um den Bodensee wandern, oder letzer Tag mit dem Eurailpass

Yesterday was my last day with the Eurail Pass. Technically I could still use it today, but I'm too tired from my adventure yesterday! So I took the train from Constance to Radolfzell, another small town on Lake Constance (der Bodensee in German). The trip took about a half and hour, and marked the beginning of another massive hike.


I started off mucking thru the forest along the Bodensee and wound up on the outskirts of Radolfzell when I finally managed to get out. I decided to just continue in that direction, having no clue where I was going, but I had the entire day free until 8 pm, so…


There's Radolfzell in the distance.


Following Lake Constance brought me to the even smaller town of Moos, which is really quaint - a close second to Egg for prettiest tiny German town.

Next I wandered thru Iznang, another small town, and continued along the way towards Horn.


Somewhere before Horn I got this photo. This plant is a so-called "living fossil" (I learned way more about plants in my Organismic Biology class than I did about animals). It's called a horsetail (Equisetum sp.), and split off from other plants before the evolution of seeds. In the Carboniferous period the Constance region was home to horsetails that grew as tall as trees (nearly 100 feet tall!), though now only one genus of horsetails survives.


Then I walked along a nature reserve (Naturschutzgebiet) on my way back to Radolfzell, where I bought waffles and whip cream - brunch today! - and took the train back to Constance.

Before I close, I want to ask a question: Yesterday I read about a book called The Third Policeman, and I was wondering whether any of you readers had heard of (or better yet, read) it? Anyone?

Feiertag! Warum? Einfach so :D

Yesterday was a holiday. No one knows why, but it makes sense, because we hadn't had one yet this week ;) So I had the day off, and decided to go hiking. But what was going to be a few hour stroll quickly turned into a full-blown, day-long adventure!


I made a map of the area (above) to give you a better idea of the area. I started out wandering thru the natural lands between Sonnenbühl Ost and the university, and then ended up going to Egg, to Mainau, and then finally to Litzelstetten, a little town about two hours by foot north of my dorm.


My trek took me along beautiful Lake Constance…


thru fields,


and the Black Forest…


to little Litzelstetten.
Of course, once I got to Litzelstetten, nothing was open, because it was a holiday. While in town, however, I did hear this amazing quote from a little girl (about 2 years old): She was pointing out people to her mom and telling her whether they were men or women. She pointed to me and said "Da ist ein junger Mann" - one point for her! Then a group of four people walked by. Her mom asked her, "And what about them?" And her response: "Da kommen zwei Männer und zwei Mauer!" apparently conflating the words for men (Männer) and women (Fraue) to produce the word for wall (Mauer) - ie, "Here come two men and two wall!" I got a bang out of that, and the mom had a hand over her face, cracking up, too!



I sat on a bench here and ate my lunch.


In the background of this one, you can see Insel Mainau.

So that was my adventure - very quiet, very pretty. I felt like I needed something like that after Egypt.

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?