Can I Say I've been to Germany if I've been to a town that used to be IN Germany?

By the time we arrived in Colmar, we were happy to be back in the land of Euros and stores being open. I mean - there's only so much you can buy at the COOP in a train station. So! We arrived at Colmar in the early afternoon and took a bus out to our hotel, which was out in the country. By the time that we got back into town, the twelve layers of clothing I had on just weren't quite keeping me that warm anymore. BUT! We did get some really great pictures and eat some good cookies while we were walking around town. Without further ado, I present to you: Colmar, Germany - I mean France!

I just have to post this picture - check out this couch. It's pretty much the pimped out French version of mine!

To warm up, we decided to go into this cute little Alsatian restaurant - the menu was in French, English, and German. Yikes. Even in the restaurant, we had Frenchies on one side, and Italians on the other. And maybe the Italian guy looked like a member of the Volturi - meaning that he was HOT! Although we didn't get a picture with my beautiful future boyfriend, Kristine did get a picture of me with the cute restaurant behind me.

The next day we had a few hours to tour around Colmar, but word to the wise - there were no lockers in the train station, so we had to carry our huge bags around with us for the next four hours. Ow! I had to do this once before this year - I don't recommend it, just fyi. We went to a cool art museum called the Underliten, which was mainly religious art, but it had a great audio tour that came free with admission. I am convinced that all museums should do this - it made the museum so much more enjoyable. Here are some of my favorites:

Since it was light out, we took advantage and snapped a few pictures of us in front of the customs house:

And in front of Petit Venis. Obviously, meaning "Little Venice." Even the Europeans love themselves some Italy. Please note the "Romantik" restaurant behind us. Charming little town, don't you think?

That afternoon, we took a train to Strasbourg. Basically the same thing as Colmar - only bigger! More shops, bigger church, bigger clocks. Here's their bigger version of Petit Venis - they just call theirs "Petite France." Creative. Does that look like Little France to you? More like "Little Former German Town on the Canal" to me!

The most amazing site in Strasbourg is their Notre Dame cathedral. Serious - it is HUGE and looks about a mile high when you are standing in front of it. Kristine took this great shot of it - but keep in mind that she only got the tower! Here's a good picture from wikitravel.

Inside the cathedral there is this amazingly huge clock that - based on our travel guide - gave some good performances at least every 15 minutes. We waited around for a while to see the 4:15 performance. The book said that it would be a "ho hum" type of deal unless it was on the half hour, but I wasn't expecting this.

And in case you were wondering what the weather was like at this point, still freezing.

I feel like all the pictures taken of me make me look about 30 pounds heavier than I am - due to the 5 layers of sweaters I had on underneath my coat. Like in this picture for example. Then again, maybe its the hat. What do you think?

That night, our first class train tickets were worth it when we were whisked back to Paris in about four hours from our trip to Little Germany. Huzzah! Home again, home again, jiggity jig! Tomorrow (or maybe Monday :)) - my last day in Paris and some of my silly shenanigans. As if you weren't sure about those.

Check out all the pics from Strasbourg and Colmar here.