Strasbourg and Riquewihr

Our first all day excursion was to Strasbourg in Alsace. The bus dropped us off at quite some distance from the heart of the town, and as a result, we ended up getting back to the bus late that afternoon, causing us to miss the scheduled excursion to Kaysersberg later in the day. But we enjoyed our visit to the cathedral in Strasbourg which houses the astronomical clock that was built nearly 800 years ago and still operates today. We walked to Petite France which is an extraordinarily picturesque section of Strasbourg and then proceeded to get lost (hence, the late arrival at the bus). We drove to Riquewihr which is located in the center of wine country in the Vosges Mountains. It is famous for its white wines and the town is surrounded by tiers of vineyards. The town is walled and has almost exclusively pedestrian traffic. We arrived back at La Malgrange around 6 in time for a party at the school. One of the more interesting activities involved a sing off between the American students and their French counterparts of their respective national anthems. The French won.

It may seem strange to include a picture of a shopping cart, but shopping in France was one of the other differences noted by the students. First and foremost, due to the relationship of the euro to the dollar, they noted how "expensive" things were. For example, gas worked out to be almost $10 a gallon! Of course, cars were smaller, but it explained why public transportation is so important, why many people ride bikes or walk. We also noted some of the more environmentally conscious habits here. People bring their own bags to the grocery store. And this shopping cart must be "rented" for a euro or token that is returned when the cart is returned to the bay. Packaging for bread and for fruit is in paper rather than plastic, and recycling and composting is commonplace.

This is the view from the media center of La Malgrange. It is the former palace of Stanislas Lexzczynski, father in law of Louis XV in 1736. The chateau houses the administration and the rest of the building serves the student body. The school day begins at 8 am, there is an hour and a half for lunch, but classes can run as late as 6 pm. During our stay, a number of the students were studying for the bac or were undergoing what is known as the bac blanc (a test that serves to give the students a taste for what the bac will be like the following year). One major test took place on a Saturday! Our students were impressed by how committed the students were to their education. During our stay, we celebrated May 1st, French Labor Day, and so students did not have classes on that day. But we also experienced several classes in French covering Impressionism, Verdun, Versailles (because we were scheduled to visit these cities as well as the Musee d'Orsay) as well as short classes on mots-valises and slam poetry. Our classes were housed in a classroom attached to the library, but our "correspondants" had classes in the building you can see from the window in the picture. Four of my students attended an English class and were asked questions about our country: whether or not our students worked, when they started work, whether or not they drove and had a car, what they thought of the elections, and more. It was an interesting exchange.

One of the first things the students spoke about was the food. Yogurt and ice cream were the favorites of many. And oh! the French bread. That first day, many ate pack lunches in the park, but Mme Smart and I ate at a small restaurant on Rue Gourmande (that's not it's real name, but it is famous for its food) with Benjamin, a former student who had visited Epping several years before and is currently studying engineering.

The trip with 22 teenagers

This is where it all begins: Nancy, France. We left Boston on April 29th, arrived in Paris on the 30th, took the TGV (my first trip on the high speed train) and were taken to La Malgrange, the school that hosted us for nearly 10 days. The following day we took a tour of this beautiful city in the province of Lorraine.