Today is a holiday in France and some other European countries. It celebrates Victory Day or the end of WWII. It is also Esme’s 8th birthday (8 on the 8th so it’s her golden birthday). In France this means no school and no work but also no shops open and most restaurants closed.

Not surprisingly, they do not celebrate Victory Day in Germany and Kehl, Germany is a convient 15 minute, 1,90€ (about $2) tram ride away from our Airbnb in Strasbourg.

Tram was very crowded. A lot of French people had the same idea as we did.

We had no premade plan for Kehl. We exited the tram and followed the crowd of people. There are lots of shops here and apparently shopping is cheaper in Germany so lots of French people come here to shop.

We found some cute “modern” dirndls for the girls here for 12€.

Woolworth?? We bought a small rolling suitcase here. My mom can take more luggage back with her than we were allowed on the way here so we will send some things with her to lighten the load.

Funny shopping cart

We went to an everything’s 1€ store (like a dollar store).

Esme got a Kinder Egg and Asa got gummy worms.

Nova got this “switch blade” style sucker that came with a storage sheath.

I got flying saucers.

Some other euro store choices below. Remember these?

We went to a pizza/pasta shop for lunch and this time we were sure to order our Margarita pizza (cheese pizza) “sans des petits choses verts sur le fromage” (without any little green things on the cheese). Not very well translated but the server understood and we got no basil/parsley on top of our pizza (kryptonite to picky 7 yr old girls!).

This wall at the restaurant was covered in “American” metal signs.

Nova ordered what we thought was apple juice but was actually sparkling apple drink but thankfully she loved it and drank it anyway.

It started to drizzle and the weather report said it wouldn’t let up for several hours so we hopped on the tram back to Strasbourg.

Much fewer people on the tram going back.