the next 3 courses that she proposed to us.  Poor Audrey didn't know how to react when the soup was whisked away and the meat dishes came.  Luckily I was able to save her from the fate of eating till the point of being a sick, if only I could save myself every night without being rude!

We somehow made it to the play ontime but then had to endure 2 solid hours of French theater.  Again, poor Audrey couldn't understand anything but was good enough to come along for the company.  The play was very strange and involved lots of shouting, men in wigs, and even some rolling around on a dirt floor.  I did not approve.  The rest of the night was fun with all the Strassy girls reunited plus Audrey and another new American friend, although Audrey definetely did not appreciate the long walk home at the end of the night and I was forced to sing her Disney songs for the 1/2hr trek through Strasbourg just to keep her going.  I think she knows why I love my bike so much now!

Saturday, after hitting up the "soldes" at the mall, a 2 week period of sales in all French stores and the only sales all year, Audrey and I met Kate Chamberlin and Ted Snook who had just arrived in Strasbourg from St. Andrews, Scotland! It was so exciting to have such a big Holy Cross reunion in our little Strasbourg and we spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in a cafe catching up.  That night was the big Alsacien meal at les Brasseurs, a bar/restaurant that sells unlimited tarte flambees and many pitchers of beer for a very reasonable price.  Although we had some rude waiters, everyone agreed that the food and drink made up for it.  Kate and Ted loved this Alsacien specialty so much that they ate there every night they were here in Strasbourg!

Sunday Kate, Ted, and I (Audrey had moved to Claire's house by this time) explored some more of Strasbourg as I dragged them to every (okay 2...) musuem Strasbourg has to offer.  I'm sure it was a little disheartening first day in France because since it was Sunday, everything is closed and the city turns into a ghost town.  We were lucky to find a boulagerie open to buy some bagettes for lunch!

Finally around 5 the big moment arrived-USHER CONCERT!!! Running in heels, with bags and drinks in hand, the Strassy girls made it onto the tram just in time to voyage to the end of the line to the new Zenith Stadium and sight of a fabulous evening.  Despite fans having lined up for nearly 4 hours before we arrived, we were able to make in into the stadium very quickly and find our places on the dance floor (since the French had decided to fill up the seats for the open floor space, lame!).

One of the most exciting parts of the night came next as we went backstage!! To backtrack a little, the week previously we had met some of Usher's crew during a soiree and obviously befriended them for their cool English accents and sweet Usher connections.  Due to the skillfull work of Veronica, we managed to get 6 backstage passes for the concert!  Leaving our coats and bags next to the guy who does fireworks for the show, we were subsequently given a tour of the stage.  Highlights included seeing the setlist Usher checks before he starts singing, checking out the crew tour bus, having Usher's personal bodygaurd "holla" at us, seeing the jealous glares of everyone on the other side of the barrier as we strolled around, and of course taking obnoxious pictures in front of anything that said backstage.

The concert itself was everything we hoped and more!  Although he didn't play my 6th grade jam, "You Got it Bad", Usher did sing Yeah, Love in this Club, and my Boo among other classics.  We were pretty close to the stage and definetely felt like he was singing directly to us.  Besides the obviously awesomeness of Usher himself, other highlights included

1.  Sarah pop lock and dropping it on an empty dance floor with thousands of French onlookers

2.  Caitlin declaring she was ready to a) get punched in the face and b) claim she was Usher's babymomma in order to get closer to stage

3.  Sarah collecting and carrying around at least 8 huge plastic cups and collecting the reward of 8 euros at the end of the concert.

4.  Veronica picking a fight backstage about the Bears vs. Packers

Although I was sad to see Audrey leave early the next day, and Kate and Ted on Tuesday after exhausting everything Strasbourg had to see (probably 2 days earlier), I was so glad I got to see everyone and to show my host city off!  This should be another exciting week as I head to Rome tomorrow to meet up with Dad, Bridget, Tricia, and Collin and then the 6th graders come back to Strassy with me!

ps sorry for the lack up pictures, just got my camera (and brace finally) in the mail the other day so hopefully things will be more interesting visually from now on!

