Strasbourg, France

Let's face it: the weather sucked most of the time I was there. Save for a handful of sunshiny days, I was always complaining of always being cold. A huge frustration on my part was not being able to find on any Apotheke (pharmacy) EFFICASCENT OIL! It's a common bottle in most households in the Philippines and is used to apply by rubbing/massaging it on any sore part of the body. When I was in Germany, because of not having enough sleep really (with Danie next door) and so constantly waking up in the middle of the night, my back was constantly hurting and I would bug Karsten to find me something that works like Efficascent Oil does and he kept on saying that he has never heard of it before and while I do accept that, I cannot believe that there seemed to be no other alternative for it. I tried by ordering him to just ask the pharmacist for any body warming oil like eucalyptus oil or whatever but all the pharmacist could give him was eucalyptus burning oil! Aromatic purposes! Imagine my disappointment when he explained to me that even the pharmacist had no idea what I was referring to.

When I could no longer take the back aches, I could practically feel the air lumps (do you have any idea what I am taking about here?) in my back I told Karsten that he either finds some other alternative or I will just die! Just like that! And sure enough, he came home one afternoon with an ointment in a tube looking packaging of sorts and some finger-condoms. Apparently, that ointment would really WARM up whatever body part it is applied to and so he would need to protect his hands in applying it to my back.

Anyway, I so totally digress. I have no idea why I am talking about Efficascent oil here, lemme thi... Oh yes, I wanted to point out that it was cold and the cold gave me back aches, etc... And one those days when it was pretty outside, we took trips! And you got it, on this weekend, we went to Strasbourg, France, a 45 minute drive from Karlsruhe. (OK, that was a really lame transition.) The place is so picture-perfectly pretty. We had ice cream under the shade of the Cathedral while listening to some choir perform outside. After ice cream, we went inside the Cathedral and I could not do justice to all the "ancientness" of the place and capture it on film. All I could think off was that Tet would sure love to take some shots of the place! After doing the touristy thing, we took a walk and Karsten suggested we have "craps" for dinner. I swear I hear him say "craps" and I had to exclaim in a really loud voice while strolling along the romantic cobblestones, "WHAT?! HAVE WHAT?!" To which he replied again, matter-of-factly at that, "Craps!" And of course I go incredulously, "WHAT? WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?! WHAT ARE WE HAVING FOR DINNER??!!" And he says again, exasperatedly, "CRAPS! YOU KNOW, FRENCH PANCAKES!!! REALLY THIN, YUMMY PANCAKES?!" And then I go, "Oohhhhh, crepes!!! Why didn't you say that?!" And he just probably rolled his eyes. Man, I swear, I amaze myself. I'm just lucky he puts up with my flakiness. Sometimes...

And these are just from Karsten's camera:

































More pics from my camera to follow! (And yes, they would more or less look the same!)