My Freiburgian Reunion

Saturday March 14th-Sunday March 15th:

After Kevin left, it felt as if my world had once again collapsed, or at least was like a dog standing on 3 legs. It’s so strange how someone so important, or special can have such a significant impact. They seem to overflow your world with happiness, you can forget everything else-they are everything. However, when you have to part, your world is suddenly gone-empty, like a miniature loss. Then you are left to greave this strange loss, in a sort of panic and udder sadness.

They say the French are coconuts and Americans peaches-the French have hard exteriors, the Americans, softer exteriors. I don’t like to immediately open up to people, my friendships have always been intense and my relationships deep. I respect the French in this way, my (our) heart (s) may be covered by a shell, but once you break this shell, you will forever drink its sweet rewards.

So I after the explosion of the “loss”, I knew I would just have to wait until the fire and smoke cleared, and I would see what was behind it-and continue to grow as an individual. However, this is easier said than done, and the fire of love is both rewarding and particularly painful.

The next week was tough, instead of walking hand-in-hand through the streets of Italy, we were looking at each other through thousands of miles of cable and Internet. Life had begun again, homework; practice, biking through Strasbourg to school. It was good, but I was still a little nostalgic and homesick. A midsemester-post Kevin slump.

Serendipitously, my friend Allison (who was my next door neighbor at JHU) happened to be spending her second semester abroad in Freiberg Germany only an hour away by train! Also, she happened to be free that weekend, and would be willing to accept me as company! After many facebook messages, trouble with Allison’s cell phone, and almost missing each other-we finally connected on skype. She gave me directions and I gave her my train info, then I immediately went to the train station and departed. After a few sketchy characters on the regional train, I arrived in Freiburg at about 5 pm.

t was great to see Allison again and catch up on all our adventures. She spent her first semester in Paris and was now in Freiburg studying in a program specializing in the E.U. She walked me to her student apartment through the scenic German village. It is really quite conveniently located, only 10 minutes walk from the downtown. She lives with eight people, four people with the program and four Germans. It’s an eight bedroom, two bathrooms and a kitchen. She has two Dominican roommates, who are very sweet, talkative and have a lot of crazy stories.

As I walked into her room I was greeted with a “Bienvenue Lindsay” sign she had made. She pointed out that today’s phrase from her “phrase of the day” German calendar was “Ich magg ihz her”- I like it here. It became the catch phrase of the weekend. After settling in, Allison, some friends of hers and I went to the “1.80 Euro” spaghetti special. I ate a salad. It was fun to meet more people and eat a local place. After dinner we headed first to the grocery store to pick up breakfast items, then went back to the apartment and shared a bottle of wine. That night's entertainment was a special brewery of Freiburg that makes it's own beer, which is only sold on site. It was a two-story brewery with wooden tables and large windows. It is quite a popular place, and we ended up standing for the first thirty minutes or so, but with good company and literally a water glass full of wine. We finally got a table and enjoyed ourselves for a while chatting and laughing. The wind and later hour however, soon had caught up with Allison and I and we then stumbled back to her room.

We woke around 7:30 am the next morning, in order to do a walking tour of Freidburg before a tentative brunch with some of her roommates. We saw the cathedral, the old city, her center, the student area, and a “pretty street”. It was nice to see the city with out a lot of people (wince it was Sunday) and be able to take all the pictures we wanted. As it turned out, we ended up skipping brunch, so it wasn’t entirely necessary to have gotten up that early, but it was fun nonetheless. We got coffee at the train station on our way back to here apartment (since it was the only place open on Sunday.) The coffee was much needed, and the pleasant feeling of caffeine began to run through our bodies as we walked back to her apparent. After quick lunch we walked back into town, and up to the most scenic part of Friedberg. We walked up a small mountain (with a lot of stairs) stopping at spots along the way to take in the view. It had been a beautiful weekend, the first in quite a while which was a perfect way to view the city. Once we reached the top, we climbed a small tower and were able to see mountains in Switzerland, the German black forest and the Vosges. It was beautiful (and quite windy). We took some pictures and then began the beautiful descent downward. We chatted more on the way back to the Apartment. I then grabbed my stuff and walked to the train station. I departed and had a smooth voyage back to Strasbourg. A wonderful reunion in Freiburg!