Fields of Gold

In Germany (and on the continent in general), most people travel by train. I became an expert trip planner using the DeutscheBahn website, and greatly enjoyed watching the German countryside fly by me out the window as I reclined on their clean and efficient trains. One thing I saw a lot of was rapeseed, which seemed to be one of the main crops around Europe. I was so used to seeing fields of corn in the US, none of which I saw while traveling abroad. In Europe, it was grains and rapeseed, which lit up the Earth with tiny yellow flowers. So much of what I saw out of train windows was fields of gold.

Everything looked like this. 

Did I ever mention that in Freiburg, they covered the landfill with solar panels?

It made so much sense, it actually brought tears to my eyes when I saw it.

Germany is one of the world leaders in recycling, and has very few active landfills anymore because they're so good at waste management and also have much stricter regulations. So what do you do with a closed landfill? When you're Freiburg, the solar energy capital of Europe, you slap some solar panels on it and do great things!

The city also collects expired/damaged produce and turns it into biogas.

Our class trips to Freiburg's businesses and government operations gave me faith in humanity. They're doing everything right, and are actually combating climate change. Renewable energy everywhere you look, amazing public transportation, a city planned with a human scale in mind, responsible banks and businesses...it's beautiful.

Living in a Dream World

Germany just made sense to me. The stereotypes about German engineering and efficiency are true, especially in Freiburg. I lived in a dream world, where everything worked. Let me break it down for you.

I lived in:
Vauban, the most ecologically sustainable neighborhood in
Freiburg, the greenest city in Germany, which is located in the state of
Baden-Wuerttemberg, the richest state in
Germany, a highly developed  and powerful country with one of the world's largest economies.

The larger German economy didn't really become apparent to me until I traveled to Rome, which frankly, I found to be dirty, inefficient, and with incredibly incompetent and frustrating public transportation systems. It took me one step off the plan to become aware of the difference in the state of economy in Italy compared to Germany. I was never so glad to be in Germany as when I arrived in Berlin from Rome and was greeted with an airport full of immaculately clean (fee-charging) bathrooms, ample recycling stations, and a vast yet easily navigable public transportation system. I don't mean to rag on Italy, but I just had such a different experience that I wasn't necessarily prepared for. The differences were so stark I couldn't help but point them out and think about them.

Vauban was a very interesting neighborhood with a really turbulent history. I lived in the Studentendorf, housing owned and managed by the university. The oldest buildings in Vauban, which comprised most of the Studentendorf, were French military barracks from World War II, because Freiburg was in the French occupied zone. I lived in one of them, in a six-person apartment.

150/06, converted military barrack and my home for four months.

If you don't believe me, check out the gun rack we had recessed into the wall of the common area of the apartment.

Vauban is a vibrant area of town. In addition to the student housing, there is regular family housing and the SuSi, a commune of sorts. There's quite an interesting political history in Freiburg that is now mostly concealed by agreements and new construction. See, decades ago, after the French left town, the area was occupied by squatters, both in the old military buildings and in caravans on the grounds. At some point the city came in and decided to reclaim the buildings, and there was a big battle between the city and the squatters. The city agreed to let the squatters keep two of the buildings, and in them the SuSi was born. SuSi is an acronym that stands for "Selbst-Organisierte Unabhaengige Siedlungs Initiative," which basically translates to "self-organized independent settlement initiative." It's easy to tell which buildings belong to the SuSi, because they have brightly painted murals, grounds covered with interesting recycled art, highly
decorated balconies and staircases, and are surrounded by old vans and RVs that people live and work in.

I walked through the SuSi every day on my way to the tram stop. 

Pippi Longstocking is one of the mascots of Vauban.

The SuSi proved to make very interesting neighbors. There were some students there, but mostly families, and fairly ethnically diverse ones at that. It became a completely normal thing for me to see all kinds of folk around: children with dreadlocks riding unicycles, groups of people on stilts, people wearing all kinds of harem pants and flowy clothing playing outside barefoot. They had really interesting wooden playgrounds, mysterious art installations (this giant white dragon thing made out of lights and umbrellas for the 1st of May celebrations...I wish I had a picture of that), and at the end of my stay, the craziest parties. 2013 marks the 20th anniversary of the SuSi, and so they had the most fantastic three day celebration one weekend. It was like a music festival in my own backyard, except with even crazier decorations. The week leading up to the party, my walk down the street through SuSi included a stroll down a purple carpet under curtains of tinsel blowing in the wind, with mannequins with animal heads and wings guarding the path.

One of the last squatter strongholds in the area was this area called "Rhino," which was basically a lot full of vans and RVs and small buildings and art. The city kicked them out to build a new, super "green" hotel, which was being completed when I was living there. I could still see the scars of Rhino though, with signs saying "I miss Rhino" tied to the fence around the construction area, or Rhino-related sayings being graffitied onto buildings and signs in the area. If you look it up on the internet, the Rhino controversy looks like a pretty big deal:

Rhino used to exist along the tram lines in Vauban.

Here you can see it getting pretty politicized, surrounded by signs and banners.

The people did not let go of Rhino without a fight. There were riots and police activity. 

There are pictures of riots on the website for the state newspaper, Die Badische Zeitung.

And now, where the free citizens of Rhino used to dwell, there's this:

Hotel Vauban, a brand new, just-opened, super modern and green hotel.

Vauban was an amazing place though. I need to get back to telling you how awesome it was. It's basically an urban planning experiment to see how people can live without cars: there is a solar parking garage on the outskirts of Vauban, and there was a small parking lot in the Studentendorf, but other than that, there were no cars inside of the neighborhood. All of the streets were very narrow and pedestrian-oriented, and named after scientists and philosphers and authors, which was pretty cool. Nobody really had a yard like they do in American suburbs, rather people lived together in ecologically designed buildings and used their balconies/doorsteps/rooftop terraces to the fullest advantage and covered them with plants and lights. There was lots of beautiful common space interspersed between all of the houses: several playgrounds, gardens, lots of trees, grassy areas with fire pits. The Strassenbahn (tram/streetcar) had four stops in the area, and there were also bus stops. I lived equidistant from two tram stops, and had about a 4 minute walk to get to public transportation every day.

I should mention that everybody in Freiburg bikes. There are bikes everywhere: in nice bike shelters, along railings, on balconies, whatever. There are well-marked bike lanes on the street and definitely a big bike culture there. The law says you have to have working front and back lights on your bicycle, and I know more than one person who has gotten a bike-DUI. 

