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.

Thanks y'all

Sehr Geehrte Leserinnen und Leser ("very honorable readeresses and readers"):

Thanks for all the feedback on the blog, both via comments and via email. Blogger.com refuses to let me respond to comments with comments at the moment, so here's a full-fledged entry to catch up on issues/questions/concerns you've raised, for all you enquiring minds who want to know. In no particular order:

A zip line is a pulley, sometimes with a seat attached, suspended on a wire cable on an incline.

Thanks, Teofrastus, for contributing the Spanish word hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliofobia (fear of long words), which measures in at a delightfully ironic 35 letters (assuming I counted correctly). Helen says we left "Gesellschaft" (company) out of Donaudampfshifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitaensgattin, which would bring that word up to 49 letters. I pointed out to her that "Starnbergersee" has nine more letters than "Donau," but she objected that there isn't a steamboat company on the Starnbergersee. There is one on the Danube--so we're not just goofing around making up words here.

No, I'm not having too much fun in Germany. Being a cultural ambassador is hard work.

Ah, the platform in the toilet bowl--the #1 comment-generating topic to date! What to say.... According to Freud, a child's first gift to its parents is poop (a child who withholds such gifts is anal-retentive; and note the delighted fuss parents make over successful potty-training). The platform offers toilet bowl users the opportunity to admire, shall we say, the fruits of their labor well into adulthood. By the way, when doing routine cleaning, it is a bad idea to drizzle liquid hand soap on the platform, though the bubbles you get after flushing are mighty impressive.

Never fear, there are Beethoven and Mozart streets in Freiburg.

On the lack of a Mendelssohnstrasse: There's one in Basel and one in Offenburg, so it isn't a regional thing. I'm guessing the composer street names in the Freiburg 'burb date from the 1930s--big years for German Nationalism. A few years after Mendelssohn's untimely death in 1847, Wagner published an anonymous, remarkably anti-Semitic article on "Judaism in Music," claiming that Jews just can't write anything good and criticizing Mendelssohn's music as underdeveloped and derivative (and Heinrich Heine's poetry as false and inauthentic). So an intersection between Mendelssohnstr. and Richard-Wagner-Str. truly would have been sweet to see.

Stefan is a German citizen; Elias and I are American citizens. Stefan hasn't voted in an election since he moved to the U.S. in 1989. If he gets his act together, he'll vote this fall. We're here until the end of December.

Yes indeed, people rabidly guard their Restmuell bin space. Observe this bin, photographed this evening in the Altstadt. Know what the red doohickey on top is? That's right, it's a lock. I did manage to find a Restmuell bin without a lock downtown this afternoon (not that I would ever, ever sneak my own trash into someone else's bin, of course).

When we're back in the U.S., we'll have to invite all of Elias's java-drinking buddies over for Kuchen and decaf.

Kandel und Konzert

Although every other store in all of Germany is closed on Sundays (including Ikea and the Home Depot equivalent), the locally-owned bakery on the corner is open, and we're trying to endear ourselves to the shopkeeper. Yesterday we bought three day-old pieces of Zwetchgenschnitte: sugared sliced plums baked on a yeast dough, a tart summer treat that we're learning no longer to call by the fun Bavarian name Zwetschgendatschi. So as not to appear cheap, we also bought a piece of Sachertorte. Oh, and a snazzy banana, sliced lengthwise and layered over vanilla cream and sponge cake and encased in chocolate. The Zwetschgenschnitte were so good that after lunch, Elias and Stefan ran across the street to buy the last three pieces before the bakery closed. The shopkeeper was sufficiently impressed by their enthusiasm that she tossed in two croissants and a raisin bun for Elias, gratis.

This reminds me to mention that people in Baden like to give children food. You can't buy cheese from the supermarket without the deli person offering your child a Wurstl; when you politely decline, explaining your child is a vegetarian, she gives him a quarter-pound hunk of Emmenthaler instead. At the Farmers' Market, mothers routinely ask if their "little angels" (who have surreptitiously been snapping the tips off all the fresh carrots) can taste the plums; who can deny a child such a simple thing?

