High speed trains make one sleepy

Babies fall asleep quickly in moving cars because their cerebellum pathways are not fully established and the rocking movement basically overwhelms the system. These pathways are also closely linked to the neuro pathways involved with inducing sleep.*

I think I’m still a baby.

Cars still make me sleepy, but high speed TGV trains to Paris practically wipe me out. True, it was 7 a.m. in the morning, but I blamed Daddy for making me catch his jet lag.

This is me actually training my cerebellar circuit.

So I suppose Adam really is a cradle robber after all. ;)

As I type, I’m looking over the bobbing heads of Parisians and fellow travelers as we depart the St. Lazare gare bound for Caen in the region of Normandy. I felt it was appropriate to dig out my favorite album of all time as the soundtrack to this leg of the journey: Moulin Rouge. I’ve got Lady Marmalade twinkling in my earphones as we speak. Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.

Also of significant note, I saw a Chris Noth (Mr. Big from Sex and the City) look alike in the train station. I did a double take and I’m pretty sure my mouth fell open. I successfully pulled a “stop and stare” moment. For the record, from this point on I’m claiming to have seen Chris Noth in a Paris train station.

To Each’s Own…

Speaking of Paris, I’ve been getting quite a few questions regarding why I haven’t been yet. My reasons – and grievances – are as follows:**

1) I’ve had it up to here with people suggesting how I do Paris. Everyone has an idea of who I could go with and unless it’s an imaginary friend, c’est impossible.

Arrêt, s’il vous plaît.

I am a safe traveler. Usually I’m five steps ahead of most tourists by identifying possible problems and avoiding questionable situations altogether.

Right now, I’ve also had it up to here with people telling me stories about people getting innocently hurt while traveling. Yes, bad things happen to good people. However, I’ve traveled enough with young people to know one thing: often times the stories that make it back to parents don’t exactly line up to what happened. I’ve now said enough to get my point across.

This is not in any way related to travel tips on what to see. Please, I value experience from past travelers. This is only a reference specifically to the comments I keep getting about Paris safety.

2) Every single American tourist I’ve EVER talked to who’s been to France went to Paris, and often times just Paris. France holds so many beautiful and diverse regions I’d much rather spend my weekends experiencing these unique villages.

3) In my repertoire of friends and acquaintances, I know several “hardcore” travelers whose opinions I esteem. Most of them say they hated Paris. It’s hot, crowded, expensive, an American tourist cliché…..you get the picture.


All of this being said: I’m desperately trying to coordinate some type of weekend trip to Paris before I leave. Furthermore, if I return to the US from three months in France never having visited Paris I’m going to confuse all these aforementioned tourists. I’m going to save myself the breath in future.

This entry may put to rest the incessant Paris safety precautions and “hints” about travel partners, but now I’m really going to hear it about the perks of Paris. I did it to myself.


So this staunch American city girl is sticking more “French Country” this summer. Grand surprise.





Let the travel accounts begin….


We last left our traveling heroine on the terrace of what was regarded as the 8th wonder of the world in Heidelberg, Germany. Real time in France, she’s on her way for yet another adventure. This is one behind, blogging heroine. That’s life as a working chemist.



Heidelberg: The continuation

As usual, I’m going to admit to my blog readers a flaw to my visit. Just don’t tell other experienced travelers.

I think I missed part of the gardens….

It’s ok, I saw the most impressive part, but I think there might have been more that went up the hillside from a different path. Bummer, yes, and when I figured this out I did not think it was worth climbing back up the mountain in the afternoon heat for. It’s just going to be my excuse to get back to Heidelberg one day.

After the castle I went and found myself some quintessential German cuisine to include sauerkraut. Not the best I’ve ever had, but very good just the same. Considering I’ve has some superb German food in my past I hold high expectations.

At the restaurant I got a table right by the window on the high street, so I got to do a lot of people watching.

Star Café?

While I was doing my research for Heidelberg, I came across a reference to a famous café that sold these special chocolates called “Student’s Kiss.” The story for these chocolates originates from the early 1900’s, when the university boys used to go to this café and see their sweethearts who were accompanied by their governesses. In order to express their affection, they’d send a “student kiss” over to the table.

Well I thought this would make a cute souvenir for Adamo, but I hadn’t been able to find it. So I asked my waitress if she knew where it was. And she said “oh, you want Star Café!”

