A slaughterhouse, a palace, a tower and an irish pub

Yesterday was the first Sunday of the month, which means, in all of France, free museum and gallery day!  For those who are in the midst of planning a holiday to France, take advantage of this.  You'll save a ton of money and if you get bored, you can leave without feeling ripped off!

We met up with some ISU students at the Musee Historique.  This was formally a slaughterhouse.  It really looks like a big barn but I'm pretty sure they spent a bit of time cleaning it.  They gave us free headsets which magically turned on whenev

er you walked by certain hotspots.  Except they weren't quite matched up to the exhibit you were at.  It was pretty funny watching all of us get a little surprise in the headset and then run around the area trying to find the corresponding archive.  We learned a TON there.  First of all, Johann Gutenberg, the father of moveable type and the printing press, lived here for 10 years and developed his inventions right in the city.  His hometown in Germany, Mainz, and Strasbourg celebrate his life every year on...actually I can't remember the date...I think it was in June.  So here are some interesting facts that came out of his inventions.  Strasbourg became the book capital of the world and all of the printers studied here and moved on.  In fact the first printer in Paris was Alsatian.  Being a book worm, I really got all warm and fuzzy when I realized I was living in the first book capital of the world!!!  Also, the first EVER newspaper was from here!  And with that, the publisher created the first author copyright law to prevent people from stealing his news!  We also learned how Strasbourg was a "free city" which meant they could mint their own coins and had no real ties to anyone royal to rule them.  And then Louis the 14th decided he wanted to be ruler of Strasbourg so he proclaimed it and that was that.  It seemed that there was actually very little resistance to the French takeover.  

We took a museum break and headed to Flam!,  a tarte flambe place.  It's all you can eat if you so choose, but I really don't understand how anyone can eat more than one of those!  I got the legere, or light one which was the only one without bacon.  And light it was not!  I think it was because they used a light cheese?  I mention this stop because I figure when people come to visit, this will be one of the places we eat.  Cheap too.

After lunch we went to Palais du Rohan, a former palais, with shiny rooms like Versailles, but in Strasbourg.  It now houses the Archeology museum of Strasbourg (which is essentially the death through the ages museum) in the basement, a vast collection of renaissance paintings which include Rafael and Botticelli on the top floor, and left its opulence intact on the main floor.  Oh and a huge ceramics collection of Paul Hannog.  For the ceramic buffs (i.e. Aly), this is probably an important name.  For the rest of us, an interesting story.  It turns out the Hannog family made the most well-reputed ceramics all over France.  But a family friend of Louis the king allowed another family in the town of Sevres, to win the rights to be the ONLY ceramics maker in France!  Talk about monopoly!!  It's interesting how this has become somewhat of a norm, with Dijon being the only place allowed to call their mustard Dijon, Champagne, same thing, Roquefort, etc etc.  So the consequence was that the Hannog family was left penniless from losing their livelihood.  Oh yeah, there was also a HUGE astronomical clock just hanging out there.  When I get a chance, I'll add the pics to this posting.  

We then realized that it was 3h30 and the Cathedral tower was still open AND free!!!  So we scurried over there and climbed 332 steps to get to 142 m to the top.  Man was that hard.  But worth it.  Interesting tidbit.  In 1521, just a few years after it was finished, the cathedral became protestant under the Reformation.  And then when Louis asked for Strasbourg in 1681, it became Catholic.  It was originally built as a Roman temple, and then destroyed by fire.  Then rebuilt in 1284 (with the tower finished in 1439).  

We ended up at the Irish Times, a pub close to our house which was playing the Hurling final.  This was the craziest sport I have ever seen!  You should check it out.  It's crazy.  They have paddles that look like beaver tails and they have to balance the ball (like the egg-spoon race in elementary school) while running to the goal and score.  It's like a mixture of soccer, rugby, lacrosse and crazy people.  Amon, one of the ISU students, is a hurling player (I'm guessing a really good one because he arrived late due to having to play in a hurling game back in Ireland) so this is why we ended up doing this.  

On a completely different topic, we are now the official space nerd halfway house.  There are a few students who did the ISU summer program and are desperately looking for a place to live.  And because we have a couch, we are now helping them out with saving a bit of hostel money while they look for a home for October.  We have Zauher until Wednesday, and Mickael is coming Tuesday until Saturday.  Who knows who else we might end up with!!