Freiburg was set up on a very human scale. What I mean by that is that the infrastructure is such that every neighborhood has its immediate needs taken care of. In my neighborhood, there were three grocery stores (including AlNatura, perhaps a smaller, German version of Whole Foods), a bank, a drugstore, a bakery, a couple of restaurants (including a Doener place, Doener kebab being the most popular type of fast food in Germany), an ice cream place, a bike shop, and a small department store. You can walk to everything and easily get what you need without having to take three buses across town or drive to a strip mall on the edge of town like you do anywhere in America. People buy only what they can carry, and so I went to the grocery store every couple of days to get food, instead of stocking up on two weeks' worth of food like I do at home. The refrigerators are smaller, too. The six people in my apartment shared two glorified mini-fridges, so I couldn't hog the whole fridge with a week's worth of food or anything. 

Nature was also extremely accessible. Vauban is on the edge of town in the shadow of beautiful Black Forest hills. I just had to follow the path out my back door, walk a few blocks, and then start ascending the huge grassy hills that were a combination of fields and vineyards, eventually giving way to forest. I had some amazing hikes in those hills, my favorite places to go to being the tiny hamlet of Schoenberg, and the ruins of castle Schneeberg above it. There were medieval castle ruins practically in my backyard! It was amazing.

Here are some photos from my hikes:

The path out of Freiburg and through the hills of Merzhausen

The hills are covered with vineyards

The ruins of Schloss Schneeberg

Visiting Schneeberg

Looking down on the city of Freiburg

Freiburg from a castle window

Small Moments of Triumph

As an Auslaenderin (foreigner), my time abroad was colored by little victories and embarrassing mistakes.

Some everyday stuff was hard for me. I could never get through the lines at Aldi as quickly and efficiently as the real Germans. It sounds funny, but the checkout at that place was actually kind of intimidating. It took me awhile to fully understand recycling and deposits. I once spent entirely too long unsuccessfully putting beer bottles into the recycling machine at REWE (my neighborhood grocery store) and having them shoot back out at me, while lots of Germans walked by me and looked amused but did not stop to comment or advise me that I was trying to put glass into the plastic machine. I lugged my huge bag of clanking glass bottles back to my apartment, truly tempted to just chuck them all into the recycling bin and forget about the Pfand (deposit) money, but they were too valuable so I carried them back to my third-floor apartment. I swallowed my pride and asked my German roommates, who told me "The glass machine is at the back of the store, silly!"

Cooking and baking with the metric system was strange. Our measuring equipment was in grams and milliliters, with different measurements used for flour, sugar, etc. I was lucky that our cupboards also contained American measuring cups, and I mostly stuck to those. It took me almost two months to brave using the oven, because it had really unintelligible settings without words, which were combinations of lines, squiggles, and triangles.

Honestly, words would have been much easier to translate than cryptic symbols. Where's "Bake" and "Broil"?

Getting on public transportation, I always struggled with whether or not to show the driver/conductor my ticket. Germany works on the honor system, where you just get on and only show your ticket if the conductor comes around. It's much faster and more efficient that way. But whenever I went to other countries, I never knew what I was supposed to do when I got on the bus. Whip out my ticket like a tourist, or risk being reprimanded. 

This is neither here nor there, but the local transit authority in Freiburg was abbreviated VAG. Us Americans loved it, and enjoyed posing by the bus stops that said "VAG" in huge letters, and joked about getting our hands on some VAG apparel. You can probably guess how we pronounced it. The Germans pronounced it by its letters, "V-A-G," "fowh-ah-gay." The VAG was one of the best things about Freiburg, truly. They were so cutting edge with green technology and ease of access and city planning. I wish everybody had a VAG.

On to the triumphs:

I never appreciated Germany so much as when I went to Italy. I don't speak a word of Italian, and of the places I visited, the Italians seemed to be the least likely to speak English. I spent several days in Rome, which honestly, I found to be dirty, poorly organized, and really overwhelming. Within 5 seconds of being in Rome, the economic status of the country became pretty clear to me. It just felt really clearly different from Germany. Their subways stopped running at 11:30pm, and did not have convenient stops near the major tourist destinations in the city, and I found their bus system to be poorly labeled. I just felt so helpless there, and getting lost was a lot scarier than it was in Germany. I flew from Rome to Berlin, and even though I had never been to Berlin before, it felt like I was coming home. Berlin opened its arms to me like an old friend, and even though the city itself is a giant, sprawling metropolis, it is held together by a complex, yet incredibly organized system of public transportation. After being in a place where I did not know the language, when I went to Berlin I suddenly had a lot more faith in my German skills. Anything was better than Italy, where I could barely even say "thank you." Nothing like being a fish completely out of water to make you appreciate what skills you do have. 

People.

I encountered several types of people in Germany.

The first were American tourists. Technically I was one of those, but I was a university student living with other German university students and had a mission to blend in and act "German." I also spoke German. Some of the other Americans in my program could be a little obnoxious at times, but nothing like some of the situations I witnessed. One of the main stereotype Germans have about Americans is that Americans are LOUD. And actually, loud we are. I can't tell you how many times I was on a train somewhere or out at night and encountered a really, really loud group of (usually drunk) Americans bragging about stupid things or just being generally embarrassing. Sometimes they seemed just really uninterested in local culture--I think probably because lots of young people travel/study abroad to drink and party, and really take advantage of the super young drinking age in Germany.

And then, there were the Erasmus students. Prior to moving to Germany, I had never heard of Erasmus before, but it's basically EU study abroad. It stands for European Community Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students, and is an exchange program to encourage university students to travel and study in other countries in the European Union. I met a bunch of them in my German classes at the Uni, and they all lived together in one of the student housing areas called the StuSie. They quickly banned together and formed a pretty formidable group: students from England, Scotland, Belgium, Italy, and France mostly. The UK kids dominated. Erasmus seems like a crazy party semester, and when the Erasmus kids took over bars, they took over bars. They came to Vaubar, the small bar next door to me, and drank them out of alcohol on more than one occasion. I thought Americans were obnoxious partiers, but Erasmus students are on a pretty equal level. My Erasmus friends also went on several crazy party trips, to Prague and also to Greece...regrettably I couldn't go on either of those trips for one reason or another, but something tells me I might not have survived at the pace at which they partied. Seriously intense.

