Alsace or Elsass for a weekend February 27, 2007

hey…

the weekend that has just passed i was in Alsace…in Franch and Elsass in German:)

is a piece of land that was frenach and then german and french and german…and …now is franch, but the majority of people speak also german and also french.

we went by car …along the wine road…we were 4 people, each of us with different goals. a german that wanted to taste and buy a lot of wine, for his personal reserve, a finnish that was curios to see a piece of France and taste its wines, a frech that wanted to buy some books and taste french “tartes flambe” and “mille feuilles” and me…i just wanted to relax, do some sightseeing and study Elsass inhabitants:)

we left early in the morning, after a great breakfast of chease salami and baguette, and we have seen 3 or 4 small wine towns.

all along the road were vineyards, acres and acres of vineyards. we entered some kellers and tasted some wines…and so i learned that Alsace wines are mostly dry and mostly white, and they also make “eau de vie” a type of…palinca…with different flavours.

all the houses were in the old style of the region…nothing new! and nothing without history or culture in it. the houses were that type …in which you see the wood that sustains the house from the outside, and very colourfull…like a never ending Römer Square, but not rebiuld…original!

everything was taken care of…no old paint, no garbage, no new stuff, no kitch. all the details were set in their places…as we were in a town where the time stood by.

i loved hearing people speaking french around me…and when they heard our accents, they were delighted to speak german.

i tried some of their specific food…like a pot with 3 types of meat in it and potatoes…or baked potatoes with 2 types of cheese, sour cream and garlic souce…and of course the sweets…tarte with cheese and real hot chocolate…with real milk and a big piece of chocolate in it that mealted in…

it was peace and quiet and unfortunatly was also raining…

but people there were saying that in the season, from Easter to December…is full of people..and rich people actually, that come to taste and buy wine…so i guess i was lucky to go now, because the prices were ok..and we saw pretty many things…

i said we went there by car but i forgot to say what car…and 60 years old Manta Mercedes:) …which in total has rolled around 600 km in the entire weekend…and since we are talking about oldness…we slept in a 600 years old hostel…in Obernai, the most Alsacian small town ever (the French guy told us)..

Colmar was also nice…the biggest in Alsacia, but still small:))

Koeln and the Carnival February 22, 2007

interesting manifestation what can i say…

i was in Koln only for 6 hours…but it was enough to get the picture of the Carnival:)

people wearing costumes…i saw a guy wearing a costume of a scrumbled egg and a woman was a brocolli:)))…many nurses, and men in skirts,

Germans laughing and enjoing themselves…and surprise …even kissing on the streets…

well..it was just like any other carnival, but with German specific songs with simple words of course, so you could enjoy them only when you are drunk:) otherwise they seem to be created for kindergarden kids.

Koln is nice, but i guess is like almost any other city in Germany…REBUILT, this meaning it starts at the train station and ends up at the church, (which in Koln are at 100 m distance…so an exception..) with nothing special to see but the cathedral which it looked very impressive.

i managed to spend only 30 euros…which is a record:)…on beers, transportation and a funny hat of course:). i had a great time with all the friends from Frankfurt and afterwords with some Romanians who are having a traineeship in Bonn…whom i never saw before, just talked on the phone and on e-mail…nice transilvanian people…i could feel that they feel i am an Oltanian:)

nice discussions and exchanges of opinions…and also full of learning points for me…because i dont know how come, after so many working/studying/living experiences with all sorts of people i still have a big dose of naivity…and of course sometimes i remember about it because of the people that make me have “aha moments” )…but i think i dont want to lose it after all…i think it is useful even when i shouldnt have it…because i always wake up on time…and people dont manage to take advantage of me (of my time, my brain, work, resources etc.)

well…that was the Koln Carnival…i am still waiting for the photos from the guys who had a camera…but as always the guys who own a camera, are selfish and forget about the others…