Pascal, unbelievably, was up early–despite the after 1 a.m. bedtime and all that wine–to go for a swim in the lake and a run. We actually slept in until 9, a rarity for us. Breakfast was coffee for Sean, tea for me, and bread. Hard to be gluten/carb free here! So, while my Connect Health colleagues are prepping themselves for an elimination diet/cleanse, I’m gorging on meat, dairy, alcohol, and bread–all things I don’t have much of at home. How do they stay relatively thin?! I wonder about the incidences of digestive diseases and troubles here. But, I have to say I did enjoy it!

Once everyone was ready, off we went to start our Strasbourg tour. We started at a beautiful river lined with old and fabulously ornate buildings. Somehow, even though we were pretty tame at this particular moment (most of the time Pascal’s antics and our laughter made us stand out in a crowd), a “Charlie Chaplin” character still chose Pascal as his target to have fun with, combing his head before pretending to grab Marie. He had nothing on Pascal’s humor though. My cheeks hurt and my abs are well-worked out.

As we approached one of the squares, my eyes were fixed on the building at the opposite end of the square. I later found out it’s the oldest building in Strasbourg and is now an expensive restaurant. But I quickly forgot abut that building when out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of Strasbourg’s Cathedral. I’ve seen a lot of old and big buildings. A lot of places of religious use. But this…this was impressive! I could probably start a successful acupuncture practice in that square and get tons of business treating people’s aching necks from cranking their necks so they can look upward, and upward, and upward to the top steeple. It’s stupendously tall for a church. And ornate all the way from bottom to top.

Impressive on the inside too. Ceilings you need a zoom lense to see clearly. At least two massive organs. Religious statues all around. Beautiful stained glass windows. And a clock that tells a story as it moves every 15 minutes.

Unforgettable. And equally unforgettable was the comedy that ensued between Pascal and Sean. Sorry to anyone who may take offense–skip this paragraph. One of the carved scenes was that of Jesus on the crusafixion cross with others surrounding him on the ground. There’s a carving of a small group of people and one of the men is holding something in his hand, raised near to his ear. Well…Pascal said to Sean, “That must be a very important phone call he’s taking.” Sean then said, “It’s God. Sorry, Jesus won’t be making it home for dinner tonight.” And then all of us were trying to stifle our laughter. Not the way to behave in a church, especially in front of the crusafixion scene, BUT, I wouldn’t have missed it! Laughter is a key to health and we will live a long time, even if we do eventually go to Hell for that.

It was a breezy cool day, but we warmed up with espressos and soon after, lunch. Lunch was amazing! I decided to try something different and actually had liver something. It wasn’t foie gras, but perhaps something similar. I normally don’t like liver, but the French know how to cook! At the café, and every other place, Pascal beat us to the mark at paying. At lunch, I thought I would be ready with wallet in hand, but this time Julie beat me out by going into the restaurant early to pay.

Always so much laughter!

Yum!

I hadn’t known it, but Strasbourg is the capital of Europe, so we went to visit the parliament building. I have to study my geography to learn all the flags.

Next stop was Julie’s Godmother’s home to celebrate her birthday. We were welcomed like family and enjoyed meeting Marie’s mom, brothers, and their families. Marie’s brother, Freddy, is a comedian and he and his wife speak English well, so we had fun listening to his animated stories. After that we returned to Marie and Pascal’s home to have dinner with Julie, Julien’s brother Jeremie and his fiancé. More delicious food and wine (though we were more careful about quantity) and more wonderful conversation! Sean’s sure he’s going to stay in France and become Pascal and Marie’s 3rd son. Pascal already calls Sean “son” instead of pronouncing the “sh”. 🙂

View of Strasbourg Cathedral from their window!