So I made it. I’m here in Freiburg ,
currently sitting in a little café by the river, for once without a beer.
Though I’m sure by the end of this post that will have changed!
I arrived on Friday, accompanied by my lovely mother. It was
a pleasant change to not be travelling alone, and had the added bonus of
meaning I could pack a year’s worth of my stuff into two suitcases instead of
one. (To those of you planning on doing Erasmus I would definitely recommend
bringing someone with you for the first few days. That way, if you get lost in
your new home, at least you won’t be lost AND alone!).
Our accommodation (Hotel Sonne) is not too far from the
centre which is pretty handy, although the hotel is, in a nutshell, old and
basic. Never in my life have I seen so many brown tiles. But hey, the beds are
clean and the shower is warm so I guess I can’t really complain.
Our first night was pretty relaxed, mostly because I was so
tired. We ventured out from the hotel and ended up at Café Extrablatt - the
same little café I’m sitting in now, located right on the bank of the River
Dreisam. Naturally, it was the perfect moment for my first beer ;)
Somehow on the way back to the hotel I also managed to pick
up a bottle of Mezzo Mix (a brand of Spezi - which is basically a mix of coke
and fanta), and some Rittersport (chocolate produced in a little town near Stuttgart ). Not too bad
for my first day.
Day 2 was spent thoroughly exploring the town. I think all
in all we walked for about 6 or 7 hours, though my feet claim it was more. We
started off in the old town, dandering around shops, the Münster cathedral and
then the market beside it. I love the german markets, there’s so much fresh
produce, most of it from the Black Forest
which is just a stone’s throw away, and all pretty cheap considering the
quality. I’m already looking forward to spring so I can spend all my money on
cherries there!
We decided to take a little break in the AlteWach (Old watch
house), which is now pretty much a wine cellar, where I made my first, though
undoubtedly not last, little language slip-up. Here is the result:
I would explain what happened, but I think that takes the
fun out of things, and to be quite frank, I think it worked out for the better.
:P
After a most enjoyable little break, which also included
Flammkuchen and some very yummy pastries, we then headed to Karstadt to do what
every woman, regardless of nationality, should do at least once in their life –
try on a dirndl! I do actually intend to buy one myself, though I think I might
head to Stuttgart or Munich to do so, partially because there is a
very limited selection here, but mainly so I can then test it out at the Wasen (Octoberfest)
;)
The rest of the afternoon’s excursion had a more purposeful
goal – finding out exactly where I’m going to be living and checking out the
university. To be honest, the building I am going to be living in looks pretty
rubbish but that’s because it’s the oldest of the uni’s student accommodation.
Hopefully the renovated interior will be slightly nicer, although at this point
I don’t really care – I’m just happy to have somewhere to live (which didn’t
look likely until very, very, very, unnervingly recently)! And, on a positive
note, it’s beside a really nice park surrounding a lake, called Seepark (Lake Park
I can’t really comment upon the uni itself yet, but there will
be plenty of time for that over the course of the year.
After careful consideration, we headed back to the old town
for dinner, where we found a lovely restaurant beside the river (in case it’s
not blindingly obvious; I’m a big fan of anywhere that has a nice view).
Of
course I couldn’t resist ordering more of my favourite German specialities. It
was a hard decision but I ended up ordering the Schlemmerpfannle – which
included pork and steak fillets, Käsespätzle (like cheesy noodles?), and Pfifferlingrahmsoße
(creamy mushroom sauce). I don’t know what else to say except omnomnom. It’s a
good thing that the german lifestyle is so active or I could easily get very
fat very quickly!
We stopped off at the river cafe again for a coffee on the
way back. I’m not really sure how it happened, but we also appeared to have
walked into a time warp, because it was past 1am by the time we got back to the
hotel.
Mum left around 8:30 yesterday. I’m afraid to say I didn’t
even go to the train station with her because I was so tired, but hopefully she
is now safe and sound back at home in Belfast !
I felt a little lost after she left. The weather here has
been pretty foggy which makes it difficult to find the motivation to go out and
explore, although after a few hours napping in my new room at the hotel I did
go out and do that. I have no idea where the energy came from but I ended up
hiking up to a view point which overlooks the centre of Freiburg .
Good to know it’s bigger than I had originally thought.
I did go on a bit of a detour through the forest on the way
though, which is code for I got lost. I’m very good at getting lost in forests
– it’s a skill I picked up in Stuttgart .
I really don’t know how I managed it seeing as the path back down was pretty
much straight, but I suppose every once in a while it’s nice to take the scenic route ;)
The evening was equally idiosyncratic. My plan was to get a
pizza then head back to the hotel and finally get this blog online. I didn’t
remember seeing any pizza places near the hotel so my plan was to pick one up
from the centre and take a tram back. Unfortunately, I managed to miss the tram
by about 30 seconds, so ended up just walking. Needless to say, by the time I
got back it was disappointingly cold. To make matters worse, it was only then
that I realised, hiding in plain sight was a pizza place literally right next
door to the hotel. Definitely a palm in face moment.
I also didn’t get my blog online, as I’d hoped, as I managed
to leave the cable for my camera back in Belfast .
I guess this is not altogether unsurprising considering how I packed. Usually
it takes me hours, thinking through all the possible things I might need over
the coming months, and making the terrible decision of which shoes to leave
behind. This time however, I decided to be a little more laissez-faire. 15
minutes of pulling things out of my wardrobe (for my very kind mother to neatly
fold in my case) and I was done. It’s a little disconcerting as I’m not
entirely sure what I’ve brought with me, but all in all it was a much less
stressful process. I even got a good night’s sleep, whereas normally I would
have been lying in bed adding more things to my mental checklist.
I couldn’t possibly put my blog online without pictures so
today I decided it was time for a little shopping trip. The bad thing about
being in a new town is that I have no idea where to find what I need. It took
me 3 hours to find Saturn (the electronics shop). Admittedly, my search for an
electronic store did lead me into many a clothing and shoe store too. I may
have also wanted to try on a few more dirndls... After all that searching they
didn’t even have the cable I wanted. But I did manage to temporarily solve my
camera problem by buying a card reader instead. I also bought ankle boots and a
clock too. They didn’t really solve any problems, but they sure did make me
feel better ;)
Knowing my lack of observational skills and extreme ability
to get lost in forests I think my next investment is going to have to be a sim
card with a load of data so Google maps can come to the rescue.
Hopefully I’ve more than made up for the lateness of this
first installation.
I’m going to attempt to update this thing reasonably
regularly so feel free to register for email updates. Also comments and
questions are most welcome ;)
Tomorrow I move into my new home. Fingers crossed I survive
the trek across town with all my stuff!
Liebe Grüße,
