Thursday, November 7, 2013

Freiburg!


My train arrived in Freiburg around 1:30 pm, though Shelby was in class, so I set out to find her address. Of course I didn’t have phone (or my entire Eurotrip would have been far less interesting), but I did have access to modern conveniences like the internet and the lady at the front office of the University of Freiburg American exchange building. However when I asked, she wouldn’t give me Shelby’s address, which is understandable. So I resorted to my other modern convenience and found an internet café.

Bad Bellingen! ('Bad' meaning 'station')
Corresponding via Facebook, I arranged to get on tram line #3 and meet her at the stop near her student apartment complex – the tram, not the train; so I boarded the train on track #3 an went several stops down the line to some remote town outside of Freiburg. This time, I didn’t even have a ‘helpful’ French guy to blame for putting me on the wrong track, like I did the night before. I of course realized my mistake and turned back, but it took thirty minutes at the other station before I could catch a train back to Freiburg. At least I got this cool picture out of it.

It was around 5:30 by the time I got on the tram and met Shelby at the stop. We hugged and I profusely apologized for all the waiting in vain she had to do at the train station the previous night and that afternoon. She was just happy to see me though, and she had the privilege of being the first person to hear my coveted “Lost in Switzerland” story.

When we got to her apartment, I took a shower, and it was a beautiful thing. Then we dined on some delicious eggplant parmesan with salad and went across the student housing complex to her friend’s apartment, where I learned nine new names and how to play LA RESISTÁNCE! (pronounced emphatically in a French accent), a card game of deceiving and deciphering the other players, in which the revolutionaries have five rounds to guess who among them are the government spies. It’s a great game that I’d recommend looking up and playing at your next 7- to 11-person gathering.

After the revolution, we went to a party at yet another apartment. To anyone who’s been to a hot, crowded college party where the walls are painfully white and it smells like sweat and the sticky, cheep beer that’s on the floor: I need not describe the scene. Most of the people here were American exchange students, so it wasn’t even culturally interesting, except for the beverage brands in people’s hands. Also, the long line for the bathroom meant that people were peeing in the shower the whole night, which is kind of interesting. Nonetheless, I had a good time meeting strangers and hanging out with Shelby and her friends.

FC Hannover @ FC Freiburg
On day 2 in Freiburg, we woke up and went over to meet some of the same friends we’d hung out with the night before. We were preparing to enjoy a minor fuzball match (a.k.a. ‘soccer’) between FC Freiburg and Hannover. I joked that we were competing against East Hanover, as if it were the good old days of the Iron Hills conference back in high school, and we were supporting the Hilltopper soccer team. It wasn’t a great joke, but at any rate, it made the game a little more relatable.

Shelby and I among more diehard fans
Perhaps the most distinctive part of the experience was my introduction to glühwein, a spiced red wine served hot whose name accordingly means “hot wine” and which is apparently quite popular throughout Germany during the colder months. Shelby ordered for the both of us, confidently asking for “zwie glühwein!” since she knew how to pronounce that and “danke shöne" better than I. Once I tasted the delectable concoction, it struck me as curious that there’s no such alternative to cold beer at American sporting events. I suppose wine is just too far outside of American Football culture to be served cold or hot, spiced or not, at the stadium. Well you can always order a coffee or a hot chocolate.
            Just as memorable as the glühwein was the enthusiastically cheering crowd (though I’ve forgotten the cheers) and the way our group huddled tightly in the stands, willing FC Freiburg all the way to a 1-1 tie. We then filed quickly out of the stands and back to a very crowded tram which took us back home. Shelby and I split from the crew and went back to her apartment where we each enjoyed an afternoon nap.

I was awoken by Shelby talking on the phone with a couple of our friends from back home, Ruta and Mario, and spoke to them each for several minutes. It was great to catch up and share with them brief synopses of my European adventures.

After a bite to eat, we went over to Shelby’s friend’s apartment and, to my dismay, did not play LA RESISTANCE! (though the game later caught on back home in Summit and Ithaca). We met with some more friends and went out to a bar called ‘Shtuzy,’ which I’m likely misspelling. It was a fun, enormous bar with two floors and several rooms on each featuring different music. Most people there spoke English, so it wasn’t hard to traverse and converse with the crowd. My memory isn't perfect when it comes to inebriated events that took place two years ago, but if I’m not mistaken they were also selling silly hats, or something of the like, for a couple euro, and I bought one.

Given more time, we could have been great friends.
After several hours of Shtuzy-ing it up, I walked home about two miles with Shelby and Dan. At some point during the trek, this happened. > > > (That's Dan on my back.) We got a little bit lost at one point, and Dan asked directions of a few Freiburgers, who steered us in the right direction.

The next day, I had a train to catch at one o’clock, heading to Munich. So I bid farewell to fair Shelbz and thanked her for a fantastic couple of days in Freiburg. I left early from the apartment so that I would have time to check out Freiburg’s Christkindl Markt – every German town has a Christmas market during the holidays. This time, I did fine ordering “ein glühwein” on my own. I had a harder time ordering a bratwurst with mustard and sauerkraut (many, though apparently not every German speaks English), but it was exceedingly worth it. The Christkindl Markt itself was full of food and artisan goodies, such as carved wooden nativity scenes, beautiful glass ornaments, and a hundred other colorful items that would make a delightful Christmas present.

I resisted any urge to buy these things, but I made sure to pick up a souvenir shot glass before I hopped on my train and left for Munich.

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