On May 27, 2019 we set out from Fulda, Germany to Luxemburg. It was me, Chrisitan, my mom Sasha, and Johann, whom we will call my cousin even though we are not related by blood. Might as well be though, because we fight like siblings. Anyway, we set out that morning not sure what time, but knowing us, probably later than we wanted to. We hopped in the car and started going. Its important to note that when we were planning this trip, of which Christian and I were in charge of planning, my mom and Johann both wanted to go to Starsbourg and Luxemburg. Chrisitan and I, on the other hand, wanted to spend more time in the Alps and go down to Switzerland, Lichtenstein, and Austria. So we settled on doing half and half, to satisfy everybody. I don’t remember the ride there much, except for it rained once in a while, and I am pretty sure we drove through Frankfurt, of which I made a note of not visiting again because its definitely not as beautiful as everywhere else in Germany. We also stopped at a gas station somewhere in the middle of nowhere to eat some snacks of bread, sausage and eggs. Johann was very annoying throughout the trip about not messing up his car, so we had to eat outside. I almost strangled him because of the amount of times he warned us about his car.

But anyhow, we continued our journey. I do remember some small towns and beautiful, open views. Once we approached Luxembourg, it was more of a big city and it seemed like a business type of place. But it still had some beautiful views. The first thing I noticed was it felt like the whole city is just one big hill. With my moms walking problems, it was a bit of a problem, but nothing ever stops her so we made our way up a hill slowly but surely to get to what seems to be the main little plaza that everybody goes to. We laughed our whole way up the hill, joking about how even with my moms difficulties she somehow always ends up in these situations where she needs to physically and metaphorically get over a hill. Once we got to the top, she situated herself at a lookout while me, Christian, and Johann explored the area around. I really love the architecture here and felt that staying in a beautiful house here could be quite the experience. We found a little public piano and I played a little, and Johann played on it and was really good at it! I took some pictures of the views around. Then we went into this cave like place, which has some historical meaning that I could not remember. It was also a museum, but we had to pay for that and didn’t want to. Finally, we decided it was time to move on to our next destination, so I waited with my mom while Johann and Christian went to get the car to pick us up.

We finally arrived to Strasbourg, and were looking for our Airbnb. The city had an air of busyness, and it felt a little stressful. The drivers drove crazily! We finally pulled up to the side of the road where our Airbnb was, and Christian ran in to figure everything out with the keys and meeting our hosts. Our phones were not working so I had no idea how he was doing and what was going on. We waited for him a long time and I was getting a bit worried, but he finally showed up and had everything sorted out. The host told him where we could find free parking, so Johann went there, it was quite far and Johann did not trust anybody there, he said. But it was free, so we park!

Turned out, the Airbnb was at the very top of the building with no elevator—eight flights of stairs. Again with my mom and the physical and metaphorical hill, we climb. The place was very cute, it was an open area, kind of like a studio apartment, with a bathroom that was a good size. Everything seemed to work cohesively throughout the apartment, so it did not seem small. I thought about how, honestly, I could live here with Christian for a while pretty comfortably! We put everything up and my memory fails me, but I think that we stayed in and got a good nights rest before heading out on the town the next morning. We did some research on what we wanted to do and during the night we yelled at Johann for snoring so loudly.

The next morning, we cooked up some breakfast of eggs with tomatoes, and we went out on the town. I don’t quite remember how we got to “Petite France”, a cute area of the town, but I feel like we walked there. Mom was a champ about walking all the way there. The walk was cute, the town was quaint. When we got to Petite France, we didn’t really know what we wanted to do or where to go, but everything was beautiful and we enjoyed looking at everything. The main part of the town, by the church, was FILLED with tourists. So so so many people were there. It felt like we went to a completely different place entirely from where we were moments before. We noticed earlier that there was a little train that showed you the city, and we spent most of the time tracking down where the train was coming from and where was it going. We finally FINALLY found it by the church, and we decided to ride it. It was a lovely tour, and we learned so much about the town and its many faces. Once we got back to the Church after the train, we searched for some food. We found a small little café that promised crepes and drinks, and decided to go there. The atmosphere was a little weird, the people acted a little awkward, but we ordered our food and chatted. The food was nothing to write home about, but it was filling and good!