Strasbourg

In all the ups and downs of this week there was a trade off: I made it Strasbourg after all. My lovely friend Floriane agreed to come along and we made it over the Rhine and back just in time for the tooth issue to escalate. Floriane and her husband Mathieu (also a physicist at Max Planck) live directly above us with their beautiful new son Théodore, also called “Dee-door”. Being French, they’ve been known to make trips over the border to stock up on cheese, wine and other much missed delicacies. Flo and I have spent many happy hours laughing over the stranger aspects of German life, comparing our hometowns on Google Earth and shrugging our shoulders over the world of condensed matter physics.

The day of our trip to Strasbourg dawned clear and bright. Flammkuche and Kugelhopf were the order of the day, and having my own personal translator made the whole experience that little bit more authentic. The small Wednesday flea market yielded a few treasures including a traditional kugelhopf basin, now safely in Leipzig. But the find of the day was a beautiful rug for our new living room floor. The seller gave a lengthy and impassioned speech about quality, the evils of Ikea and the unwillingness of customers to pay a modest price for an authentic item. I was completely convinced by this tirade (as translated by Floriane), much to her amusement. I immediately handed over my cash and the rug was promptly loaded onto a pram. Strasbourg is incredibly beautiful, with a stunning cathedral and Alsatian architecture. Its buildings seem to tell the very story of its strange French/German history. Théodore and Rose expressed their mutual fatigue and displeasure with vigor on our return journey, but somehow we made it home with two prams, plenty of cheese and one very authentic rug. C’est Bon!