Day 5+6

Day 5, May 29th

Today started off poorly enough. So I *kinda* got a *little* bit drunk last night at the party , and sort of overslept through my first class :) Thankfully , I got the notes and made it for my next two classes, so no harm done.

Oh, big lesson for anyone traveling to Germany: plug adapters for German outlets are CRAP by themselves. You need to convert the current to the proper amount too, I'm unable to make my wireless network go up and running, which is pretty annoying (especially when I want to use my iPhone's WiFi, let me tell you...).

Also, after this EuroRail pass (going to buy it sometime tomorrow) I've probably used up just about all of my Bar Mitzvah money, so oh well, though it's certainly gone to a good cause.

But it's worth it: 10 days of total travel over a 2 month period to 5 countries of my choice (I chose Germany, BeNeLux (Belgium/Netherlands/Luxembourg count as 1), France, Switzerland, and Austria; this will also work when my parents get here so I'm set for my whole trip)

Classes are starting to get a bit tougher and I feel like I'm in college a bit, but Freiburg is still an awesome place to be. Seriously, Germans have no conception of the term "cross walk", they just cross wherever they feel like which I find interesting.

Plus, the concept of "free refills" is imaginary here; a small glass of coke can cost over 2 euros. If I haven't talked about it before, German water annoys me too. It's essentially seltzer. That's right, carbonated water with a tiny bit of flavoring. If you ask them at restaurants for non-carbonated water they give you a funny look, almost as if the natural choice is carbonated water when you ask for water.

The terrible thing about carbonated water isn't that it tastes bad (it's actually quite good), but that it goes flat like soda. When it goes flat, it tastes absolutely awful, so you can't take it with you on hikes and you have to drink it quickly.

I also found a Synagogue in the city, as well as a third Starbucks. I've taken up a liking for their cappuccino, which gives me a great jolt in the morning (when I'm not running late to EVERYTHING). Also, today marks the first day I made it back from the university to my dorm without getting lost once, a feat I consider pretty impressive ;)

But alas, perfection was not to be. I had found out a while earlier (thanks for the info, Paul, but I already found it) that a Go club meets here in Freiburg and I wanted to check it out. I did a Google Maps search and found it was only 2 km away, which was certainly walkable on my part.

So at around 6:30 PM I headed out (note: still daylight). I had a great time meeting some German go players (they're generally pretty fluent in English) and at around 11 PM I decided to head back. That's when the fun began...

Apparently, it's a lot tougher finding which street to go on in a foreign city when it's pitch black compared to when it's bright out (go figure, right?). Needless to say, being me, I got myself lost on the final leg of the journey back. I knew I was within 10 minutes of home, but had no idea how to get there.

With my iPhone's GPS not working in Europe and everyone's number in Germany that I had not answering or sleeping (11:30 PM), I continued wandering aimlessly for a bit.

Finally, I decided to pocket any remaining shred of dignity I could cling to and called up the one and only Mr. Kyle Trager (tried Mr. Feinman but he was sleeping at work apparently, remember 6 hour time difference). After laughing for a bit, he used Google Maps Germany to plot where I was based on the intersections I was at (some really funky street names in Germany, btw).

Then, using a bird's eye satellite view from Google Maps (and some bare-bones memory from me about where I lived) he guided me back to my dorm, which was awfully kind of him. This will certainly be a fun one for the memory books, and now I guess I have to get him something besides the German 1st Grader's subtraction book I was planning on giving him :).

Besides wasting a good 20 minutes of time (costing me 69 cents/minute, sorry Mom!) on my cell, I was freezing cold when I got back. I plopped in bed and fell asleep near instantly. I thought my troubles were over, but UhOh...

Day 6, May 30th

My cell phone rings at 10:56 AM...I'm sleeping and thinking who would call me on a Saturday morning when I was taking a well-deserved long night sleep. It was Elyssa, whose also in our IES group, asking me where I was.

That's right!! We had a Saturday field trip to the Black Forest (cool place on the edge of Freiburg). It was originally scheduled for Sunday and I had totally spaced that it changed. The train was leaving at 11:15 AM and I was in no state to leave the dorm.

Dressing at approximately Warp Factor 9.9 (Warp 10 is physically impossible!), I sped out of the dorm and onto the tram to get to the major train we were leaving from (when I say "tram", I mean the Freiburg slow and local tram, but when I say "train", I mean the larger transportation system for Germany as a whole).

When I was two stops away, Elyssa calls me again telling me that the train was about to get there and that I wouldn't make it in time. Well, I was going to see about that..

So the tram gets to the train station and I zoom out dashing at top speed. I see the train I need to get on (#7), and run down steps 3 at a time. Then, I swear the scene comes right out of a Hollywood movie...

I see someone in my group get on the train (the last person), and I'm running as fast as I can. When I'm perhaps 100 ft. away, the train closes it's doors and starts moving... Nobody in my group sees me, and I run after the train for a second before giving up...Stupid Hollywood...

Aw crap, I just missed a fun field trip for the day! Well, after a good 5 minutes of sulking dejectedly at my own absurd stupidity, I decide to make the best of it. I'm a naive optimist I guess (according to polling in Germany, that's one of the most common stereotypes they give to Americans) I drown my sorrows in Flammkuchen (delicious!) and then buy gifts for family back home. I see a museum, a theater, go into some churches, and try and use my non-existent German to mingle with the populace. The farmers market is pretty cool, got some delicious Freiburg strawberries!!

At around 5 PM I meet my group that just got back from the Black Forest. After we all have a great laugh about me missing the train by a few microns (or a hundred feet, but whose counting...), we get some snacks and go back to the dorms. Thankfully, the evening ended quite a bit better than my continual mishaps.

We all decided to go out to dinner as a group to a relatively nice restaurant, and I had some sort of salami-eggs-baked potato meal, which was divine. We chatted for a bit about our respective days (everyone wanted to know how mine was since I kinda missed the scheduled activity), and about Israeli politics, what would happen in the Iranian election (you have a bunch of International Relations students at the same table, what do you expect?), and then a bachelor party started next door to us...

German bachelor parties are WEIRD!! Instead of just having a crazy drunken party, all of the bachelor's friends buy a special shirt for the occasion, and then go running around town selling stuff and making a scene to try and pay for it and maybe get some more cash for the bachelor party. Yea, I know, what?

At least that's what I understood from a local German's broken English...suffice it to say, it was pretty funny and you can check out the funny video below. I decided to buy a cigar which the bachelor party people were selling, which was pretty good.

Oh, and my MOM has how Google Friended this blog...seriously, anyone who reads this and doesn't has no idea how to use a computer ;) Don't be outdone by Judy Gelber on the computer :)

Anyway, that's all the fun for this time, see ya next time!!