Scheiße! I took a trip to Strasbourg, France this past weekend, and it felt so good to not only get out of Konstanz to explore some other new places (don't worry I'm not getting sick of Konstanz already), but also to be speaking French! Kind of... the title might read quite foreign to most people, but that is a combination of German and French. Amid the weird pressure one always feels while ordering a meal or buying something, I'd accidentally meld together my multilingual, limited vocabulary on multiple occasions, and expose myself as the idiot foreigner that I am regardless of my efforts to blend in. Most every worker on the border between two countries speaks both languages plus English anyways, so its nothing new. Just a morale-sinker on my part.
There are countless common words in both languages that I don't know yet and interacting with so many fluent multi-linguists fills me with such a burning desire to be fluent too. It takes lots of time and perseverance but it is very easy to lose confidence and patience and switch to English when the server's question sounds like gibberish. Maybe more on this subject in the random section later.
Anyways, after having learned about the convenient company Flix Bus, bus tickets to and from Strasbourg were a wonderfully low price. I stayed at an eccentric Air BnB right near the city center and Old Town (Petit France), and spent the day exploring with Kenneth (see gallery) from California who was also staying there. We visited a wine cellar where the oldest wine still kept in a barrel is held, from 1472, only drunk three times on very special occasions. Some barrels were twice my height and one was a wedding gift. Imagine getting a barrel that can hold close to 20000 liters of wine in it, engraved with your names and ornate carvings for your wedding (sorry Gretch I wish!). We went to the market for lunch, which is the part of France I always miss most when I am... anywhere but France. I took a tour of the European Parliament building in French which was very cool. All 24 languages are the "official language" of the EU, therefore they need 96 translators throughout each day discussion happens, as each one knows around 4 or 5 languages and can only work for half an hour at a time, as the task of translation is so demanding. Imagine being fluent in five languages....
On the way back on Saturday, I met a few friends in the Black Forest (die Schwarzwald) for a short hike and a relaxing piece of, of course, Black Forest Cherry Cake (Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte). The forest is beautiful with its soft mossy floor and towering pine trees. Will definitely be returning.
Classes are laid back, but the change from science and math to more liberal-artsy classes involving discussion, debate, and questioning of worldly topics is very welcome and rather refreshing. I may make it sound like we have it easy in terms of class/workload, but as our German teacher at WPI says, the challenges and differences we encounter while studying abroad in general, things that you wouldn't even think to worry about at home, are more than enough to make up for this lenient class schedule.
Finally, as the weather warms up and flowers bloom, more and more people can be seen all over the banks of the Rhine and the lake, biking, playing in parks, going on walks. We are all anxiously awaiting the day when we can cannonball into the crystal clear water that looks so inviting!