Freiburg also had a pretty decent population of students from Spain. Germany is pretty much single-handedly holding up the EU economy right now, and my interpretation of the situation is that lots of people from Spain are funneling into Germany to get a better education and a good job. They don't necessarily speak German, either. Most speak more English than German.

And then, there are the Japanese exchange students. They throw up peace signs next to their faces in every picture, and they take a lot of pictures. There were more students from Japan than any other country in my month-long Sprachkurs (language course) that I took at the university before the semester began. A lot of them were very shy, much moreso than the Europeans. They liked to travel in packs.

Only Americans

Sometimes weird stuff happened to me because I was American. People treated me differently, or asked me really pointed questions, one of which was:

"But why Germany? Why would you want to come here?"

I could never tell if they were just really self conscious about what people thought about Germans, or if they thought their country was really boring, or if it was some kind of test.

Second to that was:

"Do you have a gun?"

No comment.

And a small thought on geography:
And they say Americans are the worst at geography, but the average European I met thought that New York automatically meant the city, or that I was near it. Nope. Also, Connecticut? Forget about it. My German roommates only knew about Connecticut because they watched Gilmore Girls.

Learning from the Language Barrier

When I studied in Freiburg, I was required to take a three week long, pre-semester German intensive class at SLI (SprachLehrInstitut) to immerse me in the language. I had to take a very official, scary online placement exam prior to leaving the US, which put me in the intermediate-advanced level, in some grand, official spectrum of language knowledge.

When I showed up to my first German class, I had no idea what to expect. There were about 20 of us, and I was with a couple of other American students in an IES program, an American exchange student, a British girl, a Scottish girl, a girl from Bolivia, a guy from Brazil, a handful of Japanese girls, a French guy, a Swiss (French-speaking) girl. A lot of people knew English but some didn't, and that's where things got really interesting. German was our only universal common language, so we had to do the best we could. The teacher, Uta, was a really kind, nurturing, kindergarten-teacher type, who was always very patient and understanding. We had a textbook, but Uta asked us all to weigh in on what we wanted to learn and what we needed the most help with (grammar, speaking, etc.) so we got to direct the class. The biggest assignment was a Referat on a topic of our choice, a 10-15 minute oral presentation with a question and answer period after. 

In my German courses at home in the US, it's easy to use your native language as a crutch and just say the English word when you can't think of the German one and the other person will instantly understand what you're trying to say. But when you're working on an assignment with a French guy who does not speak English and you don't know the German word and are struggling to describe it using other German words...then what happens? You reach this weird sort of impasse and it's one of the most awkward experiences I've ever had. Giving up mid-conversation is a really strange experience. Sometimes you both laugh and acknowledge how difficult it is to converse in each other's second language. It makes you feel closer to the other person, and also farther apart. You realize you are structurally limited from being able to understand this person completely. There are charades and smiles and descriptive attempts, but at some point you realize you may just never be able to properly explain something to them, or them to you. It's a really humbling and humanizing experience, and one I took with me all throughout my travels. 

You realize what you take for granted. I was having a conversation with the Brazilian guy about what we did in our spare time, and was amazed that we both read Game of Thrones but also amazed that he had no idea about a lot of classical British literature...I was struggling to explain Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte to him. And then I thought, well, duh, these books aren't in his native language and don't play any role in his culture really, so why should he know about them? 

The Referats were one of the most interesting and informative projects I've ever done. Uta suggested that we each do a Referat on an interesting topic on our own countries or experiences, so we could better understand each other. I learned some incredible stuff. I learned about the food in different regions of France, about how to play rugby, someone's experience working for a suicide hotline, someone's experience living in Russia for a year and traveling on the Trans-Siberian Railway, the higher education system in Bolivia, the education system of Germany versus Japan...and I myself presented on CSA programs and the local food movement in the US. The SLI class was my first time really learning about the educational systems in other countries, and because we had such a wide range of countries (and continents: 4!) represented, we talked about it a lot. I was absolutely floored at how different the US is to everywhere else, and how it costs astronomically higher here than anywhere else that I've learned about. In some places, it doesn't even cost anything.

Education became one of my favorite topics to talk to people about throughout my five months of travel. My Spanish friend complained that 800 Euro a year was too expensive, the Japanese people complained that $10,000 was expensive, the Germans protested when their university costs jumped from 400 to 500 Euros, and my Danish friend told me that Denmark pays him to go to college. Nobody believed me when I told them my university (before financial aid) costs $50,000 a year. WHAT?  

Talking to people from different other countries has been the single most educational experience of my life. Through my conversations with people, either in their native countries or places were we were both foreigners, I learned so much more about life and the world than I have in my more than 17 years in a classroom. I learned about some amazing differences in government and educational systems, culture and food traditions, parts of histories that were definitely absent from my textbooks, and most importantly, how despite all of that, we are so remarkably similar in our thoughts and hopes and fears. 

Klasse 7 at the closing reception for our class. Free champagne and pretzels!

Before I studied abroad, I'm not sure I knew what happiness actually was.

The Alps Changed Me.

It was impossible not to fall head over heels for the landscape. The sights speak for themselves.

These are the best days of my life.

Hands down.
Going to Germany is the best decision I have ever made. I feel free, I feel independent, and for the first time in a long time, I am happy. College has really beaten me down and depressed me and made me lose my way, but coming here, and being in Europe, I know everything is going to be okay. If I can make it through weird and awkward situations in foreign country, I can do anything. Nobody is here to hold my hand.

I'm not shy about admitting that I deserve this. I have earned my happiness and freedom. I've earned my right to let loose and let life take the wheel instead of letting academia rule my life. I think I'm doing fine in school here, because I'm still me, but I don't spend a lot of time worrying about it. I have a healthier relationship with school here, because school isn't the center of my life here. Life is more important. I'm actually living.

Random Bits of German Life

I never fail to notice the little tiny differences and nuances of life in Germany.

On the computer, everything on the Internet defaults to German. I miss being able to search American Google. Typing English phrases into German Google does not yield the same results. All of my Facebook ads are also in German, and so are Youtube ads. Not a lot of Youtube videos work here either, which is a bummer.

German computers are also just different enough to be really annoying. They have extra keys for special characters, which is great, but for whatever reason the "Y" and "Z" keys are switched so I always get really confused when typing.

