Crossing the Border

It’s amazing how much the culture changes after just one hour of driving! Last week, we we went to Colmar, France, which is only a 90 minute drive from Freiburg, and I could immediately tell the difference between German and French cultures. Firstly, everything and everyone spoke French (obviously), but it was still interesting to see such a drastic linguistic jump just by driving 20 minutes over the French border! Secondly, Colmar was so quite and quaint. Although Freiburg is small, it’s busy! The only things in Colmar were restaurants and bakeries, at least that I could see. To be fair, though, I was quite hungry the whole time so maybe my attention was targeting just food places.

Though it was small, it was a really lovely town! We went on a gorgeous day, and although we encountered some really unfriendly Frenchmen and ate some interesting looking meat, overall it was a pleasant day.

Gotta love the French wine!

On our drive back to Germany, we stopped at a winery called Ihringer, which was really interesting. We tried three different types of wines: the red wine, the white wine, and the rosé. I think the rosé was ultimately everyones favorite, and I bought a bottle to take back to my parents. Most of the people on the trip were unsatisfied with the trip to France, but I thought it was nice to see another town for the day, even if we didn’t end up doing much. I will suggest, though, if you find yourself in Colmar, don’t go to the Unterlinden Museum. The people working there were incredibly rude and irritated that we could not speak French. The exhibits were subpar and the main attraction was closed due to reconstruction. Personally, I would not recommend it, and I’m not sure many others on my trip would either.

I’m excited for my next blog post because it will be after or during my trip to Dresden and Prague! Bis bald!

Entering March

Tomorrow starts a new month here in Freiburg, and hopefully with the change in the month comes a more permanent change in the weather. I would love for Freiburg to warm up and a bit and for the sun to set later. I’m definitely ready for summer, or even spring. Although the other day I went wandering around the nearby lake, and it most certainly felt like springtime.

Classes have finally started! Well, by classes I mean a language intensive class that is FOUR hours long. I’m pretty sure that’s a bit excessive, although if it improves my very poor German skills, then I guess I’m a fan! In the very least, having a class to go to everyday and homework to complete gives me something to do during the mornings and afternoons. It’s nice to have some sort of a schedule.

In two days time, I’ll be exploring a whole new country! (even if it’s just for a day). We are going hiking in the Swiss Alps, and I think I’m more excited about saying I’ve been to Switzerland than actually hiking. Although we do get to take a gondola ride back down the Alps, which sounds way more exciting than hiking.

I’m off to bed now, but enjoy the lake pictures! I’m pretty proud of them myself

Snowshoeing in Schwarzwald

I finally can say I feel a bit more settled here in Freiburg. I can't believe it's only been a week! IES has kept us pretty busy with orientation meetings and excursions, and now our language intensive courses have started. It's been hard getting adjusted to making my own food and budgeting my money! I'm not sure if I quite have it down but hopefully I'll figure it out before the last month that I'm here.

The highlight of my week was definitely on Sunday. We went into the Black Forest to snow shoe up the mountain. First, the Black Forest sounds like somewhere out of Harry Potter, so that was exciting in and of itself. On top of the name, the early mountain fog and the snow covered trees gave the whole forest an eerie mystical feel. Second, I have never in my life seen so much snow! Literally, the snow almost came up to my head. I guess a surprise like that is what you get if you come from Georgia!

The snow could cover me up!

My snowboarding boots look like little nuggets!

 I don't know how many people have heard of snow shoeing (I certainly hadn't before), but essentially you hike up a big snowy mountain with a special racket attached to your feet. I mean it's pretty straightforward, but the hike was was more strenuous than I would have thought. The snow was three feet deep and some of the hills we climbed we pretty steep especially with heavy snowboarding boots and bulky rackets with spikes. I was definitely sweating when we reached the top, but wow the view was incredible! The sky was a perfect blue with only a few puffy white clouds, the forest stretched on for ages, and everything was covered in snow.

So far, Freiburg has been amazing. Definitely still miss my family and friends at home, but I've met some really cool people here. They say the first week is always the hardest, so the way I see it, my trip can only get better!

From the left: Ashlyn, me, Emma, and Jackie. Ready to snowshoe!