Day 12 (Thursday, May 25)

Today was the first day I took an afternoon trip to a town somewhat near Metz. Nick had a friend he wanted to meet in Strasbourg, so Ahmed, Jonathan, and I decided to come with him to see a bit of the city and have dinner there.

It turns out that today was a holiday in France, so the bus schedule was very limited. By the time I got to the bus stop, I found out I had just missed a bus, and I had to wait for 30 minutes for the next one. I got to the Metz train station about 25 minutes before the train was supposed to leave. I waited in line, got a ticket, and got to the train platform 2 minutes before the train left!

The train ride was only about an hour and a half, and we arrived just a little after 5:00. We met up with Nick's friend and started walking through town.




Strasbourg city sights.


A Tour de France stage ends here in Strasbourg!


European Union guy. Nothing says EU like a guy with a pacifier toting around Curious George on his back, waving an EU flag...

The big thing to see was the cathedral (what else?), and it was pretty impressive. The French holiday was something like "Ascension Day", and we arrived at the cathedral just as a service was letting out.



The cathedral.


Return of EU guy.


The Ascension service just ended.


Amazing organ pipes! These were functional, and were playing awesome organ music.


Inside the cathedral.

After the cathedral, we went to dinner at Flam's, and we had lots of crepe flam(something). The flam(insert randome French noise) was pretty much a really thin crust pizza in a rectangular shape that you rolled up in order to eat. They were quite good!


Everyone STUFFED from 6 super crepes and a dessert super crepe! Except for me, who isn't in the picture because I'm still stuffing my face. ;-)

We kind of lost track of time at the meal and had to run all the way across town to catch our train. We made it there with only 5 minutes to spare! Today was a day full of close calls.

I got back to the room around 10:30 and read my book before going to bed. Visiting Strasbourg for the afternoon was an awesome idea, and it really was a lot of fun.