More Waiting in Strasbourg

Although the dreaded CIEL started again this week, meaning 2 1/2 hours of pure french 2x a week, it has still been hard to get a regular schedule going here in Strasbourg.  The highlight of this week was undoubtably when my host parents, Marlene et Raymond, brought me out to their favorite Italian restaurant which they've been going to for over 40 years now! Ready to share any kind of story with any one, espeically if it involves something terrible that happened to her, Marlene spent a good 30 minutes talking to our waiter, the host, and the old Italian women who seems to be a fixture at the place about deaths, divorce, and other topics that usually make people depressed but seem to just feed her energy.  Its hard to feel sympathetic when she recounts these stories anymore because the amount she talks is just absurd!  My American roomate from last semester, Lisset, was definetely missed as Marlene and I were forced by Raymond to share an entire bottle of wine, would've been easier with three!

This weekend was full of culture, with a visit to the Palais Rohan with Malou on Friday afternoon and later to Metz on Sunday.  The Palais Rohan, the palace of French kings, Napoleon, and place where American ambassadors are now welcomed to France, was stunning and I'm glad Malou brought us because I never even knew it was here right in the center of Strasbourg!  Definetely the strangest thing at the palace was a display of pottery in the shape of a boar's head which was they apparently actually served the meat in.  The dead face with the tongue sticking out would be a bit much to display on my kitchen table, thats for sure.  Love and other Drugs (in French), was about all we could manage on Saturday after a late night, but at least then we were well rested for Metz on Sunday with Malou!

The beginning of the day was a bit rough.  Unfortunately I lost my house keys before I went to Normandy thereby rendering excursions into the city limited to times when I knew the Matters would be home so I could get back into the house.  I could deal with these new time retraints, especially after I got a new key.  What the really sad part of the situation was that my bike keyS were attached to my house keys.  Now usually when you buy a bike lock they give you an extra key for things like this.  Unfortunately I never really realized that was why there were two and had always kept them together...attched...to the house keys.  Suddenly that my bike was theif proof was no longer so wonderful, especially since I was the one who wanted to steal it.  Luckily on Sunday afternoon the Matters' son came with his power tools and freed my bike but not before I was forced to take the tram to the train station Sunday morning to meet Malou.  It seemed like CTS (Strasbourg Tram Company) was against me as literally every connection contained a 20 minute wait and I was 30 minutes late (ooooppps).  Luckily we were taking the car but it was still very stressful.

In Metz, a city about 2 hours away from Strasbourg in Lorraine, we managed to find an open restaurant in France (miracle on Sundays!) and after lunch we headed to the new Centre Pompidou of Metz, or the city's Modern Art Museum.  The design of the building was very cool and our audioguides were ipod which was something new.

In the musuem there was the typical strange modern art such as a work entitled chair, which was literally a wooden chait in the middle of the room, or another called "artist's shit", exactly what it sounds like.  However, there were also lots of other nice pieces of art too.  The ride home was quiet and sleepy and we definetely we not about to indulge Malou's request of a camp singalong.  That night I saw the movie "Somewhere" with Celine, a French girl in one of my classes who has been very welcoming in Strasbourg.  DO NOT SEE THIS.  It is a movie about nothing in which nothing happens.

With classes starting today I was very glad to have my bike back! Even though its extremely rusty from being outside for about 1 month now without being ridden and only one of the brakes work it is still pink and has a bell so I'm happy.  All the Strasbourg girls are now just eagerly counting down the hours till Audrey gets here this Wednesday for a visit and the Usher concert and later for Ted and Kate to arrive to make Strasbourg such a popular city at the moment!

Normandy

With the big event of New Year's over and classes at the University not starting again until the 17th, it was hard to establish a daily routine and avoid boredom here in Strasbourg, I was glad to be able to visit Normany in the northwest of France this week.  Because the history chanel is one of the few channels my dad won't randomly change away from in the middle of a show, World War II has always been an interesting subjet and I knew during my time in France I wanted to get to the D-Day beaches.

I started my visit with a 630am train to Rouen and after a rather confusing Paris "gare" change met up with Claire and Veronica who had already spent a day in Caen.  Although January in France is nothing special and rain and fog greeted us in Rouen, we were still excited by the 50 degree weather, about 20 degrees warmer than what we left in Strasbourg.  On Thursday we visited the cathedral, painted by Monet several times, and St. Ouen's Abbey, both of which were freezing inside!  St. Ouen was especially impressive.  All white and with only one mass inside every year, St. Ouen held none of the modern benches that are usually added to old cathedrals and was a huge open space.   After the cathedrals we headed across town to the museum of medicine which was the same building as the Gustave Flaubert museum.  Apparently Gustave grew up in the hospital his surgeon father worked in, and their dining was seperate from the cholera patients by only a screen...ew.  In all the museum was a littel bizarre, especially the part describing how you could leave your unwanted baby in a sort of mailbox but definetely brought back some good memorials of AP Lit senior year.