I like how you get on any mode of transportation and don't have to show your ticket (except the night buses). Everything is so much faster and more efficient that way. There's no waiting to get on the bus. Honor system for the win. And for the record, I threw down 70 Euro for the Semester Ticket. I'm all for supporting public transportation and will not play "dumb American" and ride without a ticket until I get caught.

There is no service anywhere. Or at least, waiters never come to you. You have to actively flag them down to place your order and get the check. Maybe it's because they don't work for tips here. It's very different and even pleasant to not be constantly hawked over by a tip-hungry waitress.

This one isn't about Germany, but did you know Switzerland (or Swizzerland, as my ever-amusing professor likes to spell it) is abbreviated "CH?" I kept getting confused by it so I looked it up, and it's the abbreviation for the Latin Confoederatio Helvetica. Because Switzerland has four national languages, they decided to choose their official name in Latin, a neutral language. And the font Helvetica= Switzerland. Cool stuff.

I still do not understand why every beverage, including water, has to be fizzy.
I also still do not understand why it's frowned upon to ask for tap water.

The German grading system. Is different. It goes by numbers  and fractions and (1-5) and the lower, the better. Sort of like golf. Also, Europeans are apparently more interested in how many ECTS credits they get for a class than the actual grade. Or something.

Easter Sunday Thoughts

It's Easter. I meant to go to a mass in the Freiburg Muenster because when else am I going to have the opportunity to go to Easter mass in a Medieval catherdral in Europe but...I was out late last night, daylight savings time happened, and I needed to catch up on sleep for my trip to Switzerland tomorrow. Maybe next Easter.

I just looked up and was greeted with a wonderful gift: some hints of blue sky peeking out from behind the clouds. This is the so-called "Sunniest City in Germany" on climate change. I've heard a little bit of buzz about this has been the longest winter in some time. It's so gray and has either been raining or snowing almost every day. I walked the hour or so from Stusie back to Vauban last night in the snow. I'm from New England and don't mind cold or weird weather, I just somehow expected it to be more spring-like here.

Lots of things happened. Blogging isn't always at the front of my mind, especially between uploading pictures to Facebook and then uploading them all onto a separate Shutterfly site so my parents can see them.

My European life so far is unreal. Every week my Environmental Studies class has gone on a field trip somewhere. Two weeks ago we went up to Feldberg, the highest mountain in the Black Forest and the highest non-Alps point in Germany, and snowshoed to the summit. There was almost 2 meters of snow there and we were more or less hiking in a blizzard. It was honestly kind of hard to pay attention to what our professor was saying, which made writing my field trip report a bit difficult. Snowshoeing itself was super fun and also a great workout. I'd never done it before! I can check another new life experience off my list.

I really enjoy learning about the local environment here, because it is so drastically different from America. There have been people intensely managing, farming, and settling the land here for thousands of years. Yes we have the Native Americans in America, but that was fewer people spread out over a giant continent. Discrediting the Native Americans goes against my minor and a lot of my education, and I don't mean to belittle them or anything, but in Europe it's just different. You can see the culture and the history carved into the landscape a lot clearer than you can in America. To learn that the beautiful Black Forest was all intensely cut and grazed by humans and their cattle for thousands of years is mindblowing. All of the beautiful spruce trees that make up the forest today were plantations planted by humans. Even aged monocultures. How tragic, how sad. A lot of the forests around are about as old as World War II, because Germany had to give a lot of wood to France as reparations. There is no "wilderness" here, and there hasn't been since before Roman influence. My professor was throwing out some random forest facts in class the other day, such as the fact that before Roman influence, the Mediterranean area was roughly 90% forested, and after the Romans, it was only about 10% forested. So when the Romans came to Southeast Germany and saw the intense forests there, they named them "Silva Nigra" (Black Forest) and set to work settling.

This past Tuesday our class took a trip to Kaiserstuhl, a low volcanic mountain range in the Upper Rhine Valley. Germany has volcanoes? Mind continually blown. Kaiserstuhl was all of these beautiful connected hills with forests on top, grasslands on the hillsides, terraced vineyards on the gentle slopes, and fruit orchards on the valley floor. Without human influence it would be almost completely forested, but humans have created such a diverse mosaic of ecosystems there that they now manage it to keep the grasslands, even though they don't need them for hay anymore. I can't wait to go back in warmer weather and have a picnic and watch the bee eaters and Peregrine falcons hunt.

Last Saturday I took a trip to Basel with the Sprachlerninstitut where I take German language classes. It was under an hour by train, and free because it's part of the regional transportation area covered by my RegioKarte! And of course, like most trips I've taken since coming to Europe, it was cold and rainy. After a cold walking tour of the old city (in German, the only common language of my group of international students), my friends and I took refuge in a Museum cafe. I was glad I packed myself a sandwich, because Switzerland is expensive. My friends got bowls of soup for the equivalent of 10,5 Euro. I got myself a cup of Swiss hot chocolate, which was definitely worth it. We did some shopping around, including an inevitable visit to a Swiss chocolatier where I bought some divinely good truffles. Afterward we met up with our tour group again to climb the spires of Basel's Muenster.

I feel like a lot of European tourism is more or less climbing a dark, scary Medieval structure and seeing amazing views of city skylines and the surrounding landscapes. That's what the Muenster was, but it was AWESOME. It made the whole trip worth it for me. Seeing "Big Basel" and "Little Basel," the two parts of the city separated by the River Rhine, cobblestone squares, markets, and the wonderful red roofs of Europe everywhere. Somehow some of my friends ended up on one of the church towers, and the rest of us ended up on the other tower, and so we were having a great time shouting to each other and taking pictures of each other in the middle of the sky.

If you ever want to see more photos, head on over to my Shutterfly account. Link is on the left
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Sunday Reflections

Some days I look out my window and find it hard to believe that I'm really here. I'm used to the way the cars look here, and the sounds of the tram passing in the distance, and to the construction outside of my window, and the Black Forest hills. Sometimes I look out my window and feel like I could be anywhere.

Today I had a lazy Sunday, slept in late like I would have if I was back at school in Ithaca, and more or less just lay in my bed and watched Netflix. I made a huge pot of lentil soup, which really made it feel like home. It also made me miss my mom, because she makes lentil soup all of the time. I haven't left my apartment or made any human contact today, but it's actually been kind of nice.

My weeks are pretty crazy ups and downs of being busy and staying in.

