Exkursion Freiburg

So yesterday (Saturday for me), a bunch of us from the language course went to Freiburg in the Black Forest. The weather was perfect; the town was pretty. Here are about a thousand pictures from the trip.


Freiburger Münster (Cathedral of Freiburg)


I went on the German language tour (there was also an English one). The tour guide was nice, but very bad. She always talked insanely quietly, so no one could hear her. Then after she was done talking she would yell at us to catch up with her. Then when we actually got somewhere, we'd have to wait like a year and a half for her to start whispering again.


While we were in the Münster, they were having Youth Days or something, so there were a bunch of teenagers singing and leading service. The singing was terrifyingly bad.


So it was really loud in the cathedral, but our tour guide still wouldn't speak up. She did complain a bunch about how the children were ruining the Münster atmosphere.



This is inside a different church. It's Franciscan. I took this photo for you, mom - check out the icons.


We ate lunch at the Mensa in the University of Freiburg. It was a huge meal. This university, by the way, was founded before Columbus landed in America!


magnolias, apparently


They were having the weekly farmers' market on the Münsterplatz. That was a lot of fun. We got to wander around. I had gelato (€0,70!).


Rathaus (town hall), farmers' market (you can see an umbrella), fountain, and Münster


street musicians (I like this photo a lot. The guy with the head scarf or whatever reminds me of a Dürer painting. Or maybe a Vermeer.)


graffiti


photo of Erika and me


This is what the sidewalk in Freiburg looks like. Seriously, all over!


Do any of you remember the movie Miss Potter?


advertisements on the Münster
Three of us went back to see if the Münster had cleared out a bit.


It hadn't. Now they were having mass. Bad English cracks me up (and reminds me of my German).


last one - me in front of the Münster
This is number 6 in a series of about a dozen failed photos.

das Wochenende

Alright, so no pictures, because I'm just illegally using the library computers again, but brief summary of recent happenings:
Yesterday we went on an historical tour of the city. It's gorgeous (I think I might have mentioned that before...?), but I'll post pictures and more info tomorrow. (We're going to the Irish pub again tomorrow for half price burgers and an 8 euro pitcher of beer.)
After the tour, a friend called me on my brand-spanking new phone and the two of us decided to go on an "adventure" - we got on the very first bus we'd never been on before and rode it to a stop we'd never gotten off at before. Then we just explored. I bought some more very cheap stuff to make my room look less dismal, and we ran into a girl who's been helping us foreigners adjust. She's from some Central Asian republic and speaks Russian. She asked me to do a tandem partnership with her, with me teaching her English and her teaching me Russian. Sounds like a good deal to me! Plus she says I can get credit for it, which would be sweet.
After wandering around, we found a little restaurant called "Anna Maria Pizza Bar." The woman who works there speaks very little German and even less English. (She's from Italy.) She was very nice. She showed us pictures of Venice and told us stories in a mix of English, German and Italian. She told us how her brother's a gondolier and after 9/11 he bought American flags to hang around his gondola (she showed us pictures of that, too). We had gnocchi (€6,50) and gelato (€0,50!!!).
While we ate, I started a conversation with this old German man who was just sitting and drinking. He was also really nice and told us stories (in good Hochdeutsch) about his travels around the world.
After a while a bunch of people starting pouring in. And they all only spoke Italian! We realized we were in Constance's Little Italy (Kleinitalien). I spoke in Italian a bit, and then we headed out.
After that we met Chrissy, Kirsten and two German guys we'd met before near the train station (Bahnhof). We went to a pub called Heimat ("Homeland") and had some Raddler (a Bavarian specialty). After that we went back to their flat in Paradies - much nicer than Sonnenbühl Ost! - and just chilled for a while. We'd missed the last bus, so we had to call a taxi, which took forever to get in.
So that was the first "adventure" of the trip!

Oh, and one more thing before I close: I know I said it was chilly, but I didn't mean it comparatively. It's been in the 40s here all week, and today it's in the 50s. What temp is it back in MN? Yeah, Constance sounds pretty good right now, doesn't it?