I was so frustrated at being sick again - I spent about 3 weeks sick or recovering from sickness - and those that know me well know that I am a big baby when I am sick, so it was not fun for me or for Dave :(
But thankfully we are both doing better now. Dave was able to go to school on Friday this week and left for a school trip to Germany this morning. He is visiting the European Space Agency astronaut training centre and attending some lectures at their facility for a few days. And I am off to Morocco tomorrow for a week`s trip with my friend Maite. We will be visiting Marrakesh for a few days and then going south into the desert for the remainder of the week!
Between illnesses and back troubles and busyness at school Dave and I were able to go on a day trip a few weeks ago. We had been wanting to get away for a day and see a new place for awhile, and one of the places on our list was the German city of Stuttgart. So on a beautiful, sunny Saturday morning we got up early (for us!) and caught a German train from Kehl (right across the river from Strasbourg) with some friends for Stuttgart. Louis, Maite and Dave joined us - making a perfect traveling number of 5. In Germany you can buy regional train tickets for up to 5 people that are valid for the whole day. So for a 29 euro regional train pass we were all able to go to Stuttgart for about 6 euros each! It was a great deal and is a great way to travel with friends for the day.
The only bad thing about the regional passes is that you have to travel on the regional trains, ie. the slower trains. So it took us 3 hours and two stops to get to Stuttgart - but for 6 euros we were not complaining! We got there by one in the afternoon and the sun was shining and it was a perfect day to see a new city.
The first thing we did when we got there was have lunch - right in the train station where the boys were drawn to some really impressive meat. Both Dave and Louis got some sort of crazy ham bone thing - and seemed to really enjoy it!
Next up we went to the train station tower to get a birds eye view of Stuttgart - we all started out on the stairs and everyone in front of me proceeded to run up the spiraling stair case to the top - about 10 stories up. At about level 6 I decided I had had enough stair climbing and met them up top after taking the elevator!
Stuttgart is the home to Mercedes-Benz so naturally we had to go to the museum to check it out. We took a quick tram ride and found the museum fairly easily. The museum itself was 8 stories with several floors of displays of the different inventions and vehicles Mercedes has produced over the last 100 years. It was cool to see....especially for the car lovers in our group!
Here are some shots of the museum....
We spent about 2-3 hours in the museum going through the displays and going in a race track simulator - it was a good museum to spend the afternoon in, and I actually learned a lot about the history of automobiles. The museum was fairly large though and the Daves were taking a long time looking at all the displays, so at one point I came around a corner to this sight:
Poor Louis had not gotten a lot of sleep the night before and had found a comfy spot to have a quick cat nap while the rest of us caught up with him! He was out!
After the museum we made our way to the city centre to look around. It was starting to get dark and it seemed that the nightlife of the city was starting to emerge. As we all walked down the main shopping street I heard some shrieks and laughter and turned around to see my husband surrounded by women! Turns out it was a bachelorette party and they had spotted some nice Canadian men to target for their fundraising. So the Daves got surrounded and asked for contributions while Louis, Maite and myself escaped and watched from the sidelines!
The Daves with the bride-to-be
The ladies were smart to corner the Canadian men - they were suckers and ended up giving a contribution to the bachelorettes and bride-to-be in return for some cute, although useless, 'prizes'!
We walked along the main street for awhile, looking at the shops and then the city's palace grounds, right in the middle of the city centre. It was a really nice city - very clean and pretty. We ended off the night at a local restaurant to taste their own brewed beer. We then ran to the train station to catch our train home - and got Burger King for dinner for the journey home. They do not have Burger King in France so I was very happy to have a whopper again!!!
We have gotten some really great weather again in February. Of course their have been some cool, rainy days but for the most part we have had some really warm, sunny weather - especially for February in Strasbourg. On these days I try to get outside as much as possible, and I inevitably find a market to wander around in and enjoy. There are always markets going on somewhere in the city during the week and on Saturday there are some cute markets in the centre with antique, book and flower stalls. Plus, there are always some great musicians out busking. But my favorite group is definitely a trio of guys who play Celtic sounding music on the fiddle, drums, and other odd looking instruments that I can not identify!
On one Friday our ISU significant others (wives) club met for lunch, but with such nice weather we decided to take our get together outside and had beers on a patio! How great is that - for February! Mark, you were missed!
And of course the last few weeks I have been cooking. I decided to try making fish for the first time. There are a lot of stores here with fresh fish for sale - so one day I picked up some lovely salmon and went home to search online for some recipes...in the end I used a combination from a recipe online and one that was sent to me from my good friend Maria. Using ingredients I already had, I surprised Dave with a really nice dinner - if I do say so myself - of salmon topped with lemon and dill, almond roasted rice pilaf, corn and biscuits. It was good!
I also decided to try a recipe for lettuce rolls one day. It took me all day and visiting several grocery stores to obtain all the Asian ingredients I needed - i.e. hoisen sauce, sesame oil, etc - and to get some spring rolls...but I took advantage of my day off and tracked down my ingrediants and made a lovely dinner (thanks Heidi for the recipe link)!
And of course we celebrated Valentines Day with a special dinner. Dave's back was sore that day and I made him stay home and not leave the house. So I decided to buy myself roses from him and that I would make a special dinner for us to enjoy together. I had a recipe for pumpkin pancakes that I had been wanting to try out for years and since Dave was stuck in bed I decided to make our Valentines dinner a breakfast - with us both in our pjs! I got a little carried away with the presentation of the meal so by the time we ate it the pancakes were a little cold - but they were still very good and I was pleased with my special raspberry syrup, mini heart-shaped pancakes and strawberries dipped in hazelnut chocolate!
It seems that the blog is becoming a food blog more than anything else! But that is because a big part of what I enjoy about living here is the time I have to cook and try new things. Dave has always been the better cook since we began dating as he had much more practice at it than I did (since I lived at home so long and my mom cooked for me!), but now I am happy to be developing my culinary skills and be experimenting with new recipes!
Dave and I have also been discussing what we will be doing next year, and where we will be living. There are still so many things we are unsure of so it is hard to make plans, but we are starting to formulate some possibilities. So for those of you who do, please pray for us as we discuss and make decisions about our future. We are both a little stressed out about what will happen to us - but excited to see how things turn out. And as soon as we have decided about next year, we will let everyone know!
Love Heather & Dave