Thursday afternoon my environmental studies class went on a field study trip to Buchswald down on the Swiss border. It was about an hour's drive in a cute little bus, and dropped us off in this cute little German town. Up on the hills, we could see the outskirts of Basel across the River Rhine, which was pretty cool, because I haven't been to Switzerland yet (but might make a day trip this weekend!). It was pretty chilly, but it was mostly sunny except for some occasional snow showers. Buchswald is a boxwood forest, one of the only places where box trees grow in Germany. We've been learning about the history of box in Germany in classes, and it's actually pretty interesting. Boxwood is an extremely dense wood, used for thousands of years to make tool handles and was heavily exploited in the 19th century for spindle production. At one point it was worth more than gold per kilogram. Local people used to use it for Easter wreaths decorations because it is an evergreen and one of the only green plants at this time of year. The actual Buchswald was a little bit depressing, because it's fallen victim to the Buchsbauzuensler, a pest from China, so a lot of the foliage has been eaten off of the trees.

We saw how Buchs grows differently in different microclimates in the area, and worked on a little bit of dendochronology, and took our first tree core sample. Overall the trip wasn't too academic, we just hiked around the woods observing and listening to our professor's occasional lectures, which are always peppered by amusing English mistakes or strange pronunciations. (When looking at tree rings through a magnifying glass, he told us, "Make sure you put your ear right up to the glass so you can see everything!"). It was a good day. A few of us tried to work on our German homework during the busride, but it was hard to tear my eyes away from the window, because the beautiful German countryside going by was too nice to resist.

Thursday night I went out with two of my roommates, Carrie and Fidi, because it was Fidi's last night in Freiburg before she goes away to visit family for three weeks. We started at Mudom, the student bar (you can't get in without a student ID!), and when that closed we went out to LP, a little hole in the wall place that was packed and played the weirdest collection of music, from 90s German rap, to Sublime, to Foo Fighters, and some borderline heavy metal songs. A lot of Fidi's friends from the rugby team followed us there from Mudom, and they were fun to hang out with, despite the language barrier. We were out pretty late, caught a cab back to Vauban and then just hung out in the kitchen for a little bit until we all turned in for the night.

So naturally, Friday was a little rough. I came home from German class and took a nap for longer than I had slept for. As much as I wanted to go out, I decided to stay in for my own health and sanity.

Refeshed on Saturday morning, I took my relaxation a step further and visited the Keidel Thermal-Mineral Baths in Freiburg with some friends. I wasn't totally sure what to expect, but when I got there, it was a sunny paradise of indoor and outdoor pools, all filled with natural mineral water and at varying warm temperatures. There were people napping in chairs in a sunroom, people swimming, relaxing in hot tubs, and floating along on the little lazy river. We checked our stuff into lockers, changed into our swimsuits, and joined the locals in the pools. We started inside, and swam through a little door flap into the adjoining outdoor pool. I expected it to not be open or pleasant at this time of year, but I was wrong! The water was wonderfully warm, and there was lots of steam rising off the surface into the cool but sunny day. We spent a few wonderfully relaxing hours lazing around in the pools outside, enjoying the water jets and the hot tub area.

We had paid for the sauna as well, so we decided to go and check that out. I'd heard about how Europeans tend to be in the nude at these kinds of things, and well, those whisperings were right. There were nude people everywhere, being very casual about it, not embarrassed or trying to hide or anything at all. Enter my biggest cultural experience so far. We weren't quite sure how to approach this, and couldn't find any signs anywhere that said clothes were or were not required, so we attempted to go the saunas in our bathing suits. A woman who worked there came by and said something to us, to the effect of, "clothes are not allowed."

What to do? Well, we paid for the sauna portion, we reasoned, so we might as well just suck it up and stop being prude Americans and go get our money's worth. So, we stripped down, hung up our bathing suits, and walked through the place in just towels until we chose a sauna. They had probably six or so different saunas in that area of the spa, at varying temperatures and humidities. It was really weird at first and we tried hard not to be so embarrassed or giggly, but we were Americans after all, and this was our first time doing such a thing. We went into a few different saunas and ended up really enjoying ourselves.

A few people in my group went for a swim in one of the pools, while the rest us went outside and explored the saunas out there. One of them smelled like lemongrass, and one of them had these big windows looking out on the property. After some amount of time, we strolled over to the restaurant in just our towels and ordered some freshly squeezed juice, which seemed very appropriate for a spa. I then put my bathing suit back on, then lay out under some heat lamps, went for another swim. After four hours at the spa, we called it a day.

I had a great time at the mineral baths. Not only was it a great experience doing something very out of my comfort zone, it was the most relaxing day I've ever had. Just floating around in deliciously warm pools filled with healing minerals, not paying attention to the time. It was definitely worth the 17,50 we paid for entry. And I will be back.

Last night was St. Patrick's day Saturday, but the Irish pubs here had been full since before dinner, so I didn't even attempt to go. I went out with some friends to a place called Schmitz Katze instead, and since we got there freakishly early for some reason, it took awhile before it started to get crowded and interesting. The place was huge though! They had an outdoor patio (too cold), a bar area, a little upstairs dance area with a DJ booth, and then another room with a huge dance floor, another bar, and another DJ. It was pretty neat. I had a good time, and was also admittedly looking forward to spending all of the next day in bed.

I really should do some homework now.
I have to give a presentation in German on Wednesday and I have no idea what topic to make it on. It can be anything, but I want it to be interesting and relevant, because my class is all international students. My German speaking skills are also nicht so gut. I'm actually terrified. So I just haven't done anything yet.

Someday I will post shorter posts more often, but for now, long posts seem to be the way to go.
Goodnight!

My new home

Freiburg is a great little city.

I live in Vauban, an environmentally-friendly neighborhood of student housing and co-ops. Colorful buildings, very few cars, and bikes as far as the eye can see. I live in a reclaimed French military barracks (presumably because this was in the French occupied zone) in a flat of six people: 4 Germans and one other American. My American flatmate is also studying here through IES, but she is in the EU program, so she has already been here for two months and isn't home a lot because her program travels all over the EU. My German flatmates seem super cool, they all speak English well and I hope to someday be able to talk to them in German sometimes too. They know a lot of American TV shows (they love the OC, Gossip Girl, and know Connecticut from Gilmore Girls) and music: I've heard them listening to Taylor Swift and Mat Kearney, among other things. My male flatmate likes Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings. We've already had some great conversations about entertainment, food, politics, and cultural differences, and I think I'm going out to a rugby party with a few of them this weekend. I'm excited to get to know them.

