Tag: Black girl travvel

Strasbourg Travel Diary Part III: Romanticizing Life in France’s Fairytale City

Idyllic city

Welcome back! If you aren’t privy to what this story is about, check out both Part 1 and 2.

Anyway, new day… new opportunities. I got up and took a looong hot shower. Since, I didn’t add breakfast to my reservation, I needed to go into the city to find something to eat. I got dressed and here we go.

Strasbourg city

I hopped on the tram and arrived in the city centre about ten to fifteen minutes later. The inner city was idyllic — and unfortunately, the weather was considerably less so.

I walked around anyway. It was nice. People moving through the streets, tourists photographing every sight they could find. Me included, naturally. As I said in Part 2 — if you didn’t post it, it never happened.

I passed the Strasbourg Cathedral — built in sandstone, it reminded me immediately of Heidelberg’s Castle. Newer probably, but the resemblance was striking. Something about seeing familiar architectural echoes in an unfamiliar city felt like the city was speaking my language.

I wandered through the streets, took it all in. Found a sweet little café with a view onto the street, sat down, ordered a croissant and a latte macchiato, and just listened to the hustle and bustle of a Saturday morning in Strasbourg. Paid. Walked around some more. Had some ice cream.

Living a little.

A lil relaxation

With my last evening approaching rapidly I headed back to the hotel. I went to the gym and had grand plans for a massage — until I discovered, courtesy of the fine print I had not read, that massages needed to be booked in advance and there was no masseuse on staff that evening anyway.

Wonderful.

I went back to the swimming pool instead. Spent the rest of the evening exactly as I had the night before — chilling in my hotel room, watching shows, being entirely unbothered.

Check-out?

My mind started racing. My heart skipped approximately five different beats. The receptionist looked at me, confused.

And here is where I need to be honest about something.

For me — as a Black woman — there is a particular kind of awareness that arrives in moments like this. When my card gets declined. When I’m fumbling in my bag for money I know is there. A heightened self-consciousness that goes beyond embarrassment.

I become aware of being Black in the room. I start wondering what people are thinking — about me, and by extension about other Black people. Whether we are being judged. Whether a single declined card becomes a statement about all of us.

With slightly shaking hands I reached out to retrieve my card. *”No problem,”* I said — because what else do you say — and handed over my regular EC card instead.

I knew I had enough money on there to cover another two days. I knew it. And yet I was still afraid when I slid the card in.

It was accepted. Of course it was.

But I always wonder, in moments like those, how much space that particular kind of fear takes up. And how long we’ll have to keep carrying it.

I said farewell to the receptionist. Said farewell to the hotel. And went about my merry way — relaxed despite the hiccups, and ready for the next chapter. Because from Strasbourg I was heading directly into my Master’s student journey.

Thanks for bearing with me through this one.

Strasbourg was a genuinely lovely getaway and I would recommend it to anyone living close to the French border — card machine anxiety and all.

Check out Part 1 and Part 2 if you haven’t already.

See you in the next one.

To think or not to think

Ice cream and rain

February 26, 2026
Strasbourg Travel Diary Part II: What It Feels Like to Slow Down in Alsace

You see me rolling

If you haven’t read the first post about Strasbourg, you can find the story here.

So. The day finally came. September 2021.

If you read the first story, you already know — I am not a vacation friend. And while I tend to be indecisive about most things in life, travel brings out a version of me that knows exactly where she wants to go and what she wants to do when she gets there. No committee required.

I also didn’t want my neighbour at the time to find out I was leaving. I just wanted to go. Quietly. Without opinions, without unsolicited advice, without anyone casting the evil eye in my direction.

So I took my suitcase and slipped away down the back path of my student residence like the independent woman I was. Unbothered. Unbothered and slightly sneaky.

I made my way to the bus stop, caught the bus a few minutes later, and after a ten minute ride arrived at Heidelberg Hauptbahnhof. From there, the route was straightforward enough — Heidelberg to Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe to Offenburg, Offenburg to Strasbourg.

DB, however, had other plans.

I still don’t fully understand how they managed to make a three-stop journey feel like a logistical operation, but here we are. We arrived in Karlsruhe without incident. The connection was smooth. Offenburg, though — Offenburg required a sprint.

I ran from the regional train to the SWE train with everything I had. Thank God for my stamina back then. Lord knows it has since disappeared.

Thankfully, some faster and more merciful passengers ahead of me held the doors open. I arrived breathless, panting, slightly humiliated — but on the train. Another thirty minutes standing, but I made it.

Strasbourg, I was coming for you.

We pulled into the station and I made my way to the tram, heading toward the hotel. The Athena Spa Hotel. Four stars.

I had never stayed anywhere with more than two stars before. Walking into that foyer, I felt it immediately — something that could only be described as arriving.

The check-in, however, was less graceful.

Having never navigated a four-star hotel before, my brain quietly short-circuited the moment I reached the reception desk. I attempted to pay for my room immediately upon arrival. Right there. On the spot. The very kind receptionist — bless her — gently informed me that payment typically happens at the end of a stay.

Oops.

I collected what remained of my dignity, took my room key, and made my way up.

The room was at the back of the hotel. The view, let’s say, offered a certain intimacy with the windows of neighbouring rooms — though everyone had curtains and I was truly not interested in anyone else’s evening. What it lacked in panoramic vistas it made up for in quiet, and quiet was exactly what I needed.

I was hungry. So for the first time in my life, I ordered room service. A burger and fries. When the bill arrived I remember thinking it was an obscene amount of money for a burger — which, I later learned, is simply the universal experience of room service everywhere in the world.

I changed into the hotel bathrobe — thankfully provided — and I just… stopped. Chilled. Existed without agenda. I think when people talk about mindfulness, what they mean is exactly that feeling. The particular peace of being somewhere new, alone, with nowhere to be and nobody waiting.

Relexation

After some thoroughly unbothered phone scrolling, I packed my swimming costume and headed downstairs to the pool.

The hotel had one large pool that alternated between regular swimming pool and whirlpool. When I arrived, a mother and her small son were already there — the boy delighting in the water, the mother doing her best to be both present and slightly invisible simultaneously. She shot me a look. I shot her one back. We understood each other perfectly.

She was from Switzerland — Geneva or Zurich, I can’t quite remember now, though I’ve since visited Zurich and Geneva remains on the list.

And then I swam. I jumped. I smiled. I paused. I enjoyed.

Strasbourg — so far, I like you quite a lot.

I took a photo of the pool on my way out, naturally. As we all know: if you didn’t post it, it never happened.

Strasbourg Travel Diary Part II: What It Feels Like to Slow Down in Alsace

February 23, 2026