Parlez-vous frommage?: dance in my pants

paris seems like so long ago, perhaps it’s time i update my loyal readers with the latest installment of katie’s travels. (well, it was when i wrote this. but i never got around to posting it because i was busy doing other things. so this is really talking about two weeks ago. a post about switzerland is still to come.) starting the night before thanksgiving, i came down with a nasty bit of some sickness. basically i didn’t leave my room for four days. it happened to be our second open weekend, so i was thankful that i hadn’t gotten around to planning a trip anywhere, because i don’t think i would have made it. my friend karissa was sick at the same time i was, as well as my roommate lisa.

when i finally emerged from my room sometime that week, we decided to head into town for the christmas market. i was impressed. all sorts of merchants set up shops selling various goods, from cookies and candies to gifts to decorations. i think that this outdoor market takes the place of selling holiday goods in regular stores. instead of bringing in special merchandise for the season, starting at halloween, they lump it all into one temporary, self-sustaining christmastravaganza. it’s quite festive.

entrance to christkindelsmarik

i thought i would hear a lot of different christmas carols being played at the market. surprisingly, 95% of the songs played were typical american songs, sung in english.

in the market. i call these "amputrees"

shruti, jessica and i got hungry, and stopped to buy a bretzel from one of the vendors. it was funny how one of the guys spoke english, so he was called over whenever one of us ordered so we could understand. i wanted to tell him that we were used only pointing as a means of communication, but decided against it. i think that this particular venue is used to the idea of tourists coming in who don’t speak that much french. however, i was embarrassed when he asked how long we were saying, and shruti truthfully responded that we had already been here for two and a half months. he made some comment about us not speaking french. it felt like the sizeable crowd around us was all staring, which is not a feeling i enjoy.

on wednesday, petra had organized a swing dance lesson for any who were interested. when the instructor came to the chateau, we realized he did not speak english, a minor detail that petra had left out. no worries, though, because dance is a universal language and we were still able to follow what he was doing. petra also invited some french students she taught at the university. two showed up, as well as some guy from texas that is interning at the american consulate. i had a lot of fun learning the lindy hop, but somehow did not understand the concept of being “led” by my partner. that’s more foreign to me than anything french. hehe.

petra and i, not swing dancing.

petra as my partner

friday night was a katie mays first: i went out in strasbourg. there’s a group that goes out more or less every night of the week, but for some reason i’ve never really been interested in strasbourgian night life. i’m much more content to hang out around the chateau and drink two euro bottles of wine with my friends here. but i figured it was the last weekend i’d be in strasbourg, so i might as well see what i’ve been missing. after class, petra drove four of us to a swanky club where she likes to hang out. somehow i didn’t feel like i fit in the with the well-dressed, late 20-something/ 30-something crowd. eric and i left to meet some other people at murphy’s, the local “irish pub” that has become the second home of several art institute students. all and all, i had a good time. i drank a san miguel and thought of spain. and we listened to the guy with a guitar sing all the hits, from mrs. robinson to american pie.

courtney, eric, me and ashley @ murphy's

on saturday morning, we all boarded the bus again for a day trip to heidelburg. in the past couple months, i have been to a variety of german cities. i think that heidelburg was my favorite. it was pretty small, but was a college town so had a very distinct academic/ collegiate feel. we had a guided tour for an hour before free time. i spent most of the time shopping (mostly for christmas gifts) with shruti. ironically, for our dinner in germany, we were served crepes for the first time.

group pic!

karissa and i take a picture on every bridge we cross.

sunday was another active day at the chateau. bernie organized a group to go repelling down the side of an old tower a few minutes from the chateau. despite my fear of heights, i repelled down a four-story building. after repelling, bernie had set up an activity called the “flying squirrel”. basically a rope is suspended between two trees, about 20 feet in the air. a long rope hangs on a pulley, and one person is strapped inot a harness. the person in the harness is attached to the rope, while the other people hold the other end of the rope. the “squirrel” runs in one direction, while the people pulling the rope run the other way. the end result of these actions is the squirrel being launched into the air. it was awesome. funny, i never thought that i would come to europe and do extreme sports. not that repelling down four stories is extreme, but you get what i’m saying.