Colmar & Schwarzwald

Ross and I had a great time hanging out together. This morning Ross left to go back home. It was hard to say goodbye, but that means I'm more than halfway through the program. One more month and I'll get to see everyone!

Friday was the Alumni Conference here at ISU. I spent the morning in meetings while Ross hung out with people. Then we listened to presentations by some of my classmates and alumni. We also got the results of our tests back on Friday...I passed. :-) After the presentations Ross and I hopped on a train to a nearby town called Colmar. It has actually been raining most of the time that Ross was here, and our time in Colmar was no exception. We walked from the train station in the rain in search of our hotel. The map we used didn't have a lot of detail, so it took us longer than it should have. When we arrived we went for ice cream and walked around a little more, but didn't do much else that evening.

Saturday was more of the same. It rained most of the day, but we got out, found a great pastry place, did some walking and shopping, and more eating. It seems like most of our time was spent walking and eating this weekend. The rain actually stopped for a couple of hours in the afternoon, which was perfect since we had arranged to meet my photographer friend, Jean-Michel Heuber, at that time. He took pictures of us in an area of Colmar called Petite Venice. It was a lot of fun, and we got some great pictures. I'll try to post some next time I get a chance. It was actually kind of funny because we sat down with Jean-Michel after we finished taking pictures to have a drink, and it started raining. The timing worked out perfectly! We spent the rest of the day walking and eating.

Sunday was very similar to Saturday. We did more walking and eating before catching a train back to Strasbourg. I had to do a little work in the afternoon, but we went to dinner with some of our new friends from Germany.

This was our long weekend. Since they have us work most Saturdays they gave us this Monday off. We spent it in Baden-Baden, Germany, which I may have mentioned before. It's a small town known for its spas. We had a wonderful time relaxing in the pools. From there we drove through the Schwarzwald (Blackforest) and had dinner in Mummelsee. The drive was beautiful. We stopped a couple of times to enjoy the scenery and the setting sun. There was a small lake in Mummelsee where we went out on a paddleboat. We stayed there for dinner, which may have been the best meal I've had since being here. It was delicious. The rest of our drive back to Strasbourg was beautiful. The moon was almost full, so the mountains were glowing.

Now you're caught up on our activities for the last few days. I'm back at ISU settling into the reality that Ross is gone and I have a huge report to help write over the next four weeks. I know there will be lots of ups and downs over the next few weeks. We are working in groups of ~30 people day in and day out, so there are bound to be some interesting stories...actually, there already are. I can't wait to get back and share them.