So I said “ok, where is it?”

She said down the street to the right. Judging from the Starbucks cups I’d just seen, I responded “Oh, no, not Starbucks!”

And then she continued to insist that I wanted to go to Starbucks.

I thanked her and left. Sorry Adamo, no student kiss for you.

I saw this in a store in Heidelberg. Look to the right of Uncle Sam. It took me a minute to realize this was unusual.

Apfel Strudel makes my heart sing


After lunch I did more wandering around town, but at that point nothing could live up to the castle experience. I grabbed a bretzel (pretzel) to go, and made it a point to stop by a bakery to get some apfel strudel (apple strudel) for later, since the Germans make it like the Austrians, who make it like the Slovenians which is the style my grandpa used to make it for every family gathering.

I like apple strudel a lot, but only the right kind. (It's the one covered in powered sugar.)


And yes, the picture sucks, but I wanted to get it over with and eat.


Only the nicest people on my travels

To make a very long story short:

The French gave me a bad connection on Deutsch Bahn. I had already sorted it out that morning when I figured it out and found a different Strasbourg connection.

Well when I changed trains, the next train started flashing something I couldn’t recognize with my limited German exposure. I went over to the late 20-something German conductor with an earring who was smoking a cigarette while the train I just got off of waited to restart. Whew that was hard to explain.

I asked him if he spoke English (in German, thank you Vienna) and he explained the next train was full and you could only get on if you had a reserved seat. So I asked him what I should do, so he said to get back on the train and go to Offenburg since there’s a frequent local train there that I could take.

I thanked him and got back on.

Even when trains connect to France, DB (Deutsch Bahn) always announces things in German (duh) and sometimes half heartedly in English. Well when we got to Offenburg, he announced all the connections in German, then added in English

“for those of you connected to Strasbourg, the next train arrives at ____ on platform ___.”

It was the only thing on that announcement said in English.


Fête de la Musique á Strasbourg

Let’s be honest. I come from the live music capital of the world.

My impression: eh.

I got back from Heidelberg in time to go home, drop off my stuff, and then bike back downtown for the music festival. It happens once a year on the summer solstice and anyone and everyone comes out to either play music or listen.

There was everything from an amateur flute player…



… to DJs….

…to rock bands ( I enjoyed this – not)….

… to jazz musicians (my favorite)…


You get the picture. I parked my bike and walked around to take it all in. I’m not much into the music scene in Austin, let alone France. It’s also really not my type of music either. I did really enjoy seeing all the different vendors.

They had a crêpe stand, random candy stands, and my favorite: the barbapapa stand (cotton candy, but in French it literally translates to Papa’s Beard.)

You can also tell a lot about a music festival from its trash. As you can see, tons of alcohol. This also includes the likes of vodka. The festival also felt like an American suburban mall on a Friday night. Teenagers were everywhere. Only difference: they were legal to drink here.


* If my vertebrate physiology professor does indeed peruse my blog like he claims, he may be calling bullshit on this neuro-factoid. However, I swear I remember him talking about this in class. For all you non-science readers, I totally know everything that I’m talking about and am practically an expert. For my science peers, keep your mouths shut.

**I’m also very sorry to my rhetoric professor who’s an occasional reader. I do not use contractions; I use unnecessarily flowery diction; and my insertion of dashes, semicolons and colons might be more accurate if I wrote drunk. Because of his class, I now realize their importance in effective rhetoric and one day hope to use them correctly 99% of the time. As for now I’m just throwing them in where I get a gut feel; this is probably mostly incorrect. His class may also be to blame for my innate aversion to all things “Le M”.



Real Time

It’s currently 23h00 (11 p.m.) in Caen, France which is in the Normandy region. I continued drafting on the train, and now I'm at our hotel. For my long weekend my dad and I scratched Blois and decided to focus only on Normandy. Probably a good call.

Why aren’t updates more frequent?

Oh yeah, I work 40 hours a week in a lab (this week as the exception). This is the best I can do.

I’m going to do my best to get caught up this weekend, but I’ve got a lot of ground to cover now.

At the end of every night the plan will be for me to just update with as far as I’ve gotten for the day. This may or may not happen.

The plan for tomorrow: wake up, eat breakfast, go to Bayeux, and then from there take a bus to a few of the D-Day beaches, cemeteries, and museums.

Goodnight!
Elaine