We each have our own bedroom, and mine came furnished with a bed, linens (all they have for sheets here is a flat sheet and a duvet, it's kind of weird to get used to. Even at IKEA they didn't sell regular sheets), a desk with chair and lamp, a bookcase, a mirror, and a wardrobe with a safe. It has nice wood floors, a high ceiling, an old radiator, and a huge window that has these very industrial German blinds outside that you crank up and down. The windows also open multiple ways: you can open them inward like doors, or you can crack them at the top by tilting them inward. My room is a bit hospital-white right now, and I'm sad that I seem to have forgot to pack my stack of pictures from home. They would have brightened up my walls nicely. My friends and I have figured out an easy, free way to decorate though. There are event posters EVERYWHERE in Freiburg: buildings, bus stops, doors, handrails, you name it. And we kindly wait until the day of the event or the day after, rip it off, and take it home.

My flatmates and I all share a kitchen and various bathrooms: we have two shower rooms and a bathroom with two stalls. Lots of things are different here. We share two small refrigerators, and one is little more than a glorified mini-fridge. The oven is in Celsius (obviously) and has lots of weird pictures on it instead of words so I have to figure out how to use it. The bathroom stalls go all the way to the floor, unlike in America where you see people's feet and can sometimes nearly see over the top. The toilets have buttons on the wall to flush them, and the flushes are customizable. Some places have the 1 or 2 flush option that I've seen a few times in America, but most, like in my flat, have a button where you press one side to flush and the other side to stop, so the flush is exactly the length you need.

There is also LOTS of recycling here. I'm a big recycler at home but everything we have is single-stream so I don't even think about it. Here, there is a bin for paper, bins for glass (further separated by color), a bin for organic waste, a bag for plastic/combined materials/metal packaging, and the Restmuell bin for the rest of the stuff that doesn't fit anywhere else and is trashed. Recycling is free here, and trash pickup is very expensive, so there is big incentive to recycle.

There are three grocery stores in walking distance from my building. Aldi, Rewe, and a natural grocery store called AlNatura. I have Aldi at home so I know a little bit about German grocery shopping, but I didn't realize that every store here is like that: you have to pay a deposit to get a shopping cart (which gives you the incentive to put your cart back in its proper place to get your money back) and you have to bring your own bags with you. If you forget them, you can buy paper or plastic bags at the store, but it seems frowned upon. Also no one bags for you. The checkout line can get kind of intense as you are trying to pay the cashier and bag your stuff at the same time so you're not holding up the line. Germans also seem to make small, frequent shopping trips. I haven't seen anyone stocking up with a huge cart full of stuff like I would in the US, but I guess it makes sense considering the small fridges and the fact that almost everyone here uses public transportation to get places.

As a "green city," not as many people drive cars in Freiburg. There are bikes EVERYWHERE. Thousands and thousands of bikes: parked at the train station, under beautiful bike shelters at the University and at Oikos (one of the student dorms), along rails at Vauban, and on the streets. I plan on getting a bike, but first I have to figure out how to ride in the city. In some areas, bikes have their own lane, sometimes they ride with the cars and follow all of the same rules for stoplights, and sometimes they are allowed on sidewalks. It seems really confusing, but driving seems worse. I don't think I could drive here. I've seen lots of people driving on things that I didn't think were roads, so I don't even know. The pedestrian rules are kind of weird too, drivers don't necessarily stop for you, and apparently Germans aren't big jaywalkers. My chances of being hit by something in my four months here are pretty big: be it a bike, a car, or the almost silent trams, there is always so much to look out for on the roads and sidewalks.

Most people travel by tram here. I bought a Regiokarte that's good for all trams, buses, and some regional trains for a month to get around. I take the tram to school and basically everywhere else. The trams have tracks in the middle of the road and they are really quiet. Public transportation in Germany seems to run on the honor system: you just hop on the tram or bus anywhere you want, and don't have to show your ticket to anybody. Apparently ticket controllers come around and check at random, but it hasn't happened to me yet. The punishment for traveling without a ticket is a steep 40 Euro, and if you have a transportation pass and just forgot it that day, you can go to the transportation office within 24 hours and show it to them and the fine is only 7 Euro. Good to know.

Meine Reise

I should probably start this blog before too many things happen and I forget to write about them.

So...I'm in Germany. Today is my fifth day in Freiburg.

Getting here was honestly probably one of the most challenging things I've ever done in my life. For the first time ever, I was really truly alone and had to figure out what to do with no possibility of help. I have never left the country before, have been on a plane only once (almost 10 years ago), have never taken a train, and have never hailed a taxi, so God help me. When I lay it all out like that, I sound really sheltered. 

I'm going to chronicle my journey in this post. It's going to be really long, so be warned. Read it...or don't.

I left my house last Wednesday morning in a nice black sedan driven by a stranger. My parents hired a car service to take me to JFK to spare them the trouble of driving to the city, which I can understand I guess. In retrospect it was probably better that way because it would have been harder to say goodbye at the airport. It was an ugly, rainy day and when I got to the airport, I had no idea what to do. At the airport, everyone is doing their own thing and just assumes you're doing yours, but I really wanted someone to notice me and tell me what to do. I had to ask everyone at the counters what was going on (what is this ticket? where does my baggage go? where is the gate? what is the gate?) and fumbled my way through JFK. The international area where I was was pretty much already another country; not many people around me spoke English and no one else in my line at security had a USA passport. I had no idea what to do at security where you take all of your stuff out in bins, and just stood there until a TSA guy came and asked him what to do. I was so flustered with all of the bins and stuff that I didn't even take my bag of liquids out of my carry-on, and you know what? Nothing even happened.

After that I made my way to my gate, stopping through all of the weird duty-free shops and overpriced newsstands. When I got to the gates, I didn't know if you were allowed to sit down anywhere you wanted or  if you had to check in or something first. When I sat down and no one arrested me, I figured I was alright. No one sitting near me spoke English, they were all speaking German: families, a man on a phone, a cluster of Orthodox Jewish men in all black. I felt pretty alone.