Fortified by Zwetschgenschnitte, in the afternoon we hiked most of the way up the Kandel, one of the mountains near Freiburg. Most of the hike up was on steep gravel roads that took us through grazing land, meadows, and the occasional wooded grove. We headed down before reaching the top in order to make it in time to an organ concert at the nearby Kloster St. Peter. The Kloster dates to the 11th century; the ornate Baroque church that stands there now was built in the 1720s. The concert featured Ludo Geloen of Belgium playing Buxtehude, Bach, La Fosse, van den Gheyn, Mendelssohn, Mascagni, Borowski, and an improvised encore. No fuzzy acoustic here: the organ (a 1967 tracker by Klais) was light, clear, and thoroughly charming.

Colmar

This morning, we walked to the toy store in the Altstadt so Elias could buy the handcuffs he's been coveting since we first saw them three weeks ago, when we were staying in Waltershofen and it was inconvenient to load up on Stuff. For three weeks, we've been telling him not to worry, there isn't going to be a sudden run on handcuffs, they'll still be there--and what do you know, they sold out yesterday. The very charming shopkeeper took down Elias's name and promised to set aside a pair for him when the next cuff shipment comes in on Monday.

We then meandered over to the Gummibaer specialty store, across from the Muenster, where the serious Gummibaer connoisseurs and tourists shop, and thus began our new vice. We went for the vegetarian Bearle, of course; for the carnivores, flavors include prosecco, chilli pepper, licorice, coffee ("with caffeine"), and red wine.

This afternoon, we visited Colmar, across the Rhine in France. The third largest city in Elsass (Alsace), Colmar survived WWII with little damage. Fortunately, it also survived an urban planning effort in the 1960s to demolish some of the older parts of town, and the city center, with the photogenic "petite Venise" ("little Venice"), is now a popular tourist destination. Colmar was settled by the 9th century and granted Stadtrecht (city rights) in 1214; its oldest remaining house dates from 1350. I look forward to setting my camera-wielding parents loose in Colmar this fall, as there are photo ops around every corner.

Herdern

Our apartment is in a neighborhood called Herdern. Up the street is the St. Urban catholic church. Bells ring before every service. Sunday mornings are especially musical, with interesting little melodic patterns emerging as the higher bells are joined by the lower ones.

There's a small farmer's market in the church square twice a week, with fruits, vegetables, cheeses, eggs, meats, flowers, and more varieties of olives than I knew existed.

The roads and footpaths behind the church (the above photo was taken from one) lead up into the hills; many follow canals or natural creeks. If you stay out of the woods, you get some nice panoramic views of Freiburg over the occasional vineyard.

Elias and I took a walk this evening and found two musicians hanging out near the top of the hill. They had brought their acoustic guitars, a mike, and some lawn chairs, and were sitting in the middle of the sidewalk next to their parked car, singing and jamming away.

Deep thought

Stefan just pointed out that a liter of Mineralwasser at the grocery store costs about the same as a liter of diesel at the gas station.

Dream

When you visit Stefan's mom, there's a neverending supply of chocolate and whipped cream. Want to take the train in to Munich? Here, take this Milka bar for the ride. Company? Time to whip up some Schlagsahne!

When we moved into our Freiburg apartment, we unloaded multiple backpacks. Each of us put away the various chocolate bars we found in different places in the kitchen. The previous renters also left some chocolate behind. As a result, it isn't unusual to come across a piece of chocolate, no matter what drawer or cabinet we open.

The other night, I dreamed that I broke into the home of some friends at dawn. Working against time, I tiptoed through the house, then used my skeleton key to turn the lock of their bedroom door. This is sooo wrong, I thought, yet I pressed on. Quietly, quietly, I reached in and put a brand new 100g bar and a half-eaten 200g bar of Milka chocolate on the foot of their bed. They stirred!--the chocolate slid!--I nudged it back into place and hurriedly closed and locked the door, beating a hasty retreat back to the kitchen where--oh no--voices!--The extended family was preparing breakfast, carrying plates of waffles and scrambled eggs out to the backyard! I tried to be nonchalant when they discovered me crouching behind the kitchen door. I nervously declined their invitation to join them--they were so friendly, they didn't know what a bad person I was--and escaped just before my friends entered the kitchen in their bathrobes and bunny slippers.

Anyone need some chocolate?