Note to Self: Learn French

So this weekend was the first weekend of our European travels! :)

It. Was. Awesome.

We went to Metz, France on Friday night, and then took the train to Strasbourg, France for Sat/Sun to meet up with some Miami friends. All in all, I'd say it was a very successful weekend!

We got to Metz (only about an hour train ride from Lux City), and realized our hostel was a LITTLE farther away from the train station than we thought. It was about a half hour walk (with map securely in Katie's hands... considering if I'd been holding it, we probably would have been lost haha). But the walk was great cause we discovered a beautiful church on the water, with swans (seriously? how awesome is that!?) and saw the city on the way. After settling in to our hostel, we went to go see the gothic cathedral in Metz. The ceilings were sooo sooo high, the picture does nothing to capture how gigantic and haunting the building was. Then we got dinner in a courtyard next to the cathedral (where they only spoke french... hence the name of this post). We wandered the streets for a little afterwards and then happened upon another small cafe by the cathedral where a guy was singing. So we sat outside and listened to French music next to a 600 year old cathedral....so cool.

Saturday morning we checked out, then found a small bakery for breakfast to get out of the pouring rain (with our backpacks). We paid for our pastries,  then sat down and the lady starts yelling at us in French... needless to say we have no idea what we did wrong and definitely don't want to go back into the rain. We think you had to pay more to sit at the tables but she only charged us for "to go"... however we're still not sure what actually happened, haha.

We took another train to Strasbourg (where it was still pouring down rain), finally make it to our VERY NICE hostel, and head back out into the torrential downpour. Seeing as we were tired, wet, and 3 girls... we found a mall :) By the time we got back to the hostel, our other friends had arrived. The rain FINALLY stopped and so we all walked around for a place to eat dinner. The area that all the books said to go to was called "Petite France," so naturally we found a German restaurant called "The Academy of Beer" to eat at, haha. But (Dad, you would be proud of me) I got a typical French dish called tarte flambee... and it was DELICIOUS. It was like thin pizza crust with cheese, onions and bacon. The atmosphere was great though, and they had student prices, so we spent something like 4 hours at dinner. It was by far my favorite part of the trip. Then we went to a discotec that our waiter said was fun, and it was. But it was just one more example of how Europeans need to discover deoderant. 

Sunday we all saw the cathedral in Strasbourg (not quite as amazing as the one in Metz, but still very cool), then took the tram to see the EU Parliament building. It was an interesting time trying to figure out how to get there etc., but I'm really glad we did it cause it was a neat building. Then we found a square to eat lunch in and headed home.

This is probably a really long winded entry, but I'll get better at narrowing down the good stories, haha. 

I also have yet to figure out how to put pictures in the right order/place. So the bottom pics are Metz, and the top are Strasbourg.