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| From August 15 Metz |
We spent most of our day today in trains. It was by far the most unpleasant of all train rides. Our tickets were not reserved, and the trains were very full, so we weren't all able to sit together like we usually are. Also we had to sit with strangers who did not speak the same language as us, so that wasn't terribly great. Anyways, it wasn't some great hardship, and it's still way better than a plane or a greyhound, but it was worse than we've had so far. But we did go running through the Basel train station, which was very nice looking.
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| From August 15 Metz |
We eventually made it to Metz, where we are staying tonight. But wait, I hear you say (all the way across the Atlantic), didn't you already talk about Metz several days ago? Oui, I did. We ate lunch here a few days ago. Now we are staying here so that tomorrow we can go visit St. Avold, where my dad used to live.
Metz is not somewhere I expect anyone has ever heard of, but it is very nice. They've got more old buildings than you can shake a stick at, and some very nice parks. However, Metz suffers from a terrible problem, and that problem is being Catholic. Today, as I mentioned in an earlier post, is a big Catholic holiday (the feast of the ascension) and so every single restaurant was closed. The only one we could find didn't open until 7:00 pm, and when we found it, it was 6:00. So we sat around in a nice square (every town has at least one) until we had supper.
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| From August 15 Metz |
After supper we went for a Geocache, and that's pretty much it. Very dull day adventure wise.
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| From August 15 Metz |
I am glad to be back in France where I can pretend to speak the language. My spoken French is passable, as people seemed to be able to understand when I spoke to them, but I really just can't understand when people speak back in French, which causes some problems for me. Dad is very excited to use his French, so he will often just interject French into conversations that I am having with various service people. In his defense, I would probably do the same thing, were our situations reversed.
And now: macroeconomics.
Switzerland, which we have just left, is probably the most expensive place in the world to buy things right now, particularly on the top of a mountain. First of all, being on a mountain presents some logistical problems. Second of all, for those of you who follow the news (this did not include me, by the way) the Euro has been having some problems. Certain countries (*cough* Greece *cough*) decided they were going to lie about their debt, and now that it's all out, their debt has dragged the rest of the European Union down.
Switzerland, being the world's banking country, did not adopt the Euro, and has stuck with the Swiss Franc. When mom and I were planning our trip, the franc was roughly the same as a Canadian Dollar. So, staying where we did was expensive, but not ridiculous. But, since the Euro has tanked, everyone has decided that buying the Swiss Franc is a good idea, so the price has skyrocketed. Add to this the fact that SOMETHING happened in Canada shortly after we left to push our dollar down further, and everything in Switzerland is about 150% more expensive than it would have been in February.
Today, Darcy had coffee and a croissant for four Euros (about $5.00 CAD) and we were so excited, because that's about half the price we would have paid in Gimmelwald. So, Switzerland: amazing, but more expensive than anywhere else in the world (I suspect).
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| From August 15 Metz |
Anyhow, here are some lovely pictures from lovely Metz.
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