Steffi’s Blog

I’m back from my one-week trip to Freiburg and there is, in fact, loads to tell as I already promised in the previous entry!

I’m so not used to experiencing many great things in such a short time any longer… and the result is that I don’t have a clue now where to start ! I hope that it won’t end up in a great mess…

Okay dokay, one thing after the other. We took off from home at 3am on Saturday morning and arrived in Freiburg at about noon. My best friend Christine welcomed us with a great breakfast which we enjoyed so much. However, at some point it was time to get to work - working ourselves through the adverts in the papers to find a new home for me. I was really a bit scared that I won’t find anything suitable in that week. Anyway, we found some interesting things and I started to call the people (I so hate that…). And, believe it or not, I was kind of successful, I managed to arrange two viewings for that very Saturday. The first one was at 3pm and I was very curious. The advert sounded almost perfect: the flat is cheap, the room ‘huge’, it is close to the centre and university and it is also close to Christine’s place!

So the three of us (my brother, Chris and I) went there and met with a very nice, old woman. I was almost immediately convinced that this would be great for me but I nevertheless asked the landlady for some time to think it over. She agreed to that and we took our leave and discussed our different opinions. However, all three of us were more or less sure that this would be a good new home for me. So I called them again and told them that I would like to take it and this very nice, elderly couple agreed on taking me ! Well, that’s how I found a new home on the very first day of my stay in Freiburg and I couldn’t understand any longer why I was so scared !

Anyway, I don’t know if this was just luck or if it was fate or if I have to thank God but it was definitely a heavy burden which was taken off me. In the end it doesn’t matter whom or what I need to thank but it meant that I could relax and enjoy the rest of my holidays which had only just begun.

Now, what did I do the rest of the week? In a very short summary: I had great great fun ! On the first evening (Saturday) we met Christine and her boyfriend at the brewery (Feierlings - the best one in Freiburg) to play cards (a game called ‘Doppelkopf’ - we are addicted to that), drink beer and talk, talk, talk! It was so good to see her again and it was nice to finally meet Andreas as well! However, by midnight I was so tired (I was up for already 22 hours after all) that I could haven fallen asleep on the chair in the pub!

For Sunday evening we decided to meet for some rounds of pool. Well, this was apparently not the greatest idea… I know that I’m not very good pool player but I didn’t know that I am THAT bad ! We played in different combinations and I think in the end I won one game out of six.

Thiesy and I were brave enough to go to City Centre on Monday afternoon. We were quite lucky for some time but then, suddenly, the sky opened up and it rained like hell, we were soaked after a couple of minutes. However, we became even braver (or stupid ?!): We decided to go to another brewery anyway. So we sat there, drippingly wet and drank our beer. Well, after a while, however, we decided that it might be best to go home! We spent the whole evening at home (we rent an apartement), relaxing and reading.

Somehow when I think about it now there’s no need to split the week into its days and talk about each day seperately since we didn’t really do much. However, this is exactly what I needed! We met with some peoples every evening and did something nice and the rest of the time it was rather quiet: we spent the time with reading or driving through the gorgeous Black Forest or strolled through City Centre. We spent the last three remaining evenings with bowling, playing cards and getting drunk in the beergarden ! You can probably imagine how much fun I had

Thiesy and I decided to leave Freiburg a bit earlier than it was originally planned. Since I found a new flat so quickly we headed back home on Friday afternoon instead of Sunday morning. We usually try to avoid to drive back later than midday because it takes already about 7-8 hours of fast driving on the motorways to get home but noon and afternoon are really horrible times to spend on German motorways - usually they are packed like hell! This time, however, we didn’t have much of a choice since Christine had her written state exam in history until 12.30pm and I think I’m not lying when I say that both of us wanted me to be there when she finished that. That’s what we did and I’d like to congratulate her. She doesn’t know the results yet but she has a good feeling and I’m sure that she did great! So I want to tell her that I’m very proud of her! I hope she’s enjoying her holidays with Andreas and the boat right now! You certainly deserve it and I cross my fingers that you won’t get soaked too often ! Well, anyway, that’s the reason why we left Freiburg quite late on Friday. And sure thing, it took us 11 hours to get home, it was a very exhausting trip and we were very glad when we finally arrived at home!

Well, I’d like to summarise a bit now. It is kind of strange to me that this particular trip to Freiburg of which I was so scared beforehand has in fact a major impact on my life in Germany. Maybe it was even this fact that I was a bit afraid of this trip, of its results, its meaning for the coming months/years of my life which makes it so important now. The holidays itself were great. It did me so good that I had this perfect mixture of relaxation and activities. I don’t think that I was ever so relaxed and satisfied since I’m back in Germany. On the other hand it helped me a lot to finally see a kind of new perspective for me here in Germany, my friends still know me and they have trust in me and count on me, my new flat is just great and university…ja well, we’ll see what’ll happen with that !I mean it is true that I still DO miss my friends from Dublin and sometimes I become very melancholic when I think about them and the life I lived there but I get the feeling that, slowly, I can ‘risk’ it to think about Dublin without being just sad. The time I had there was great but nobody can ever take that from me, it’ll always be in me wherever I’ll go! And all these things let me be much more optimistic about the things which are to come than I ever imagined.

Okay, at last I want to tell everybody who reads that that you are always welcome to visit me in Freiburg. Thanks to Ildico I will probably have a double bed very soon as well and otherwise there’s loads of space to arrange something else ! So, please, feel free to come along and you will always be more than welcome!

I think I kept my promise and I hope you enjoyed to read this entry?! I’m not sure if I’ll be able to write another one before I’ll go on holidays again. I will leave home on the coming Saturday night and and will be away for almost two weeks. However, in the meantime, while I’m not there… there are loads of new pictures in the gallery and I promise (again) they are worth looking at them ! I hope to return from the next holidays with even more great things to tell and many gorgeous pictures! Until then I send you a big hug, take care of yourselves and have a great time wherever you are at the moment!

Hugs and Kisses,

your Steffi