A Day Trip to Saarbrücken, Germany

A couple of weeks ago, we took our first day trip (without students) since the students arrived. Ian had wanted to go to Saarbrücken before the leaves fell, but it wasn't in the cards, but we did get there soon after. Saarbrücken, it turns out, is a shopping mecca for the French. The main street is blocked off to traffic and is home to rows and rows of stores. We took the opportunity to do a little shopping ourselves, and then took a walk around the town.

When we arrived, it was much colder than we thought it would be, so we immediately stopped in Cafe Schubert to warm up. Sophie had been begging for a doughnut, so we ordered her a Berliner. As you can see, she thoroughly enjoyed it. (Ian's added caption: "Sophie isst einen Berliner!")


Ian and I ordered coffee and hot chocolate, and I just couldn't resist taking a picture of the little trays they came on. I was especially impressed by the whipped cream that came with Ian's coffee. (Yes, I am easily impressed.)


They also had a little confisserie with all sorts of yummy cakes and petits fours:


This was my favorite...I'm not sure which occasion calls for hedgehog cakes, but they sure are cute!


After our little pit stop, we ventured onto the shopping street. Almost immediately, Sophie found what she called a "carousel," but what was really a carnival ride. It wasn't too expensive, and the man at the window gave me a discount on two tickets, so we let her ride on it twice. Ian found this strange sign that says that they'll accept Deutschmarks (although they have no value any more):


First the train:


Then a speedboat:

We took a couple of short videos of her going down the hill. It was hilarious because she would have such a big grin on her face and she would squeal. (You can hear this squeal if you can listen past Ian and I arguing about how to use the video function on the camera!) Watch for the boat to come around the corner.

We did buy a few things, but something we definitely didn't buy were the very overpriced Converse Chuck Taylors--90 Euros (or $114) for a pair that costs $20-40 in the US!

After shopping and some lunch, we ventured out to the other parts of town, which included, as always, a short trip to a park.

We then crossed the river to see some of the sights...










I also found my current Facebook profile picture in Saarbrücken. This was an actual cutout advertising the daily specials for a restaurant in town.

By the time we got back to Strasbourg, it was late, and we were hungry, so we stopped at McDonald's. Ian ordered the famous Royale with Cheese:


I'll leave you with this picture of this strange mannequin we found in a store window in Strasbourg on our walk home that evening: