This was not actually the first time that Michelle had lived in Germany. Long before I met her, she had gone on a high school exchange program which took her to Freiburg. Freiburg lies near the very southernmost tip of western Germany, near the border with Switzerland and France in the Schwarzwald (Black Forest). Michelle lived with the family of her exchange buddy, Sonia, who had previously spent three months living in Canada. I had actually met Sonia once before when she was visiting Michelle in Hamburg, (read story) but now I had been invited along with Michelle to spend a weekend with Sonia’s family in Freiburg. The timing couldn’t have been better. I was supposed to go to Karlsruhe on Monday to perform a little maintenance work on a server computer, and it would be directly on my way back from a weekend in Freiburg.
I took a night train and arrived in Freiburg at about five in the morning. I had a quick breakfast in the station and headed back up to the platform to meet Michelle who as coming in just after me. On the way up I bumped into Sonia and her mother who were also waiting, I couldn’t believe they had both gotten up so early. This was a sign of things to come. Sonia’s family was hospitable to the point where I really started to feel out of place. They were just so nice. We waited together for Michelle’s train to come in, and weren’t disappointed when ten minutes later she stepped down onto the platform. We all piled into a large red van and headed to Sonia’s house to sleep in.
By the time we finally rolled out of bed and had breakfast, we found ourselves several hours behind schedule, and no longer in need of lunch, so we headed out into the city. Sonia’s family lives just outside the main part of Freiburg, but it was still only a very brief drive into town. Michelle and Sonia used to take their bikes to school and it took about twenty minutes. Freiburg, like many of the cities in southern Germany, had sustained far less damage during the wars than cities like Cologne, and really are beautiful to look at. We went along the bustling shopping streets downtown, glancing into the occasional window and stopping for a quick snack on the street just outside of the towns large cathedral. We looked inside briefly, but didn’t waste much time in going to the main attraction, the top of the spire which affords a magnificent view of a city famous in Germany for its greenery and commitment to the environment. It would actually be the second time that we were able to gaze down on the slanting earthen coloured rooftops of Freiburg, as we later climbed a nearby hill and stopped at a lookout point. From above, the city unfolds as if in a fairy tale. Its tiny houses crowded about its pointy church steeples and nestled in the valley between the rising mountains in the distance which become more and more prevalent as one approaches Switzerland. I was happy I had come, and Michelle was clearly glad to be back in the city she had called home for several months. She pointed out all of the things she remembered from her last stay here as we walked through the city with Sonia, her boyfriend, her brother and a new visiting student staying with her family, Eva from the Czech Republic.
After all that walking though, Michelle and I were tired to the point where we needed another rest. I hadn’t slept much during my midnight to five trip this morning, and Sonia had been up to meet us at the station. We made plans to make it up by going out that evening. We had a delicious late dinner prepared by Sonia’s mother after our nap, and then made our way back into town to meet up with a few of Sonia’s friends from university. Our rendezvous point was supposed to be outside of a movie theatre that for this night only was to be converted into a discotheque for some kind of huge party. It was pretty clean when we arrived that we were not the only people who had heard about it. The entire street was clogged with people not so much waiting in line as simply filling any available space outside the doors of the theatre. We stayed in the mass waiting for Sonia’s four friends, but it seemed evident that we wouldn’t be going inside. At least, that’s what I gathered. One member of our newly arrived group didn’t agree. He loudly proclaimed that he had come for a “Fettes Party!” and emphasized each word with a downward thrust of a couple of fingers on each hand. I’m not sure I can really translate that, but then I don’t really have to. Just imagine a fairly tall guy with bouncy curly hair saying that a couple of times, gesticulating more fiercely each time, and you get the point. We agreed to wait a few minutes while he and a friend tried to recreate the hand stamps which proved you had already been inside with a marker, and then finally decided to move in out of the cold and into a nearby caf�. Our “temporary” plan lasted until about two o’clock in the morning when we paid for our drinks and decided to head out. We might normally have gone home, but as our last nap had lasted far longer than planned, we weren’t all that tired and decide instead to seek out the closest place to dance.
As we headed down the smoky stairs of a dance bar a few streets over, we bumped into a couple of familiar faces. Eva and Sonia’s brother had apparently had enough of wherever their night had started out as well, and now we were all back together again. We didn’t dance long though, whatever it is that flows through the blood of young Germans that produces an insatiable craving for 80’s music, I just haven’t been getting enough of it and the typical DJ just sucks the energy right out of me. The incredible clouds of smoke that enveloped this particular establishment weren’t helping anyone else out anyway, and so we happily piled into a taxi to head back to bed, for the third time that day.