In Normandy the influence of American and British troops is defietely still in evidence, particularly through the food!  For lunch we found a pub called the Big Ben and for dinner, despite searching for other options, we ended trying a self proclaimed American restaurant and passing by several others.  Complete with pictures of American presidents and deep dish pizza (which the menu, in a historical section of the delicacy, informed us is apparently correctly pronounced "dip dich"...okay then France), the restaurant even served Ben and Jerry's Ice cream, which after much debate he obviously indulged in.  Eating at this restaurant was definetely a bizarre experience however, as no one seemed certain whether we actually had a seat, a women who may or may not have worked there tried to speak to us in three different languages, and Brasilian jazz called Bossa Nova was blaring from the live band next to us.

On Friday we headed to the museum of fine arts and then to the train station for a Monoprix lunch and the train for Bayeux.  By the time we got to Bayeux it was too late to see anything so we rested in the hotel room for Sarah to get here and go to dinner.  It was then we started watching True Blood.  I don't know whether to say I'm proud or ashamed but we sucesffully finished the entire first season within the next two days. 

On Saturday we discovered that apparently no one else visits Normandy in the middle of winter.  Unfortuantely this meant that no museums, tour buses, and hardly any restaurants were open in Bayeux.  At first we thought this lack of people was great, especially when we visited the Bayeux Tapestry because we had the entire things to ourselves.  An ENORMOUS tapestry depicting William's invasion of England, the Bayeux Tapestry spenned a long hallway and then turned around and kept going!  The detail was amazing and the fact that is was so old just made it so much cooler.  After the tapestry we headed back the train station for our own self guided tour of the American cemetary and Omaha beach.  Things to note: when bus schedules publicize lines that run all year in France this means they only run in July and August.  Despite our troubles we found a guide in Wikipedia via Sarah's blackberry because, of course, the museums nearby were closed in January.  The American cemetary was very impressive.  Seeing all the crosses and reading names from all over the country definetely gave me a concrete idea of the sacrifice that generation made to fight a war a continent away.  It was especially to see how young many of the soliders were and to think about how far their families have to travel to visit their grave.  It was also very impressive to walk down the beaches and look up at the hills the Americans had to climb all the while being shot at.  The cemetary was absolutely huge and I am glad we were able to see at least one thing that luckily remains open all year!  On the way home from the beaches we visited Bayeux's cathedral which was the first multilayered church I have seen here in Europe.

On Sunday Claire and I had high hopes to visit the Battle for Normandy museum in Bayeux, one of the few that our tour books said was still open in January.  However, after 20 minute walk along the highway we saw the high written signs on the door annoncing that this too was closed.  Again we wondered how anything in this country is economically feasible.  This is France so you know those people are still being paid, how they afford to shut down their museum for four months!  Luckily the British cemetary was across the street so we could justify our trip along the highway.  It was very intersting the see the British cemetary after the American one.  The graves in the British cemetary has personalized messages from families engraved upon them along with the labels of their particular regiment.  Besides British soliders, there were also Polish, Czech, Soviet, French, Canadian, and North African soliders buried there, with each country having a different shaped grave.  The most suprising thing in the cemetary however, was the graves for German soldiers.  These had the same shape as the British graves and were not seperated like the other ones.  Without Wikipedia handy I guess we'll never figure out this mystery.

After a brief stroll through Reporter's Without Borders memorial to reporters who have been killed since World War II, all we made a friend in Bayeux.  Trying to find anything touristy to visit we followed the signs to a local monastary.  Although we never made it to the actual monastary we did stumble upon the gift shop where the charm of the old nun made it impossible for us to leave without purchasing something.  Between giving us a history lesson on veils and declaring that she was the nun in my postcard, she definetely won the award for cutest nun ever.

A final picnic in front of the cathedral made up for the fact that all restaurants, including the grocery store, are closed on Sundays in Bayeux and we made it back to Strasbourg Sunday night.  Museum visits with Malou around Strasbourg are in store for this weekend. 

Happy New Year!

