Zipping down the Dreisam on a Thursday afternoon*

Elias returned from his class adventure in Bonndorf having grown six inches and become independent beyond his years. Good food, good snow, good friends, good fun. He lost his flashlight, but found it again. He explained the many meanings of the English word "lift" to inquiring classmates. He didn't change his clothes once. Oh, "and the bus driver was really nice! Lots of people drank hot chocolate for breakfast--I had some too--and the bus driver had bags for everyone in case anyone needed to throw up. It was a really curvy road."

After lunch and a bath for the reeking child, we decided to walk to a park situated in the southeast part of Freiburg, along the Dreisam River, to try out a zip line I had seen on a jog. The park is about two miles from our apartment, and I had the brilliant idea of trying to cut over the Schlossberg to save us some time. Turns out the south side of the Schlossberg is rather sheer, so the shortcut--which included a lengthy series of switchbacks, narrow steps, fallen trees, and dead ends--added an extra hour to our trip. No regrets, however, as we got to see a cascade of tumbled down walls running from the top of the hill to the bottom, presumably part of the old fortifications.

We eventually reached the Dreisam and followed it to the park. The river begins between Kirchzarten and Stegen, at the confluence of the Rotbach and Wagensteigbach, and runs 29 km northwest until joining up with the Elz River in Riegel am Kaiserstuhl. As it flows through Freiburg, its water feeds the city's many Baechle (small canals). The river was re-engineered during the 19th century to deal with erratic flooding, and it now flows through disturbingly unwaveringly straight canals. Fortunately, the herons don't seem to mind.

*Sing along!

I meant to do that (or, Getting lost, take 2)

One of the problems with living in a pretty city surrounded by beautiful forest-covered mountains with endless hiking trails is that, for the navigationally impaired, the hills all tend to look the same.

Yesterday I decided to explore the neighborhoods in the southern part of Freiburg. I jogged past the Altstadt and over the Dreisam into Wiehre, then into the woods on the other side of the valley and around the diminutive Waldsee. I continued through a city park and came to what I thought was the big soccer stadium--the badenova Dreisamstadion where Freiburg tied Hamburg 1:1 on Sunday. Back into the hills I shifted from jogging to hiking and figured if I generally veered left, I'd be back home relatively quickly.

Near what was supposed to be the end of my journey, I emerged from the woods atop a hill to admire the view of the Muenster, but below me, Freiburg was nowhere to be seen. Thanks to the mapping and navigation options on my trusty Garmin Forerunner 205, I learned that my internal compass was seriously broken--apparently I had never turned left--and that to get home I needed to go 4305 miles due west (ah, that'd be Durham, NC). I eventually arrived back in Herdern with 10 miles of pavement and trails behind me, having seen places I never would have thought to visit otherwise: Kappel, from afar, and Littenweiler; Freiburg's older Möslestadion (had it been the badenova Stadion, I'm sure I wouldn't have gotten lost); and some mean-lookin' Hello-Kitty style Ninja graffiti along the Dreisam.

Getting lost

Last night, I got out my list of formal-you pronouns and phoned Herr Professor D. at his private number to talk about organ lessons. Even with the list, I panicked under the pressure of declining formal-you-accusative (Sie) and formal-you-dative (Ihnen), but deftly recovered by avoiding all sentences that required either. It was a pleasant conversation, and hopefully I will be back in the organ swing of things by the time we meet in person in September.

With little to do today between dropping Elias off and picking him up, I decided to figure out a new running route. My friend Robin has observed that running is a great way to get to know a new place. To that, I'll add, so is getting lost, which I'm quite adept at in Germany despite my Garmin GPS toy.

One of the many lovely things about our neighborhood is that you can be halfway up a small mountain and in the middle of the woods within about a fifteen minute hike. I carefully studied my city map before setting off and planned a mostly flat, 4-mile jogging loop. I hiked up to the fitness trail in the woods, and double checked the map posted there (which says, sunnily, "Exercising twice weekly makes you fit!"--an odd piece of advice for anyone with the energy to hike to the trail in the first place).

There are many more trails in the woods than are shown on the maps, and at one three-way intersection with five trail signs pointing in four different directions, I took the far left rather than the near one and zig-zagged a few miles down the other side of the hill, finally emerging near the University Sports Complex, considerably farther from home than planned. Fortunately, Freiburg is filled with helpful landmarks, including the Dreisam river, which I followed back into town. The path along the river is beautiful, with babbling brook, weeping willows, grassy playgrounds (one with a zip line!), gorgeous tall houses (think Chicago brownstones with a European flair), and fit students everywhere--all of which made getting lost on a leisurely afternoon well worth while.

Stefan has also been enjoying the easy access to mountains. Yesterday after dinner, he rode up Schauinsland--40 kilometers round trip, with an elevation difference of ~900 meters. He said there must have been fifty other cyclists on the road with him. I asked if he had passed any, and he said no, but that several had passed him. "Freiburgians are really fit," he explained--and this is from a guy who bikes to work every day and rides metric centuries a few times a month back home.