What A Great Experience It's Been

My time here in Strasbourg is, sadly and quickly, coming to a close. With less than one week to go it's a frantic race to get everything done. As part of the semester abroad program while in Strasbourg I was required to do an internship. I was placed at a restaurant named Maison Kammerzell. It's been an experience working at at French restaurant without knowing much French. A perk of studying in Europe is being so close to many of the best cities in the world. I was lucky enough to go on a few weekend trips and took some great photos. One of my final assignments was putting together a promotional video of my time here to show to first year students to get them to sign up for the semester abroad. Here is the video:

Can't wait to come back to Europe!

Wynne

First Weekend of Travelling!

What a weekend! Saturday morning we spent in the beautiful town of Colmar here in France. Its main city centre was full of medieval architecture and little shops. We stumbled across all sorts of neat sculptures and museums and art galleries, and had some amazing ice cream! (MMM, White Chocolate flavour!) That afternoon we took a train to Basel, Switzerland. We walked right past our hostel because we were distracted by the Porsche dealership! Eventually we did find it and it was in a beautiful location right on a tiny river (or maybe it was just a stream? I dunno) Anyways, it was a pretty cool place, very modern style on the inside with everything cement or steel. The 4 of us girls had our own bedroom with bunk beds which was pretty awesome. On Sunday morning we left super early to catch our train to Geneva, Switzerland. I was a pretty long ride so we mostly slept, but the view of the mountains in the distance and of the pretty houses was really beautiful to watch. At one point we went through a ridiculously long tunnel and started to worry if we would ever be getting out! HaHa. So eventually we got to Geneva and when we got down to the lake it was gorgeous. We had amazing weather, and we were even able to go paddle boating on the lake! We also saw the flower clock, tons of swiss army knives, lots of yummy chocolate, and took lots of pictures of swans and of the giant water jet that shoots a ton of pressurized water high into the air. Super pretty in the bright sun! Overall, Switzerland was beautiful and I would love to go again, but further into the mountains next time.

In other news, I CANT BELIVE THAT WE HAVE ONLY BEEN HERE FOR 11 DAYS! I feel like we have done sooooooo much already! I have been to 3 countries, France, Germany, and Switzerland, eaten a ton of specialty French food, seen countless cathedrals, and take hundreds of pictures. Most of us have started calling the chateau home already! Speaking of home, missing your friends and family is something that you have to deal with if you are going to go on a trip like this. So far, I do not have advice on how to handle this, as I am currently missing everyone back at home very much! Stay tuned!

All in all, we are all having a wonderful time! There are so many opportunities here that are just not even an option in Canada! Who in Barrie can spend the afternoon in Germany, a weekend in Switzerland, and have trains or planes booked for Paris, London, and Barcelona!! (Rome will be booked soon!!) Not to mention the ridiculously good food and the beautiful church bells ringing. Today was spent doing lots of homework, but I’m in a castle, so that’s pretty awesome and makes doing your homework so much better (well, as good as doing homework can get) Tomorrow we start our first actual day at our internships, so until then, Au Revoir et Bon Nuit!

Sara G :) <3

Our first week in Strasbourg

 By: Lisa

After having passed one wonderful first week here with you I want us to start our travel diary! Some of you are already travelling around in Switzerland, the others are enjoying the nice weather here in Strasbourg.

Beside nice dinners in the Château and in different restaurants in Strasbourg, the highlights of this week were our guided tour of Strasbourg with Catherine who showed us the Cathedral and the old town of Strasbourg (we will all live for at least a hundred years now as we touched the nose of the lucky dog) and, of course, the guided visit of the pastry and chocolate shop Christian. It was very interesting to listen to the owner talking about his passion and the chocolate was delicious! He gave us more than ten different kinds of chocolate to taste. My favourite ones were the white and the crumble chocolate.    

In the kitchen of the pastry and chocolote shop Christian with Christian Meyer.

I am very excited about the next two months we will be spending together and I'm already looking forward to our first karaoke night tonight in the bar of the Château!