Prelude:One of my favorite things to do when I was a little girl was read this book of fairy tale collections my dad had bought me. It was a book with a tale for each day of the year. No matter how many times I’ve finished and run through the book--whether religiously keeping up with the fairy tale of the day, or reading with total abandon finishing an entire month’s worth of stories in one night--I would always go back to it and re-read it. Being sickly and socially awkward, I didn’t have the patience for any other more ‘active’ play then, so reading became my most favorite thing to do. That fairy tale book survived a lot of relocation and house transfers. I still have it on my shelves. It contained most of my favorite stories from the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen, made alive only by the overactive imagination of 8-year old me. I casually browse through every once in a while when I miss my dad.
Earlier this year, I first stepped into Europe when we arrived in Paris. It was a surreal experience, hopping off the plane with a bag full of expectations. Paris was an urban artsy jungle: bigger, badder, and more flamboyant than I originally anticipated. Frenzied but a happy mess. However, nothing had prepared me for what followed when we visited northeast of France.
Strasbourg is the capital of the Alsace Region. It straddles the border of France and Germany, which makes it an interesting blend of French and German influence. When we stepped out of the Gare de Strasbourg after a 2-hour train ride from Paris, what immediately hit me was the cold. The temperature during our visit was 4°C. I tightened the scarf around my neck and buttoned up my coat. The day had just begun and I could already hear my limbs creaking and stiffening from the cold.
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| Strasbourg, France |
As we walked from the station to the Centre-République, I can already see the traces of German influence from the surroundings. Although, it was still predominantly Gallic with its old French elegance--mansard roofs, jutting dormer windows and faux-balconies. But as we drew nearer to Ponts-Couverts, everything gradually turned rustic. The cream colored buildings were replaced by ones with richer reddish-brown walls and roofs with bellcast eaves, white and delicate exterior window shutters were replaced with ones in timber. Romanesque in style, characteristics of 17th-century Germany. Houses that reminded me of The Elves and the Shoemaker, and towers that, oddly enough, reminded me of Rumpelstiltskin.
