Just a quick blog as we're waiting to be picked up by Miriam who's taking us to the train station. Yesterday was so god dam hot, it felt hotter than Spain. Even in the city centre, kids were swimming in the fountains! Anyway Miriam, Mol, Bek and I took the tram to the city centre to have a look inside the cathedral. I've never been inside a cathedral, and boy was it pretty. All the colourful lead light on the windows and the high ceilings looked awesome. Miriam had to go to work and left us to explore the city. After chowing down on some cheap sandwiches and baguettes, Molly took us to Christian's, a patisserie she had been to before. There were so many tiny,intricate colourful pastries and cakes to choose from. They had rows of assorted macaroons, tarts and truffles. I ordered a berry cake looking thing. It was so smooth on the outside like a mousse texture. On the inside there was sponge cake ,cream and more berries. It went down perfectly with my coffee. Once we had finished indulging in our French cakes, we took the tram up to Rivetoile, the big shopping centre in Strasbourg. We looked in our two fav stores H&M and Zara , and also many more. After shopping we went out for dinner near Gallia station on the riverside. Heaps of boats had been made into restaurants and you could also sit outside. It was so chill, I loved it. We ate outside the boat as it was so stuffy inside. We ordered burgers seemings it was the only thing on the menu for dinner? Haha so Molly has been trying to use her French which is so helpful, especially with directions, but sometimes the people speak extremely fast, so it seemed like burgers were the only option to choose. The burgers were so juicy and came with chips and salad. It was pleasant to dine next to the river as the sun was setting, it was manufique! Once we had polished off our meals and vodka and ice tea, Anne called us. She said she was 10 minutes away and wanted to say goodbye as she was going travelling the next day. The problem was that Molly had told her we had previously bought her a present and we wanted to give it to her before she left. We had all completely forgotten about buying the present and quickly got up from the table, paid and ran onto the street. We frantically looked around for a bakery or milk bar, anything! It was around 11pm but everything seemed to be closed. Thank god we found a bar who were so nice to sell us a reasonably priced bottle of wine and blueberry slice. Anne loved the presents when we she arrived and we said our goodbyes. She was so generous and hospitable to us!

Today we didn't really do much on account of it bucketing down with rain. Our first European storm! We were in town and went to another cafe/patisserie called Naegel. They had sweet and savoury food as well with croissants, filled rolls, quiches, and open sandwiches. I got a tasty,warm salmon quiche, raspberry macaroon filled with cream, and a Melbourne quality latte. I think I'll need to do some exercise in Paris! We were sitting outside when the sky became dark and overcast. Then it started to unfortunately rain. We were supposed to visit Jardin Des Deux Rives, a really magnificent looking park with peacocks. But due to the weather, it wasn't really worth it. So we hung about the cute little city centre with little lane ways and shops all about. Strasbourg was a quiet and pretty introduction into France.

Paris here we come ! xo Alice