20 years and counting Chapter 3

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Monday, August 28, 2017,  Strasbourg

As John and I are enjoying new cities our own city is being bombarded with rain for 4 straight days. Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.  Houston underwent a horrible deluge of rain from Hurricane Harvey.  Many creeks surround Houston and its suburbs and when 50 inches of rain fall these creeks overflow, and overflow, and overflow.  

By day two we upgraded our phone plan to keep in contact with everyone back home.  Harvey made the world news and everyone in every country asked us how our family and home were once they found out we were from Houston.  It was surreal.

Only one person in our family took in water.  Luckily she only received inches of water and not feet, like many others.  It was still hard to enjoy ourselves without thinking of all the water our poor Houston was receiving.

Back to Strasbourg.....We woke in this city and opted for a bike tour.  Unfortunately, so did 26 other riders.  And some of them should not have been on bikes.  It was a busy bustling city and I would not recommend a bike tour here.  We didn't get to see everything we wanted to see and decided to go back after lunch into the ship to further explore the city.


The great part of this city was it was very bike friendly in some parts. It actually had a meter to register how many bikes came in and out of the Cathedral area.




Cathedral of Notre Dame de Strasbourg
We climbed up the 332 steps to see the city view and it was worth every step.
The city is behind us.  We are a park across from city buildings that were both occupied by German and France.
As much as I enjoy history, I know very little of European history.  For example, many cities along the Rhine for the past 75 years have been properties of France and Germany.  Which explains how many cities in France have German sounding names.



Strasbourg Astronomical Clock

One of the Four Towers that made up a defensive block, built in the 13 century
Another fascinating fact according to the tour guides is that very few places fly Germany's Flag. According to them, Germany is still very ashamed of what they did in World War I and II and try to 1) never forget and teach its lessons to today's' children and 2) not take national pride since they feel that is part of what encouraged them into the WWII.

We had the best time speaking to locals and learning their way of life.  Such beautiful landscapes and bridges throughout this city.

We were very fortunate to have missed Harvey and come back to a city on the mend full of amazing stories full of grace, kindness, love, and giving.

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