Strasbourg

     This weekend Mallory and I set off to discover Strasbourg, France.  It has a chocolate museum that I was interested in checking out. 

The cab picked us up at 6:15am, and brought us to Retournac.  From Retournac, we waited about ten minutes for a bus to pick us up and take us to Firminy.  We reached Firminy and caught a train that took us to Lyon station.  Two hours later we finally made it to Lyon.  From Lyon we were catching a train to Strasbourg.  It would take us three and a half hours to arrive in Strasbourg.

I slept the entire ride to Strasbourg; I was exhausted; we went out as a group to go bowling the night before.  We arrived, surprised by the weather.  It had said 50 degrees and sunny, instead it was around 35 degrees and rainy sadness. 

First stop, Chocolate Museum: a fifty-minute bus ride.  Walking down a two-lane street, without sidewalks or a shoulder, in the raid, we had arrived; I was really excited, we had finally made it.  Walked in and surrounded by antique chocolate making equipment and our noses filling with the wonderful aroma of chocolate, we paid the 8-euros to enter.  Next we entered a theater to watch a quick film of the history of chocolate.  The theater leads to the museum, which is when my excitement diminished and I was filled with disappointment.  This museum was geared toward children and novices, not studying pastry students.  Walking through the animated diagrams of the process of creating chocolate, and the tempering method, we arrived in the chocolate shop.  Samples were available, and that was the highlight of the visit.  A huge disappointment.

Next stop the hotel.  Finding the hotel would prove to be a challenging task.  We found the correct bus, but once we exited the bus, we managed to walk up the wrong street twice, take a couple different busses, and walk through a construction area and a sketchy neighborhood before stumbling upon the hotel.  We checked in, took the elevator up to our room and plopped our stuff down in addition to our bodies.  How could we be so tired? 

      Deciding what to eat for dinner became just as difficult.  The weather made us not want to leave or get lost again and frustrated.  We decided on delivery, but what to eat?  Mallory said sushi and of course I can’t disagree.  So we found a restaurant that delivers, the website in French, so ordering became problematic.  After five tries, both on cell phones Internet, via phone and my laptop, we had ordered food; now time to wait the hour and half for it to be delivered. 

Food arrived, and “scarfed down” quicker than it took to arrive.  Delish!  Now full, we weren’t motivated to move.  So instead I tried downloading “Inglorious Basterds”, and over an hour later, it still wouldn’t play, we watched Friends instead.  I think I’ve found someone more obsessed and knows more lines than me!  It is indeed possible, who knew? 

Next day it was time to leave.  We slept in, checked out, and hopped on the bus to take us to the train station.  Since we had some time before our train, we decided to go grocery shopping.  Found one that was open (Sunday is the day where everything is closed); bought some much-needed food.  Hopped back on a train, headed further into town, checking out the sites as we went along.  Hopped off to check out a chocolate and patisserie shop.  Beautiful desserts!  Grabbed a bus going toward the train station.  Strasbourg was a pretty city; if the weather had been nicer and we were here longer we probably would have appreciated it more.  

Arriving at the train station, the sea of bikes outside was a site to see.  Our train was in less than an hour, we each grabbed a pretzel, and I grabbed a sandwich as well.  Waited for the train, it arrived later than anticipated.  We took our seats and off we went.  Four hours later we reached Lyon, where we connected to the next train to take us to Firminy.  At Firminy we had a two-hour wait until our bus would show up.  We both were hungry and needed a toilette, so we ventured into town and found a pizza place, Scooter Pizza.  Ordered pizza, and walked back to the station to enjoy the food.  At least the station was open for us to sit in warmth rather than outside for the remaining time.