Despite title similarity with another blog that I supposedly authored, I would like to first put out the disclaimer that yes, in fact, Muh Lyfe be Lyke: France Edition is a real blog written by the real Kathleen Marie Connelly (to what I'm sure will be the intense amusement of a certain Sadie Sisk).  Unfortunately for those enamoured with my past "blog" this will not deal with a broken birthday crown, my prospeccts with any of the jonas brothers, or "your girl who keeps it realz" but rather with my time here in Strasbourg, France.  Although a semester has already gone by (during which I know I was terrible at keeping in touch with people) I've decided better late than never to try and let people know what I've been doing and keep a record for myself!  Another disclaimer, although Caitlin Reilly does not yet know the password to this, if any posts about my alter ego the dwarf Gimli from Lord of the Rings and my supposed bromance with Legolas appear, I think we will all know who is responsible. 

Anyways I've recently returned to Strasbourg from a two week stint back in the US where it was so great to see all my friends and family!  The Caroling Party, the Kennedy Center, Christmas Day, a wonderful suprise visit from my roomate Sadie, and of course Bryce were all highlights.  *ps don't worry my knee brace hasn't even left France yet so who knows if I'll ever even see that thing again*  I had to skip the traditional Bryce New Years Eve festivities this year in order to attend another spectacular tradition-Holy Cross in Paris. 

 For years Holy Cross students studying abroad and their friends visiting from home have been able to meet up in Paris and celebrate the new year in style on the streets of this City of Lights.  The class of 2012 was no exception and the Strasbourg girls (missing Caitlin : / ) enjoyed playing host in "our country".  Because we decided we'd be back to Paris someday, Veronica, Sarah, Claire, and I took at a bit slowe pace than the rest of the Holy Cross kids visiting Paris, but we still managed to do some sightseeing (okay we saw two things in two days...but they were still cool nonetheless!)

One of our sights, an enormous cemetary where greats such as Chopin (whose grave we thought we saw though it turned out to be an imposter, Edith Piaf, Oscar Wilde, and Jim Morrison are all buried. 



  Although the cemetary and lunch were really all we managed on December 31st we did have lots of preparing to do for the evening's festitvities as we had invited everyone to our hostel to organize ourselves.  After a trip to Monoprix we were ready for a nap and then to start getting excited to see everyone!  With  

Ski Team in Paris! (Minus Teddy)

over 20 people stuffed in our hostel room, the beginning of the night definetely felt like a Holy Cross dorm party and everyone was very excited to be reunited with friends both new and old.  Around 1030 we decided to brave the metro, free on New Year's Eve, and make our way to the Champs-Elsyees.  Cramped quarters did not prevent shannanigans such as singing, screaming, and even popping champagne en route (thanks Rob).  When we emerged out onto the street we were greeted by lights and hundreds of people.  The wait till midnight was filled with more wine, meeting more Holy Cross people, and most notably a Holy Cross chant that sevevral French spectators tried to join in on. 

 

Holy Cross attemps the metro







On the Champs

Although the actually passing into the new year was unremarkable-no countdown, few fireworks, and certainly no dropping ball,  once we realized that it was in fact 12:03 we made sure to uncork the rest of our champagne and make an enormous mess on the street.  In another similarity to going out at Holy Cross, this night ended inevitable in food.  Separated in the confusion of getting back on the metro, the Strasbourg girls plus Meghan, Cami, and Audrey (coming in three seperate groups mind you) all managed to find each other at one of the omnipresent kebab places that populate Europe.  A large snuggle fest with few beds and lots of people concluded the night that fulfilled and exceeded all our expectations.



Visitation in Paris, round 2!



The next day we managed to leave our hostel only for a late lunch and evening mass at Notre Dame cathedral which was definetely a cool experience.  As food was clearly a theme of this trip, we headed straight to what we anticipated would be a lovely dinner in a nice Parisien restaurant.  It was only literally 3 1/2 hours later that were able to ESCAPE from le Marathon, quite possible the worst restaurant in Paris.  Apart from declaring that snails were better than mussels anyway when he mistakenly brought the wrong order, claiming that "chicken is beef" and then proceeding to bring raw meat out, and completely ignoring the fact that Audrey too had ordered dessert, our waiter also refused in general to bring our food out for 2 hours.  The delicious nutella crepes we had afterwards made us a feel al little better but I am sure we will be avoiding eating in the Latin quarter the next time we visit Paris.

Back to Strasbourg the next day on the TGV and despite a bit of confusion on seating (why would seat 74 be next to 26?) we finally made it back "home" to start off a new semester here on the "frontier".  This weekend we are off to Normany to visit Rouen, Bayeux, and of course the D-Day beaches.