Freiburg, part 3

On Saturday morning me and Annina went to the münster market, a market outside the big church. Annina wanted to show me some of the local favorites and we were also shopping groceries for Annina's mom. I had a delicious sausage at one of the many sausage stalls and we also bought a famous cheese cake which is only available at the market. There was so many people with bags from the cheese cake stall so it was apparently very famous. It also tasted delicious.

Later on in the day we went to watch SC Freiburg play against Køln in the Bundesliga, the highest division in Germany. From what I was told SC Freiburg was playing exceptionally good this season and where in 5th place before the match. The stadium was packed with people of all ages. It was really nice to see that a lot of families with kids had shown up too. The game was as good as it could get and although I am not that into Germany soccer I was quickly dragged into the home supporters songs and screaming. At the end of the match I was a true SC Freiburg fan! The game ended 3:2 to SC Freiburg and they climbed to 4th place. Bonus info: Lukas Podolski (famous German striker on the national team) played for Køln.

On sunday morning we headed back to the Münster (the church), this time to climb up into the bell tower. After a long climb up a narrow stone staircase we reached the first main room. From here we first climbed another stone staircase (halfway outside the church) up to the topmost vantage point that was open (the very highest point was closed due to renovation). Here we had a fantastic view of the city below. The second thing we did was climb up to the bell room. There were bells in all sizes, some gigantic and weighing many tons and others much smaller. As we were standing there the bells began to ring and we both got startled by the loud noise.

Later in the day we went with Ursa (Annina's mom) and Niklas to Ursa's garden a 20 minutes bike ride away. The garden was located in the hillside overlooking Freiburg and she used it to grow different kinds of vegetables. The woods surrounding the garden were filled with chestnuts and we spent an hour or two collecting them. Afterwards we had lunch with a Finnish man who also used the garden. He had built a primitive house that he used to live in during summer time. He had cooked pumpkin soup and baked bread in an oven he had made. It was really nice to sit on his veranda and eat and enjoy the warm sunny weather.

That evening me and Annina went to a Shisha restaurant called Cafe Istanbul. Here you could order a Shisha pipe and any type of tobacco in addition to drinks and snacks. We went for lemon flavored Shisha and I had a glass of lemonade while Annina had a cup of apple tea. The cafe played Turkish pop music on the television and it was funny to watch it. It really set the atmosphere of the place.

Monday morning we went to a restaurant on a hill on the opposite side of Freiburg. The building looked like a castle and right next to it was a small church. We met a friend of Annina and had breakfast together there. We wanted to play minigolf afterwards, but the minigolf place was closed because of to many leaves. We then went to the restaurant where Annina worked before she went to Australia to eat a famous cake they had, but of course they didn't have that either. We still had another really good cake and the day wasn't totally ruined by our bad luck. Right next to the restaurant was a small lake with a path around it and we walked around it and enjoyed the view.

That evening Annina's father had invited us over to eat dinner and play cards. He had cooked lots of jummy food, the potatoes and baked pumpkin being my favorite. After dinner and desert (cherry cake) we all sat down and played Rummy 500. I taught them the American rules and we played for many hours. It was a lot of fun. Every round the leader was changing and it was a close race the whole way. In the end I was almost guaranteed a win, but then Ursa got an extremely good round and beat me by 10 points.

Nothing worth mentioning happened my last day and it was with sadness that I left on Wednesday morning. I took the ICE express train to the airport in Frankfurt and then flew back to Norway. However I am going back in the end of November, so expect more posts about Germany then! Also be sure to check out the slide show under or my Picasa profile for all the pictures I took!

Freiburg 1: 25. September 2010 - 06. October 2010

http://picasaweb.google.com/fatsheep/Freiburg1

Europa-Park and other activities

On Tuesday Annina had made an appointment at a friend of hers who is a hairdresser. I had promised not to cut my hair before I went to Germany and it was now looking long and unorganized. Annina's brother Niklas also came along to get a haircut. Normally when I cut my hair I cut it short, but Annina doesn't like that so I agreed to leave it longer this time. I ended up with a "surfer style" look which I am pretty satisfied with. It's just hard to make it look good so I have to use gel to style it the way I want. Very interesting I know, but there isn't much else to write about this day except for the evening.

In the evening Annina's family invited me for dinner at a restaurant called Zähringerburg which is located on the outskirts of Freiburg and a bit up in the hillside. The road up was narrow with curves back and forth and in the dark it was almost a bit spooky. Sadly because it was dark we couldn't see the view from the restaurant. It was still a nice place with really good food. I ate freshly caught deer from the woods with potato/bread patties and vegetables. For desert me and Annina shared cake with cream. Annina's dad had a mustache for the evening and apparently this was something the others didn't like at all and kept asking about during dinner. He thought it was very funny and it turned out later it was all a joke from his side. Annina's family is really nice and easy to like!

Europa-Park

Wednesday morning after Annina was done in the kindergarten we borrowed Annina's moms car and drove to Europa-Park. Europa-Park is the biggest amusement park in Germany and is only 30 minutes from Freiburg on the autobahn. The park is divided into "countries" with country specific themed rides, shops and decorations. Europa-Park is the biggest amusement park I have ever visited. It took us the whole day to do the rides we wanted to go on and in the end we only had time to take two rides twice. This was without waiting in long queues (max 20 minutes). The biggest rollercoasters were located in "Iceland", "Russia" and "France". Both mine and Annina's favorite ride was called Silver Star. It is a gigantic rollercoaster that goes over the parking spaces on the outside of the park. I also enjoyed two rollercoasters called EuroSat and EuroMir, a bobsled ride and a rollercoaster called Blue Fire. To get the maximum out of Europa-Park I think you have to go two days in a row, but I was still happy that I got the chance to go there at all and we both had a great time.

One really cool thing that they have in Europa-Park is the real 1:1 training model of the Russian space station MIR. It was donated to the park in the 90's and is part of "Russia". It is now kind of a museum where you can walk through it and see how the astronauts lived while onboard MIR. Several of the Russian astronauts who actually was on MIR has visited the training model in Europa-Park to remember their time in space.

The day after we went to Europa-Park Annina showed me her favorite ice cream place. I had a caramel ice cream and she had something called spaghetti ice. Basically its vanilla ice put through a machine to make it look like spaghetti, then strawberry sauce as tomato sauce and white chocolate sprinkled on top as the Parmesan cheese. I really liked the idea and it also tasted very good. After eating our ice creams we went to pick up my glasses which were now finished. After some adjustments and paying I could leave with my new eye wear. Although it will take time to get used to wearing glasses and how I look in them, at least I can see a big difference when wearing them especially when reading things in the distance.

On Friday Annina had invited some of her friends over for a few drinks and then we were going bowling. It was nice to meet her friends and I could practiced my German while they practiced their English. The bowling alley was very similar to the ones in Norway. We were 7 players and I ended on second place both rounds. The drinks there were really cheap. I had a half liter glass of beer for 25kr. I realized that bowling is actually quite fun and that I should do it more often. Earlier the same evening before Annina's friends came over, me, Annina and Niklas played a game called "Hotel". It's similar to monopoly, but still different. The goal however is the same, to own all the hotels and knock out the other players. I failed miserably and lost, but it didn't matter that much. That is the end of this post. I will write another one that covers my last days in Freiburg and this I will post in a few days. Enjoy for now!