Die Störche in Strasbourg

So last week our Sprachkurs ended and now I am getting ready to fly to Berlin! I'm so excited to go back to such a great city and then go on to Prague.

I went to Strasbourg on Monday and had a lovely time there with my good friend Josi. Though I think I like Freiburg better, Stasbourg is lovely too. We saw all the important things: the European Union Complex, Cathedrale, Place Kleber, Petite France, and Place Gutenberg. My favorite was Parc de L'Orangerie. It was a huge park right next to the EU buildings. In the spring, storks fly from Africa to nest there. I don't think I've ever seen storks in the wild before and they were nesting everywhere in this park.

Störche!

Me at the EU building

I know this is a very short post, but I'm off to Berlin! I'll write a lot about my trip when I get back.

Grocery store

This week has been pretty normal, mostly just going to class, nothing too crazy. It is our last week of intensive language courses and then we have all of April off until the summer semester which starts at the beginning of May. I'll probably post a lot about food on this blog, because food is delicious. Starting with this lovely soda I found the other day:


"The Spirit of Georgia" I had to buy it, but it is not peach flavored, as you might initially guess. It is blood orange prickly pear soda, and now thanks to dizzyfinks.com I know that it is in fact a Coke product! Apparently its a lower sugar, less sweet brand Coke is using in Germany. I will have to try the other flavors next: green mango kiwi peach (I believe thats just one flavor) and lime.

So I thought I would take a moment to talk about German grocery stores. I know it seems like of all the places to talk about, why would I pick that right? Well, for a store that is needed everywhere, in Germany they are surprisingly different than in the states.

First of all, it seems like all the Germans go to the store knowing exactly what they want. Food shopping is not leisurely walking down the aisles scoping out all the different cereals. Its more like a mission. Get in, get out, quick decisions. The shoppers aren't the only speedy ones. The cashiers scan everything very quickly. Its impossible to keep up with them as you try to throw everything in your eco-friendly, reusable bag before the next customer's food comes flying in your direction.

The other thing is that you weigh your own produce and put a scanning sticker on it. They don't do it at the register. If you don't put a scan sticker on it, you end up holding up an entire line of people at the register. And to add to it if you have no idea what that cashier is saying when they ask you to weigh it, they go at do it for you, making the situation even more embarrassing. I suppose that only happens once though and then you never do it again. This may or may not be something I know from personal experience.

I have have become a little obsessed with Germany yogurt. Though I rarely eat yogurt in the states, here its amazing. As are the flavors. Does pear apple yogurt exist in the US? I think not.

From left to right is apricot, peach passion fruit and pear apple, three of my favorites. Though I have seen orange marzipan, I have been a little afraid to try it...

With that I will end this post, but I would love to hear thoughts about where to go in Prague, Rome, and Florence. I am planning to visit these cities during April and can always use sight seeing advice!

Food, Freddy, Forest, and Fun!

So it has been about a week since my last post and I thought an update might be nice. I'm taking one german language class and then another about german culture. Its really been great exposure to the language.

Other than classes, this weekend I played tourist and went to a restaurant known for its local specialties and then on Saturday to Schwarzwald - the black forest. Friday night I went with a group of other international students to Ihringer Strauβe - and no I don't mean ostrich. Ihringer is a small town outside of Frieburg and this is where we had our typisches essen. You know how they say its all about the journey not the destination? Well, although the food was excellent as was the wine from the local vineyard, the most interesting part was getting there. We had to walk to this restaurant from the trains station, which is perfectly reasonable, but about halfway through our walk we turned onto a road with no street lamps and only vineyards on either side. So it was a dusky journey to the restaurant and a very, very dark trip back. I think I can speak for everyone in the group when I say we were all on the look out for Freddy Krueger and Jason. As far as I know everyone made it back...

This is Flammkuchen from the restaurant and though it may just look like a pizza, it is sooo much better!

Schwarzwald was absolutely beautiful. Rolling hills with patches of evergreen forest, there really is no better place to be on a sunny day.

After a visit to St. Peters church, we took a leisurely hike to a local restaurant for schnitzel and black forest cake. Did I mention this was a very tourist-y trip? Well, if you haven't thought so yet I'm getting there. After lunch we went to a cuckoo clock workshop, where they have been hand making cuckoo clocks for five generations. Though I wouldn't say that cuckoo clocks are my style, the work they put into them is amazing. Every detail on each clock is hand carved and each craftsman only works on their own clocks to show off their unique style.

 OK now for the piece de resistance. I know you all have been wondering. Before heading back to Freiburg we visited: the worlds largest cuckoo clock. Its basically this little house this guy built that looks like a cuckoo clock on the outside. The slightly more interesting thing about it is that it does actually work. It is run exactly the same as a regular cuckoo clock, except all the gears are about 500 times the regular size. Though it was slightly underwhelming, I'm glad I can say I've seen it. 

Heres the cuckoo clock house in all its glory.

All in all a lovely weekend. Who knows what I'll be seeing next!

Rosenmontag

So I have been in Freiburg for a week now and quite a bit has happened. Right now I'm taking a german language course in the mornings, and I feel like its really helpful. Who knows how much my german will improve with this three week course!

Today we had no class because of Rosenmontag (the german version of pre-lent festivities) and along with that it was the Freiburg Faschings the local festival to get ready for spring. The Freiburger Hexen are witches that "sweep" away winter and in the process they parade through the street, make a lot of noise, and douse people in confetti. Each of the small towns surrounding Freiburg also have their own witches who participate in the parade. They all wore scary wooden masks and would come up to people and scare them or other mischievous things...like give them new hair do's.  

I think that if people wore scary masks like these in a parade in the US all of the kids would be very afraid of them, but here, though a few are, most of the kids loved the attention from the witches.

So thats whats been going on this weekend in Freiburg along with a day trip to Basel and some hiking in the hills. 

More later!

To stamp or not to stamp?

Hello everyone!

      I did make it to Freiburg, although it took me two planes, a bus and a taxi. My flights and such were uneventful, thankfully, but my flight to Basel was late, which made me very worried about catching the bus on time. Upon arriving in Basel I rushed to get my bag and then through customs to make the bus, but I made it with half an hour to spare. I could not figure out why it took so little time. And then it hit me. No one had stamped my passport. I need the stamp to get a visa. So I went back to the information desk to see if I needed to go back through customs and the woman at the desk called the Police. The Policeman came, looked at my passport and said he would take it to get stamped. The whole ten minutes he was gone all I could think was: A. he going to make me go into one of those customs rooms and question me, B. arrest me, or C. just keep my passport and never give it back and then what would I do?!
        In the end, he came back with the stamped passport, and I left to go to the bus. I finally made it to my destination after 14 hours of travel.

I will be sure to post again as soon as something interesting happens, but as of right now I'm mostly just learning how to find my way around the city.

ciao!