Strasbourg in 52 hours

So, what happened in Strasbourg? At first I want to say that I had a lot of fun there. The town is very nice and is really worth making some photos. I did that (~350 in two days) and have some of them put online.
What made the two days in Strasbourg so special were the crazy encounters with the people that I had. I want to tell you some of them:
- When I carried/pulled my (damn heavy) luggage from the train station to the youth hostel, some random guy wanted to know how the automatic videotheque machine works. It was soooo obvious that I’m not from there. I was sweating from the weight of the luggage and not taking the public transport as the locals would do, and he still asked me. :)
- While I was making photos of one of the churches, a guy from Holland (or at least a guy with a caravan with dutch license plates) asked me where to find the old town. He started the conversation with “Pardon, parlez-vous anglais?” with a very funny accent.
- I met two women from the French Red Cross. The first one wanted me to become a regular donor (of money, not blood). She told me what the Red Cross in France does and why it is so important, that people donate regularly (via direct-debit authorisation). After she finished I told her that I’m a student and I won’t donate any money (haha! :-p ). A few minutes later another woman from the Red Cross approached me. She made a very crazy impression, so I decided to talk to her ;). After I told her that I am a student and here (in Strasbourg) for holidays she did not try to win me as a donor, but we had a really nice chat.
- An old man in the tram talked to me about the weather and then asked my why I didn’t work (it was Friday ~11 am). When I told him that I come from Austria and have holidays he wanted to talk German. It was a very broken German, but nonetheless very funny.
- While I was walking through the town, a policeman complained to me about a car that went way too fast around a corner. Why me???? I just don’t know…
What else?
I visited all the sights of Strasbourg! And no, I have no idea how they are called (except things like the university, the European Parliament and the Council of Europe), but I made some nice photos.
That was everything for this town and two days and two nights (~52 hours) after I got off the train, I took a seat in the train to Paris.

Attnang -> Strasbourg, sans retour!

So, finally I'm in France, in the beautiful city Strasbourg.
But let's start at the beginning:
It was wednesday, July 23rd. I had a nice day preparing stuff and things for my trip to France. At 5pm i went to the train station in Attnang to get a ticket to Strasbourg for thursday. That was the plan, but at the train station they told me that there are no cheap tickets ("Sparschiene") left and i would have to pay ~90€ or go on tuesday. That was a little problem, because my french school starts on monday! Luckily i found out, that there were still tickets left for the sleeping car (Liegewagen). The catch: I had to go today (still wednesday) at 10pm. That resulted in a stressful evening of packing, and then i still had to drink a goodbye-bottle of wine with my family ;).
In the end everything turned out fine.
After a loooong train ride I arrived in Strasburg at ~7am. After one not very restorative night of something not worth beion called "sleep" (don't try that at home! spending the whole night in a train really sucks!) the 2km walk (carrying/pulling all my damn heavy luggage) to the student hostel took nearly one hour. But then I got my room, took a shower and fell asleep. *mmhhhh*

So, enought blabla for today. Everything about Strasbourg (and some photos) will follow...

luggage = heavy! (seriously!!)

I had to stay 8 hours in there:

#1

Today is July 20th and this is my first blog entry. Don't expect much, I'm still at home in Austria.
I went to the university signed my Erasmus contract today and now I look forward to recieve ~2600€ from EU and the Austrian government. I hate all that paperwork, but in the end i will pay off ;)
What else? I recieved the contract for the residence in France along with some other paperwork and they want everything filled out and signed until August 17th. And yes, of course they want some money too! By the way, on the envelope they called my home town "Attnanz-Puchheim". How evil!

So what comes next... I will go to Strasbourg by train on Tuesday or Friday evening and will arrive there early in the morning. After (maybe) one night in Strasbourg there comes Paris and then on Sunday afternoon I have to go to Brest to my host family from the language school.

And: If you plan to visit France during the next year, keep in mind that I would be happy about some guests in Nantes or a cup of coffee in Paris.

Well, then see you in France!!

Alex