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Freiburg for real 23 September 2001 Yesterday, I went to Freiburg for real with a group of fifteen people, most from my class. Because they're trying to encourage people to ride on the regoinal trains, they've made this weekend deal, where up to five people can travel anywhere on one ticket that only costs 40 DM. Since there were fifteen of us, it ended up only being 8 DM (~$4) each. (I spent more to travel around Freiburg during the day!) It did take two and a half hours each way, but that's okay. I met up with Nikki and we went to a big flea market. I tried out a bike, but either the rear derailleur or shifter didn't work. Then we went to her dorm, which is right by this really pretty lake with nice trails and a tower, so at one point I got out my camera to take pictures of the city and flipped out when I couldn't find my purse, which I'd left in her room. I was very stressed for about fifteen minutes while we went back to look for it. We'd been talking in German the whole time, and everything suddenly switched to English. I didn't have a whole lot of time left, so we went to the Münster(cathedral). The trains were really crowded going back and I had to stand for 40 minutes or so, but it wasn't too bad. It was nice to get to talk to the other people in my class while we were travelling. It seems sad that we're all going to go our separate ways after this month and I probably won't see them during the semester since we're almost all in different departments. It's really interesting to talk to all the other international students, but my German's not going to improve from that. I need to find a balance between the two, once more German students come back in October. Today, I hiked up to the highest point in the mountains just southeast of Heidelberg. I wasn't sure about the foot trails, so I went most of the way up on roads and ended up walking a lot further than I needed to. I found better ways going down. You can go straight up the mountain on one trail that's all stairs. I bet it gets really tiring. Going down I was just scared that I was going to fall. There are others that switch back. I saw a lot of people with bikes at the top. There are roads all the way up and some of the trails are semi gravel roads but others are quite rough. I need to get a better map of the paths. I also need to get a bike. I'm currently jealous of all the people I see on real bikes. Tomorrow I'm going to visit more bike stores to ask about used bikes. Anyhow, at the top, you can go up this TV tower to get a better view and I took some pictures through the haze. It's hard to tell, but you can see some of the industrial cities like Mannheim near the horizon. There was a circular metal chart at the top which told which way all the neighboring were and one of the long distance things on there was the cathedral in Strasbourg, which I suppose you might be able to see if there were no haze.
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