I'm a Californian, living in France since 1996, in Alsace since 1999. This originally was a general blog about our family but when I couldn't post pictures, I abandoned it. Now I'm reviving it to recount my Cancer Journey. I was diagnosed on Oct. 22nd, 2013 on a routine check for Breast Cancer.
(2005-2007 covered in http://calgirlinalsace.blogspot.com)
Finally figuring out the new Mac. Daniel bought it this weekend so I'm trying to get the hang of it. Everything is different. For example, copying and pasting...also, I haven't been able to switch from the French to the international keyboard. It really slows me down as the letters are all in illogical places (even for French!)
We've survived Easter, Passover and are now on vacation. The older two are doing ice skating and then we'll go away next week. Not sure exactly where though...
We did do the "Easter bunny" of sorts. They got their first Easter baskets but didn't know what it all meant except that it isn't their holiday. French kids usually get just a chocolate bunny but I found that our favority bakery did actual baskets. Not as nice though as my mother used to do herself though but I can't really get the stuff here.
We also did the AIA Easter egg hunt, held at Julia's house since the Consul General's residence was still in chaos from the Obama visit and NATO Summit.
Oops. Pictures on old computer. Forgot to upload them to Photobucket. Stay tuned...
We had a lot of visitors during Passover. We also went over to our friends Guy and Béatrice's;
Sorry but I just can't get enough of this. Unfortunately, the embedded version is disabled. It looks like it's going to be boring but keep watching (especially the audience reaction).
The good news is that we were able to move around again when it was all over. I slept better without all those helicopters overhead too.
We were running out of drinks thanks to the fact I couldn't go to Kehl, Germany for a couple of weeks. Yes, drinks are available in France but quality, price and for planet-protection reasons (recycled bottles), I get ours' mostly in Germany. I also buy toilet paper, recycled, cheaper and that I didn't notice until yesterday but let's stick to the subject...
So the drinks expedition (sans toilet paper) commenced. Let's just say the drive there looked slightly different than last time.
The rioters luckily stayed in the Port du Rhin (Rhine bank) area. This is not the best area of Strasbourg to begin with, so the last thing they needed was several thousand rioters arriving to protest on their door step.
Here is a good video from Sky News. Very surprising as Sky News is sort of the British version of Fox. Since no one can tell me why my links don't work, you'll probably have to copy and paste it. I understand this is better to avoid spyware anyway...
Now the press reports were a bit confused. Three buildings were burned down; Customs, the Ibis hotel and the tourist information building. The latter was quite big and in the middle of an intersection. It also had a pharmacy and a bank machine. The customs building was pretty much unused and small, set off to the side. The press showed the tourist infomation building burning and said it was the Customs house. They also thought only two buildings were burned, instead of the three reported. I can see how they made this mistake as the burning tourist information building was much more visable and they probably couldn't get past the protesters to even see that there was a thrid being destroyed.
I got confused because when I saw the images in T.V., they had a very distinctive church in the background. I knew then it wasn't customs as you can't see the church from there. It was kind of weird seeing a place you know well in such different circumstances. This is near the Parc des Deux Rives, where the bridge they show in the video above was filmed.
Now, I'm not exactly a gifted photographer to start with, and my camera is not exactly high tech either. The fact that these were taken while driving my car should be noted. I'm happy you can even see anything considering all of the above. By the way, I was very careful and did not hold traffic up. Still annoyed the guy behind me...
The first I saw was the Ibis hotel. This is a cheap hotel chain, sort of like Motel 8's over here. The inside, I understand, is gutted.
Almost across the street, in the middle of the intersection is the Tourist Information building, what the press thought was the Custom's House.
This is the back of it, which was two stories;
Because the Custom's House is set back from the road, it was harder to get a photo of it. It's also all blocked off. Since it was a small building, and separate from the other two, it was easy to miss.
Thank goodness, no one was killed and believe no one injured due to the fire.
The first crises was getting a babysitter. Since everything was closed on that Friday, a lot of people were leaving town. Then the second factor was the fact the whole city would be blocked off. Seems I know a ton of potiential babysitters who wouldn't be able to get out to K'hoffen. I teamed up with a friend in Cronenbourg (yes, the "K" beer named village) with two kids the same age.
I finally got the daughter of one of my La Leche/Ice skating Mommy's to help (yes, this poor woman has been subjected to me in two totally different circumstances). Her oldest Jade is 17 and we actually decided to have her spend the night, to avoid any traffic issues in the morning. Plus, she got to sleep in!
