I just returned from a two-week vacation which I spent in France, Germany, and the Netherlands. I went first to the province of Alsace, and stopped in Strasbourg and Mulhouse. I think the highlight of Strasbourg was the tarte flambée. I only had about a day and a half there, so I took it easy, did a little sight-seeing around town, took a boat tour down the canals, popped into the Cathedral, and tried to find a traditional Alsacian restaurant. It was surprisingly an unsuccessful odyssey.
My Mulhouse/Altkirch experience was a wee-bit strange! I was there 12 years ago with my family to visit our distant cousin Madeleine. Unfortunately, she recently passed away, and I assumed there were no more relatives living there. Well, the night before I headed there my mom informs me that we do still have family in Mulhouse. So she finds the phone number of Madeleine's brother, Pierre, and his wife Paule, who were also there with us back in '96. I thought it'd be fun to reunite with the people I met way back when, but I didn't really want to call because of the inevitably awkward phone conversation. Trying to explain in broken French how I'm related to them, and that we met years back, and that I'm in town--that day--for only a day. Wanna drop everything and have lunch?
I called anyway. I even wrote down what to say because I was nervous! But when Paule answered, I only got so far as, "Hi... I'm a cousin of your husband, and I'm in Mulhouse today and tomorrow" when she interjected, "Ok, come over for dinner at 7:30."
Whaa!
Wait, it gets wackier.
They lived in a nearby village, and I thus arrived by train in Altkirch, a tiny bumpkin town with one huge supermarket and not a whole lot else. There was a bar right next to the train "station," so I sat there and waited for Pierre to pick me up. I was, at this point, still a little flustered since I was doubtful they even mildly comprehended who I was and why I had called them. When Pierre got there, I stepped outside to meet him clumsily, and said, "I don't know if you remember, but we met 12 years ago at your sister Madeleine's house..."
"No."
...
Well. It felt pretty silly telling him how we were related now that he didn't remember us. "Your father was my great grandmother's cousin."
"Oh, that's far. Very far," said he.
He obviously wasn't trying to ease my embarrassment. Still, their hospitality (and trust) really struck me. He took me back to their house where Paule greeted me with excitement. They showed me pictures of their kids and relatives, I ate dinner with them, we talked a lot, and I spent the night. They were so thrilled to have me there, though I could not figure out why! I think I even heard them snicker, "Wait till we tell ____ we had an American at our house!"
Well, the next day Paule went out to the store expressly to make me a traditional Alsatian lunch, which I was grateful for, since Strasbourg had failed me. I, meanwhile, went on an excursion with Pierre. He drove me through some of the neighboring towns (they're all very small and close together), enabling me to see some lovely scenery and very cute houses. They're like Easter eggs, Alsatian homes. He also took me to the restaurant he owned before he retired.
The houses in this video aren't really the greatest examples. They seem to be more recent and more bland than some of the really authentic ones.
Lunch consisted of pretzel-ish bread rolls spread with truffle paté, some juicy meat-roll of sorts, and approximately billions of pastries from the local patisserie.
Pierre drove me to the train station. We were going to stop at Madeleine's house on the way, which would have been neat, but we were late. Then I hopped a bus to Freiburg.
If there's one thing I learned from staying with these lovely people, it's that family ties inhabit an important position in the hearts of a person of tradition. That sounds like some sort of adage or something, cause it rhymes and all, but I actually just made it up and didn't intend the rhyme.
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