day 01 of my trip to strasbourg with my former study-colleague "kempes". we started our trip to strasbourg at 00:00 on the 29th of december 2008 in linz. kempes brought his younger brother, since he's studying here for one semester. so we left linz by car and drove approximately six and a half hours - we took some breaks and once we missed the exit on the highway, so we had a little detour. we were rotating the driver, so everybody had to drive a little, but none of us could really sleep while he was not driving. so, after we we dropped off tony (the younger brother) at his flat, we arrived a little sleepy at the hotel, which is located in the same street as tony's flat. our room (of course) was not prepared yet, we had to wait until 14:00 - which was a little longer than we expected. but that was ok. at least we thought so. so firstly we deposed our luggage at the hotel, then the two of us headed right across the street to a very small "boulangery" (bakery) to get breakfast, while tony was at home sleeping. later we headed towards the center. luckily the guy at the reception gave us a map. at first the streets were really empty (although it was already about 07:00 in the morning). we walked around the center but did not really try to get somewhere specific, like sights or other famous places. in stead we took lots of photos and had a lot of fun. some photographic impressions of what we saw (since some people complained about missing photos in the bLog for my tokyo trip): then we got to the big cathedral which one can enter and go up to a observation deck. according to wikipedia, the cathedral's height is 142 metres. climbing all the stairs in the narrow hallways was quite exhausting. remember, we had not much sleep, and additionally we drank a gluehwein before climbing the stairs. but we made it, and it was worth it. one has a very nice view over the city and also the cathedral itself is very impressive. at about 12:00 we met tony again - though he had about four hours of sleep he didn't really look recovered actually. but i guess that's what we just looked like too. we went to a "brasserie" and had a "tarte flambee" (aka "flammkueche") which is a traditional local dish, and is somehow like a pizza, but yet different (unfortunately i forgot to take a picture of it). finally, at about 14:00 we arrived at the hotel again and went to bed to get some sleep. we got up at 20:00 again and watched a movie ("army of darkness" - perfect brainless stuff for this evening). so far strasbourg is a very nice and very small city with awesome and monumental buildings. since kempes is already sleeping, i will try to get some rest now too...