We thought the babysitter sharing idea would be good because the kids were stuck at the house all day, all the better to have friends to play with. While five is a lot, I told her it's actually easier if they're occupied and playing together. We were concerned as we would not be able to get to them in an emergency. The cleaning lady was there in the morning and we gave Jade the number of one of Daniel's cousins who lives not far to contact if she really had an emergency. We weren't even sure if her parents could come in a pinch but figured she was covered. Hillary brought some lasagna for lunch.
Hillary said that she'd come over with her gang at 8am. I figured, she's been in France 20 years (not all of it in Alsace) and her husband is French (not Alsatian) so we'd be talking 8:30 at the earliest. WRONG! That woman was bang on time. Mine weren't even out of bed! I wasn't even dressed! Hillary was not amused but I got my act together quickly.
We decided to take the tram from Rotonde, to get to Étoile. No problems and it went quickly.
Here is the scene when we arrived. This line quickly got longer. Hillary's daughter Jessica running to join in...
We had to stand in line but it wasn't too long. The movie theater was set up as a processing center, where we showed our passports and invitations. At the other end, we were back outside where buses were lined up and as they filled up, they took off for the Rhénus Sports Hall. I felt like it was some immigration processing center, the way we were herded through.
We took a really long route to get there. We went all the way around the Orangerie park, into the Wacken area of Strasbourg. So creepy and quiet. Someone commented it was like Strasbourg had suffered a nuclear attack. No people, cars or anything!
Check out our police escort en route!
Here are the buses which ferried us in, parked in front of the old ice skating rink. This is also how we left. Notice a guy with a television camera in front. Journalists were swarming all over the place.
Once we got there, we were put in the old ice rink (no ice), just across the street from the Rhénus Sport Center. We were allowed to bring something to drink and eat but were told that it couldn't go beyond this point. We were also told incorrectly that there would be no bathrooms so I waited a half hour for the three stalls available, only to find a huge empty bathroom in the Rhénus.
Here is a helicopter landing nearby. It was like Vietnam during the war, with all the helicopters buzzing overhead!
Me with Hillary. Her husband Benoît is on the left and he made the video at the end of this post.
Waiting to get through security and into the Rhénus. Hillary, Benoît, Jessica and Leah Singer who joined us on the bus.
More security. Not sure if there were more security than journalists or the other way around. I wasn't counting!
In small groups, we were ferried across to go through security.
Security made us take photos with our cameras. This is the one I took with mine. No purses were allowed and only small cameras with attached lenses were permitted. Cell phones oddly had to be turned on and we were only told to turn off the ringers when he appeared.
Since I couldn't bring a purse, I brought a jacket with lots of pockets, which I spent half the time digging through since I couldn't remember which pocket I had put what...
I'm looking very merry, aren't I? We didn't have a choice of where to sit and we were there a long time.
We were by then hungry and Benoît and I stood in line for an hour to get food. All they had were hot dogs and soft pretzels so I took the latter. At one point, they had some music, but I missed it since I was standing in line for food. One French girl was texting that there were too many Americans. I was speaking to Benoît in English so she didn't realize we were French and could understand. I said loudly to Benoît "Can you believe, that girl is texting 'Il y a trop des Américains'. She comes to see the American president and is surprised to see Americans here?!?"
I saw a ton of people I knew but barely got the chance to say hi, even though we were waiting around so long.
He was, of course, late but we all had to be in the hall and seated (not even allowed to go to the bathroom) before he arrived from his visit with Sarko at the Rohan Palace. We couldn't watch his limo pull up.
Finally...he showed up.
Coming on stage with Michelle;
The speech; http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/03/AR2009040301519.html
One of the questions; http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/03/obama.regrets/#cnnSTCVideo
There were a lot of French high school students there, who obviously didn't understand much. They were happy to see him, as one would with a Rock Star but the experience was a bit lost on them. There was a big group of German college kids from Heidleburg (imagine their long day!) and they understood well.
Leaving wasn't as bad as I thought. We were told to stay seated until our section was called so there wouldn't be a stampede. Once outside, same deal with the buses. We were packed on and shipped out. I saw the former Strasbourg mayor in the parking lot, Fabienne Keller.
The bad news was when we arrived at the tram. While we had no problems taking the tram in, it had been shut down during the day due to protests. We had to walk from Étoile to Les Halles shopping center. Not a huge distance but we were not in the best of shape after all the standing we had done.
I took these around Place Kléber on the way;
Some protester on top of Galleries Lafayette (I didn't stick around to find out what he was protesting).
Here's the story on TF1, if you speak French or just want to look at the pictures;
We had used Hillary and Benoît's car and drove back to our house, where we pigged out on ice cream since by then, our blood sugar levels were rock bottom. We had left at 8:30 and came home at 5:30. A very long day!
This is actually Benoît's video of our Obama experience. He put it together very well with music et al.
