We awoke to a very stuffy apartment.  We had gotten a little too carried away with the heater the night before.  I swung the kitchen window open wide and let the cool air waft across my face as I gazed out across the crooked tile rooftops of Colmar.  After a nice hot “sits shower” in the tub I went to the kitchen to cook our breakfast while Jayné took her turn in the bathroom.  When I opened the fridge a rush of warm stinky cheese air blasted me in the face and I almost gagged from the smell.  The fridge was warm.  I pulled the fridge out and discovered that it had not been plugged in.  I plugged it in and immediately heard the compressor kick on.  Grabbing the eggs and ham as quick as I could I slammed the fridge door shut and set about making breakfast. 

            We spent the morning exploring the streets and shops of our neighborhood.  I noticed at every bakery, along with the traditional baguettes, brioches and rustic loaves, there was also a rack of big salted pretzels on every counter.  I bought a waffle Grand Marnier from a street vendor.  There was a definite German and Belgian influence here.

            At lunch we went back to “our pub”, Café Leffe, for the sausage soup we had tried to order the night before.  Our same waiter was working and I think he was pleased to see that we had returned to try their food.  We sat at our “usual” table and ordered our soup without needing to even look at the menu, but today we chose the Hoegaarden Blanche beer.  It was served in the appropriate logoed glass.  We lingered over our food and drink as the French do.  As I sat drinking my beer it suddenly dawned on me what I should get for my dad for a gift.  A beer glass!  I wondered if they would sell me one from the restaurant.  There was only one way to find out – ask. 

            I searched my phrasebook for the appropriate words and put together the sentence.  After practicing it a few times on Jayné I took a swig of my beer and then went in search of our waiter to ask him before I lost my nerve.

            “Pardon, Monsieur.  Est-ce qu’on peut acheter un verre?”  The  sentence came out slowly and haltingly but I was encouraged to see he understood me and asked what type of glass I wanted, wine or beer?  Then, without waiting for my answer he immediately knew – beer, which he said with a knowing tone to his voice.  “Oui, bière” I replied.  We had already made ourselves known in this pub as beer drinkers!  He called over to his boss and told him of my request, then motioned me around the counter to pick one out.  I looked up at the array of glasses and picked a nicely shaped one called “La Becasse” – a beer I had never heard of.  When I asked him how much he just waved his hand and said I could have it.  “Merci!  Merci!”  I thanked him profusely and returned to our table with my new acquisition and a beaming smile on my face.  It was the highlight of my day!  Our day only went downhill from there and boy did it go down rapidly.

              We needed to figure out our itinerary for the rest of our trip and make train reservations.  This necessitated our going back to the train station.  We begrudgingly tromped back down to the station and spent hours looking at schedules, consulting the ticket agent, getting out of line to ponder our choices, getting back in line to ask more questions.  We were there so long there was an employee shift change part way through and now we were dealing with an employee who was giving us different information than we were originally given and lacked the patience that the man we were first dealing with had.  He was quickly getting more and more frustrated with us and all of our questions and indecision.  “We just have to make a decision and get out of here, Jayné!”  I told her, which we finally did.  He was not happy with us but we insisted he make us reservations on one of our trains even though he assured us we did not need them.  And, irritated that we had to choose a god awful early train to leave town on Friday, we left the station with our reservations at last.

            If the frustration of spending our entire afternoon in the train station was not enough, as soon as we stepped outside it began to rain on us.  You know how in the movies when the hero is suddenly dumped by his girl and a huge black cloud instantly begins pouring buckets of rain on him?  Well, that was literally the scene for us – and we had foolishly left our umbrellas back in our apartment.  Almost crying we walked back as quickly as we could.  Fortunately we were not too soaked by the time we reached our apartment.  (Okay, I exaggerated.  It was raining but not pouring.)  Our apartment was warm and dry inside but, alas, we could not stay in to warm up.  You see, we had no more clean clothing and we were in desperate need of doing laundry.  Earlier today we had located a laundry mat and now we trudged over there with backpacks and bags of dirty clothes – this time with umbrellas in hand. 

            I never do laundry at the laundry mat back home so maybe I am out of touch with just how much this usually costs, but I thought the prices were shockingly expensive.  We had even packed our own detergent and dryer sheets.  Seventeen euros and thirty cents later ($21.62) we were waiting for the last of our clothes to dry.  The laundry mat sign said they close at 8 p.m. and it was rapidly approaching.  We were trying to speed things along but how do you make a dryer dry faster?  I figured an owner or employee would come at 8 to lock the place up so we were rushing so as not to have to get kicked out (once again).  To our great surprise at 2 minutes to eight (not surprising) the lights in the laundry mat suddenly clicked off and we were left with our heads stuck in a pitch black dryer, feeling around with our hands so as not to leave behind any stray socks.

            We bundled up our clothes and carefully carried them back to our apartment.  A few bulky items were not completely dry so we hung them over the heater and cranked up the heat.  Then we went out to find food.  Once again all the restaurants seemed to be closed.  What was up with this town?  Just around the corner from our apartment we found a small crêperie called Le Palais de Legends.  The menu was authentic, the prices looked good, and there were quite a few people inside.  (Probably since it was the only place open in town!)  The brightly lit windows looked warm and inviting and we were starving so we went in.  They had an extensive menu of galettes and tartes flambées.  We each ordered different galettes and a pitcher of cider to share which was served in a rustic earthenware pitcher.  We sipped our cider while we waited for our food and gazed about at the room.  One wall showed the ancient wooden beams while the other hosted a mural painted with Puss-n-boots riding in a pumpkin carriage accompanied by trolls, some dwarves and other fairy tale characters.  We really were in story book land!  Our food came and was soon gone.  After discussing with the cook an interesting concoction of beer and liqueur that we saw some guys at a neighboring table drinking we headed back to our apartment for the night.