Eventually it was time to board, and when I got on the plane, I mistakenly thought the seats were going to be okay, but silly me, it's because you have to walk past business class to get to economy class. When I saw the seats in my section, I almost laughed out loud at how cramped they looked. I arranged my stuff in my window seat (my neighbor hadn't boarded yet) and got settled. Meanwhile, the cabin filled with Orthodox Jews. I seemed to be sitting in a giant cluster of them: old men, middle-aged men, teenagers, all speaking German. I had no problem with it, it was just interesting. I've hardly ever flown before, let alone flown on a flight filled dominated  by one group of people. Little did I know how much more interesting things would get on the flight.

It appeared that my seatmate was going to be young teenager from their clan, but he remained standing and talking with his group. I got up to use the bathroom before the plane took off, and on my way there, one of the Jewish men stopped me and said "What are you doing? Are you going to move your seat?" and I was totally off guard and said "No, I'm going to the bathroom!" and he pointed to an empty window seat across from the plane and said, "If I ask that man if he minds, will you move your seat over there?" and I was like "Ummm maybe, I'm going to the bathroom now, bye." But he wasn't taking no for an answer and as I went to shut the door he said, "OK, I will go and ask him right now. I'll tell you what he says when you come out."  As I was in the bathroom I was trying to process what had just happened. He didn't give any reason why he wanted me to change my seat, and I was thinking of all of the possibilities (which were probably ridiculous anymore): I'm coincidentally interrupting their group's seating plan, they're not allowed to sit with women, maybe I smell bad or something? I wished I had stood up for myself, but I had been in stress mode for 24 hours in anticipation of leaving and was too nervous and alone to do anything gutsy.

I got out and sure enough, the guy was right there and told me it was ok for me to go. I felt sort of hurried to get out of my seat (and accidentally left my pillow there, a huge regret) and grabbed all of my stuff, wanting to get away as soon as possible. As I went to reach for my bag in the overhead compartment, the guy said, "It's okay, you can leave it here. It's fine." and I was like uhhh, whatever, and left it there, not thinking about how that moment would agonize me for hours afterward. And of course, as I was awkwardly moving to the other side of the plane, the flight attendants yelled at me and told me to sit down so we could start taxi-ing. I shrugged at my new neighbor, a kindly older German man, and he seemed cool with it. I told him that I was probably going to get up and get my other bag at some point, and he said that was fine

The plane took off, and I started playing around with the tv screen on the back of the seat in front of me. I tried to watch Lincoln, but couldn't handle it because the plane was loud, people were talking loudly, and I just could not hear all of the softspoken dialogue of the movie through the crappy over-ear airplane headphones. I soon gave up on watching anything, and just started out the window for awhile. The gears were turning in my head about how to get my backpack from the other side of the plane, and how to time it with a bathroom break so as not to get up a bunch of times and annoy my neighbor, and I realized I was going to have to wait at least a couple of hours.

Lufthansa actually served a lot of food and drinks, and came around with drinks multiple times, snacks, dinner, and even breakfast at 4AM. The food service was constantly interrupted by our Jewish friends, however. There were at least 40 of them in my cabin, no joke. Twice they all got up, put their hats and overcoats and everything on if they had taken any of it off, and prayed. Imagine men in black lining both aisles of the plane, all the way up and down the cabin, and praying, rocking back and forth on their heels. It was honestly a little bit unnerving. And after they prayed, it was like social hour, and a bunch of them would remain standing and talk to their buddies. This made it difficult for the flight attendants to serve food and drinks, and they actually had to make multiple announcements over the PA system to tell them to sit down. It also made it very hard for anyone to go to the bathroom. I was waiting for a good time to get up and reclaim my bag, but between dinner and drinks and prayer, there was just never a time when the aisles were clear. So I could not relax. I wanted to sleep but wanted to make sure I had my bag in my sight before I did. Eventually, after dinner, my neighbor got up, and so did I, and I went on my mission and got my backpack. Of course the overhead compartment was full so I had to shove my backpack underneath the seat in front of me, which I didn't think would be a big deal until I realized that it cut my legroom down by about 50%. (By the way, the man who had asked me to change my seat was sitting in my seat when I got back. He seemed to be the father of the boy next to him, which  made me feel a little better about switching with him. Also I was spared the worst of the praying on my side. Maybe they just wanted to sit together, and also wanted to spare me from being alone in their giant cluster.) 

So, after finally having completed my mission, I allowed myself to sleep. Except I couldn't get comfortable. And I was no longer sleepy at all. I tossed and turned, and dozed for about a total of 30 minutes. I watched that dumb Will Ferrell/Zach Galifianakis movie The Campaign because it was the only thing I could handle, and then went nuts because after that was over I still had over 3 hours left to go. I have no idea how I made it through the rest of the flight, so cramped and uncomfortable and anxious and fidgety, but eventually it was 6am and I was finally in Frankfurt.

I all but ran off the plane, eager to get away from that crazy experience and get on with my day. I had twelve hours until my orientation started, and it was going to be the longest day of my life. I just wanted to make it to the train so I could sleep.

FRA was huge. I walked like 4 miles to baggage claim, where luckily my bags were right there and I got them without a hitch. I figured out that you go to customs next, which for me, apparently went nothing, because I had nothing to declare. Some German police officer stamped my passport and that was it. I saw signs for Bahnhofs (train stations) and was hoping that also meant Fernbahnhof (long-distance trains) and walked like another 3 miles inside the airport. I started seeing Deutschebahn ticket kiosks and it took me a few tries to realize that some of them only sold regional train tickets. 

I also wanted desperately to call my parents and tell them I arrived, because I knew my mom was going to be up all night waiting for me to contact them and tell them I'd arrived safely. But my stupid iPhone got no service anywhere, there was also no Internet, and no apparent way to be able to contact anyone from the airport. As I made my way towards the Fernbahnhof, I kept seeing these TMobile payphones, and decided to just try one. I could not figure out what they said (it was all in German, and my subject-specific German is not good at all.) so I gave up. Then I resolved to try the next one, which was broken and didn't take my credit card. Then I tried the next one, miraculously made it through about thirty digits of dialing, and then the operator told me the first minute would cost 17, 5 Euro, not including additional fees. I was disgusted and hung up, hoping I'd find another way somehow.