Morning broke on a new day and there was a new face at the breakfast table as I reached the end of the trail my nose had faithfully followed, Sonia’s father had just come back from a hunting trip in the Black Forest. Eva was the only other person at the table at this point, and the two of use tried to get a picture of what exactly it was that he had been hunting with our equally feeble German skills. She had a German – Czech dictionary, and came up with an answer. I finally settled on deer, and later confirmed it with Michelle. I think by the end of this trip I should be a formidable charades player. In time we all gathered around the elaborate breakfast that Sonia’s mother had put together and discussed what we should do today, our final day of visiting. It was a little grey outside, and we had done a good job of seeing the city centre yesterday, so today we were considering going for a walk in the hills or heading down the road to a neighbouring town. One of our options was going to Strasbourg across the border in France, and remembering how most of my family had somehow ended up there at one point or another, I suggested that might be a good idea. Strasbourg it was, we all piled into the van and headed for France. It’s really starting to become like traveling from one province to another rather than leaving countries. Sure they hadn’t introduced the Euro at this point, but most of the tourist shops and restaurants had prices listed in both francs and marks, and they really don’t have much of a border check any more, its little more than a speed bump and a flag where we crossed.
It was nearly December now and this was the first weekend that the Christmas market would be open in Strasbourg. We had looked into going to the one in Freiburg, but it wasn’t opening for another day or two. I had heard a lot about the whole Christmas market phenomenon, although I didn’t know that it stretched to France. Still, as I quickly found out, this part of France still displays a fairly German atmosphere. The combination actually makes for an incredibly beautiful city. The architecture of many centuries is evident, and gives the city a layered beauty. Some of the buildings, particularly an old commerce building just across from the dominant gothic cathedral look like inspiration for the models of houses that come with model train sets. It has a small base and then the structure widens after the first floor, stretching up three stories before curving back into a peak another two stories up. Thick black wood criss-crosses over an orange background on the top two stories, while the lower parts of the building are filled with tiny squares of glass held together by thick black slats. The windows are from an age where a large pane of clear glass simply wasn’t a possibility.
Stretching from the base of this old house of commerce, to the gates of the cathedral, a bustling group of wooden kiosks stands, each with a number and lit with Christmas lights in beneath the slightly grey sky. This is the Strasbourg Christmas market, already busy with crowds of visitors, some come for early shopping, and still many more like us, come merely to look upon the spectacle. Languages from all over Europe and beyond can be heard between the aisles of small shops. I got the feeling that this was probably an pretty popular destination for university students from all over the world to do exchanges. Sonia’s mother passed a stand selling Gluhwein, (glowing / mulled wine) a traditional drink at Christmas time made of hot red wine and spices, and insisted that we all try some. We were all happy to indulge, just holding the warm glass in my hands, chilled from the gentle but cool breeze somehow made it seem more like the holidays. I’m sure that all of the home cooked meals we eaten had helped as well. We browsed through the market as the sun began to slowly set, and then left the hustle and bustle, seeking refuge in the cathedral.
Now by this point, as anybody who has read my earlier stories will know, I had seen more than my fair share of cathedrals in Europe, but I was still impressed. From the intricate decorations and carvings to the lovely lighting that further helped to display the original artistry of the church, the interior of the building is a marvel. I particularly liked a more recent addition to the church, a large (10 meter high) ornamental clock that stands in the far right corner at the very back of the cathedral. The clock face itself is impressive, but it is the depictions of the stars, the constellations and the moving characters that chase each other slowly across the clock as the time marches on that really kept me staring. It seemed like something out of the oldest works of science fiction, great metal gears exposed and detailed carvings of the heavens, it could have been a Jules Verne time machine.
By the time we stepped back outside, dusk had fallen over Strasbourg, but now the city was at its most beautiful. The dim light that had eked its way between thick grey clouds had now been replaced by the warm lights of the city at Christmas time. I have never in my life seen such an effort put into dressing a city up. Every street we walked down had lights, whether strung across the streets in great drooping arches of white twinkles, or in the form of multi-coloured floodlights, bathing the buildings and shops in cool blues and violets, the city at night was breathtaking.
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