Strasbourg: Why are you doing this to me?

We got on our first train quite easily. There was an open reserved coach with numerous seats in a circle around a table, and we commandeered it as our own for a good while.Our train had a brief delay in one of the towns, so we started to get a little worried about making our connection. We waited in the doorway of the train with our stuff. Shortly before we stopped, we grabbed all of our gear. It was extremely heavy.

When the train doors opened, we got off the train and hustled down a flight of stairs, down a hallway, and back up a flight of stairs.

We got to the platform where the train should be. There was no train. It was supposed to leave at 34 past the hour. I looked at the station clock: 35 past the hour.

I collapsed in a heap. "Why are you doing this to me?" I shouted in Rowan's general direction. My limbs were physically shaking from exertion.

Later, I felt bad about my exasperated outburst.

We caught a train about half an hour later. It was a local train, and people got on and off the train frequently with their bikes and their dogs.

When we arrived in Strasbourg, we lugged our bags off the train and I waited while Rowan went to find a map or ask for directions to the hotel. While I was waiting, I noticed a luggage cart sitting right behind me.

Rowan returned, and we loaded the cart. As we wheeled our way toward the exit I said, "We're taking this thing right out the door and down the street to the hotel." I didn't want to carry the bags anymore. No one stopped us.

We pushed our cart full of baggage down the sidewalk. This may seem easy, but the sidewalks were not flat. Either the sidewalks tilted sideways over time, the engineers were really dumb, or the French are really concerned about proper water drainage.

We also had to maneuver around road construction.

At one point, I was crossing the street and noticed that there was a several-inch difference between the street and the slanted transition up to the sidewalk. In my sleep addled state, I thought that if I got a running start, I could jump the cart up onto the sidewalk.

Instead, the cart whacked the curb, twisted sideways, and dumped our stuff into the street. We gathered our gear quickly before it got ran over by cars.

Rowan then had to ask the women in the tattoo shop for directions to the hotel.

We checked in, hauled our bags upstairs, leaving the cart in the lobby, and then showered. When we came back downstairs, the cart was gone. We did not ask about it.

One of the main attractions in the town is an immaculate old cathedral. While both the outside and inside of the church are immaculate, the inside is marred by much tacky commercialization. For example, to see the baptismal fountain, you have to put money in a little coin deposit, and then the fountain lights up. These little money-takers were all over the place.

The other main attraction in the town is a section of town, not a particular building, called Petite France and known for the distinctive architecture of its buildings. During the one evening we spent in town, we purchased a bottle of wine for one euro (about $1.64, the last I checked) and drank part of it in a plaza. However, we were running on no sleep, so we only got part of the way through the bottle before we decided that we were in desperate need of sleep.

We slept for a full twelve hours, then got up and drank the rest of the wine for breakfast. We spent the day wandering around Strasbourg. Rowan wants me to point out several things: she really liked the houses in Petite France, flowers are nice, we saw many Tara-dogs (for the uninformed, Tara is the family dog and is a white and gray English sheepdog), and we drank beer out of big steins right next to the cathedral.Our other big discovery was Turkish food, specifically what they call kebab, which is this giant chunk of meat that they shave with something pretty similar to an electric hair clipper. They then take the shaved meat and shove it into some good bread with tomatoes, onion, and yogurt sauce. The first place where we tried it was fantastic, which led us to eat at other kebab places, but none of them were as good. But the places were very cheap, which is why we kept eating at them.

My last note is that we passed a park where they had metal ping-pong tables cemented into the ground. People brought their own paddles and balls and played in the park. For some reason, I think this is one of the greatest ideas ever.We left Strasbourg on an overnight train. It was unpleasant. Next, I will tell you why.