I managed to buy a direct ticket to Freiburg at an electronic kiosk without any hassle, other than the fact that my printed ticket had almost no information about time or track or platform on it at all. I was able to print the itinerary information from the ticket kiosk, and had about 45 minutes until my train. I knew I had to call my mom, because it was already 2 hours later than I told her I'd call, and I knew when I got on the train that was another 2 hours I'd be unlikely to be able to contact her, so I sucked it up and used the ridiculously expensive TMobile payphone. It was the most expensive phone call I'd ever made in my life. 

After that, I made my way down through what I hoped was my track. It had taken me all day to master taking an escalator while rolling two suitcases, but by that point I had gotten it down. I went down to the track,  hoping to see a DB helpdesk or my train on the board or some reassuring sign, but it was cold and dark and not many people were around. I was terrified of missing my train, so I actually went all the way back upstairs and double checked with someone at the DB infodesk, and it turns out I was right, so I went back down. Lots of people had gathered on the platform, and I tried to figure out where on the platform to stand, but instead I just tried to stand near someone with a lot of luggage to figure out where to put it all when you get on the train. They kept making announcements over the PA system, first in German, then in really-hard-to-understand English, saying that my train was running late. Then they made one that I didn't catch, and everyone at the platform got up and started walking away. I had no idea what was going on, but I figured I should follow them, and they were going up the stairs and presumably across the station to the other side of the tracks (I figured that much out: my train was coming in on another track because it was late). Of course the escalator was broken now, and I didn't want to take the elevator and risk losing everyone, so it was the stairs. There was me, lost, nervous American girl trying to carry two really heavy bags up three stories in a giant crowd of fast-moving people, one step at a time. I was worried I would not be able to do it and just die there on those stairs. And then some German businessman grabbed my big bag and lugged it up the stairs, and all I could do was just keep saying "Vielen Dank!" because I couldn't think of anything else to say.

I hoped that all of my troubles would end them, but nope. The train came, and it seemed that people left their large suitcases at the end of the car, so I did that. I had on my backpack and was wheeling my carry-on behind me, and suddenly realized I had no idea where to sit. I had read about the DB reservation system but didn't think it would be so scary in person: each seat had a little screen above it with its reservations : Mannheim-Karlsruhe, Frankfurt-Offenberg, Karlsruhe-Basel, etc. I couldn't find seats without reservations above them, and there were people in front of and behind me so I just had to keep walking. I asked a woman if I could sit next to her, before I realized it was reserved, and the young girl in front of me told me I could sit next to her (I think), so I followed her all the way through the train, a few cars down, and then realized she had a reserved seat. I didn't really know what was happening, and eventually I lost her, and a few people said things to me in German that I couldn't understand, and I just felt so helpless. Eventually I made it to a car with more empty seats, and sat down because I didn't know what else to do. I saw a conductor checking tickets and waited for her so I could ask her what to do, but she didn't speak much English and told me that I just had to look at the reservations and figure out when I could sit there. I might have to bounce around seats as people with reserved seats later on the route got on the train. I realized I had no idea what the order of stops was (and had no way to find out: no WiFi, no maps posted, nothing) and had no way to figure out what reserved seats were safe to sit in. By this point, my baggage was also spread out all across the train: my big bag was 4 cars away, my backpack was in another place, my carry on was in another. I started going on missions through the train to figure out where to sit, and came upon 2 seats that didn't have any reservations posted above them. Hoping they were safe and that I wouldn't get uprooted or arrested for sitting in them, I started having to go on little reconnaissance missions to check out the situation and bring all of my baggage to my new home base. But the aisles were just too narrow to get my big bag through, so I had to leave it where it was, cars away. 

The ICE train seats were nice and big and would have been great to sleep on, but I could hardly even enjoy watching the German countryside going by out the window. Once again, I had ended up in a strange situation where my stuff was not all safe and where I could see it, and where I didn't know what to do at all. I had already attracted enough attention to myself by getting up a bunch of times and dragging my stuff through the aisles, and was not about to try and ask anybody anything. I figured out that they made announcements about what time we would make it to the next stop, and when they said 20 minutes to Freiburg, I made a plan to get up early and drag all of my stuff to the front of the train where my big bag was hopefully still waiting. I kept seeing one of two worst-case-scenarios in my head: either I would get stuck on the train trying to make my way to last bag and the train would keep going and I would miss my stop, or I would make it off the train but not be able to grab my last bag before the doors closed and it drove away. Somehow none of that happened and I waited with all of my bags at the end of the train and managed to dump myself and all of my stuff out onto the cobblestones of the Freiburg Hauptbahnhof. 

Next, to find the taxi stand...

I struggled to drag my stuff around bumpy cobblestones until I realized I was going to have to go down a bunch of stairs, which was terrifying; trying to control a 50 pound bag and a 25 pound bag without losing control and falling down the stairs/re-dislocating my knee/etc. Somehow I did it and got a taxi in German.

The cab driver was trying to explain some situation to me: the road I was going was under construction so he could either drop me off a little before it and I would have to walk a few houses down, or he could drive all the way around to the other side and charge me more money. At least he was honest and considerate--I got off there and made my first transaction in Euro (and my first time not tipping anyone, because that's what you do, right?)

I made it to the IES Center, took a tiny elevator up to the third floor, and stumbled into the place. I was greeted by two people who told me I was the first to arrive! I was really tired and overwhelmed as they let me help myself to snacks and juice, and gave me information packets and tram passes and papers to sign. They told me I looked pretty fit or something, which I was very surprised at, because I figured I probably looked as nervous and exhausted and disgusting on the outside as I felt on the inside. I was only there for about 10 minutes, before they called me another taxi to take my to my new home. I was to report back there at 6:00 to meet everyone in the program for dinner.

We rolled up at what I guess was my neighborhood and I was met by Lovisa, my housing tutor (sort of like an RA I think) who showed me to my room. I live in Vauban, an especially hippie-ish, environmentally friendly, colorful area of Freiburg. My building is part of some old French military barracks (seeing as Freiburg was in the French occupied zone after the war) but looks pretty stately and nice, painted a nice slate blue. 

My flat is on the first floor (aka the second floor) of the building, and I met a few of my German roommates and closed myself into my room, excited to have my own sanctuary from humiliation at last, and even better, no obligation to be anywhere for the next 6 hours. 

And that was my journey here.

I start my German intensive tomorrow morning and really need to actually go to bed early because the lack of sleep for the last week is really starting to catch up with me, so I'll write more (more interesting stuff) tomorrow. Bis Spaeter!