European Adventures Days 22-23

Bonjour! I am now officially in France...Strasbourg to be exact. Before we left Geneva, we had one last hurrah at a fondue restaurant. Yes, another fondue place. However, this one had cheese that came in tomate and champignon flavors. The tomate was excellent. And for dessert, we had chocolate fondue with cookies and fruit. :) It was a great end to our stay in Geneva.



This is Carlo trying to stab me with his fondue fork. :)

As for getting to Strasbourg, it was quite an adventure to get here as I and several other people dragged all our stuff onto the bus and then onto the train to get here on Saturday. It was quite interesting as most of us have at least one huge bag if not two and combining that with the heat, it was a bit unpleasant. haha Thank goodness for John and Greg would proved to be the two workhorses for us girls. They get props. We made it after almost 4 hours on the train and took taxis to our dorm b/c we were just way too tired to drag our stuff on the trams. And I have a story about our taxi ride:

So here in Europe, I noticed that the taxis are often very nice cars like BMWs and Mercedes-Benz. I'm assuming that they're less expensive here than for us in the States but it still sort of baffles me that people use them for taxis. Well, Greg and I got into a Mercedes (the people and stuff had to fit into 3 separate cars) and the guy asked us where we're from. We said San Francisco and he was like: "Oh! California! Very nice!" He proceeded to reach to his sound system, pressed a few buttons and turned up the sound as Tupac's "California Love" came blasting out. It was absolutely HILARIOUS. I was laughing so hard in the back seat. Oh man.

Anyways, we got to our dorm and settled in. Other than no wireless, its really not all that bad considering we have our own mini-fridges and sinks in our single rooms. :) I like having more space again. We got groceries and grabbed a quick bite at a local pizzeria. The next day, we went to register for the Institute (Rene Cassin Institute on Human Rights) and explored downtown.



This is Lisa & Ilana enjoying their dessert.



So downtown Strasbourg is located on a small island surrounded by rivers. It's pretty cool. Here's a small snapshot.



There are also several cathedrals in the area and this is the biggest one.



This cool astrological clock that has some sort of special show at 12:30 every afternoon. I'm gonna go back to see it.



And this is me and Greg trying to find our way home.

So far I'm enjoying the sites and sounds in Strasbourg than in Geneva. It seems to have a lot more old-school character and flavor that Geneva which was a modern city but seemed a bit confused as to personality. Don't get me wrong, Geneva was really pretty but Strasbourg seems to have a lot more history. I'm looking forward to getting to know it better.

Today is the first day of several lectures a day for four weeks. Its like going to school again except all your classmates are international. I hope I'll learn a lot and I'm really interested especially in the European systems. What a nerd huh? let's just hope I won't fall asleep too much in this heat. haha And this weekend I'm off to Munich to visit my friend Florian who was an LLM student at USF. I'm super excited because I've heard SO many good things about Munich. I'll have an update after the weekend. Until next time, Au Revoir Mes Amis!