Monday 19th - Sunday 25th April
This week started the same as any other week! I had to get up relatively early on Monday for a couple of lessons of fun at the Gesamtschule, where I was a cover teacher for several of my lessons on my days there. Despite not being in my job description, I see no reason to turn it down, it's all experience at the end of the day! The Gymnasium has been pretty standard too, working with the older kids, and doing marking!
Several of the afternoons were spent, during this week, sitting outside enjoying the Saarlaendisch Sunshine - and coming out with a healthy glow!
Friday was Mum's birthday; so being the dutiful, and caring son that I am, I decided to send a card. Now, I thought I'd buy the stamps from the automated machines in town, when I was there on Saturday evening, before meeting my tandem partner. This was a flawless plan, except for one minor thing that I overlooked! That was the chance that the person who was using the machine before me was converting his life savings into Deutsche Post Postage Stamps. I kid you not, he was at this machine for a good 15 minutes. Every time I thought he was finished, he seemed to start the process all over again! Now, as everyone who knows me will undoubtedly say, I'm a patient soul, but this guy was beginning to push his luck! Eventually though, he'd independently prevented Deutsche Post from going bust, and I was able to buy the stamp I needed (a procedure which took about 90 seconds!), and the card arrived only 1 day late; which I will obviously be blaming on Royal Mail!
The highlight of the week, though, was undoubtedly the trip to Freiburg that we made at the weekend! The only bad, and it wasn't that bad really, thing was that the train from Saarbruecken left at 7.02 on Saturday morning; thus necessitating an early start! The first train journey took us to Pirmasens, which lies over the border in the Pfalz. From there we had a two minute connection (which, although it sounds tight, is pretty standard for Deutsche Bahn) on another train to Landau. From Landau, another train brought us to our old friend Karlsruhe, where we had a brief respite from train travel, before boarding another train to Offenburg. The final train brought us Offenburg to Freiburg-im-Breisgau at about 11.55; the total journey taking just shy of five hours. The first thing we did in Freiburg was to find the hostel, which wasn't too difficult in itself. The hardest thing was avoiding being run over by trams, cyclists, and buses - all of whom seemed to come from every direction possible! After about 30 minutes we found the hostel, and we decided to dump our stuff before heading back to Freiburg station for a little exploration of the Black Forest.
The journey back to the train station from the hostel was a little bit of a run towards the end; hindered slightly by the car-friendly pedestrian crossings! Nevertheless we made it, albeit slightly out of breath, onto the train. Whilst on the train, the driver announced that if you wanted to go all the way to where we wanted to go, you had to be sat in the front three coaches...we were in the fourth, so had to change coaches at one of the stations. The journey was another hour on the train, but it was truly part of the experience; I spent most of the journey in awe of the surroundings. One minute you would be going through a pretty dense wooded area, then through a tunnel, and then on the wall of a gorge, uphill, downhill - just fantastic views all the way. On the way to Aha, our destination, we saw snow on the tops of the mountains within the Black Forest, which was surprising considering the outside temperature was definitely not below 20!
After about an hour we arrived in Aha, which is on the edge of the Schluchsee. Schluchsee is the largest expanse of water in the whole of the Black Forest. It's a reservoir which has a walk all the way around the outside. The walk is about 18km, although we didn't do it all! We did spend about three hours walking along the beaches, and paths bordering the lake. The views were fantastic, the lake itself was tranquil, and serene! The weather was perfect too - the sun was shining, the sky was cloudless. After several hours, we headed back to Freiburg on the train, and found somewhere to eat. The evening was spent playing cards, until about 10, when we thought it would be sensible/necessary to have a relatively early night!
We got up about 8 on Sunday, and were out by 8.45. We decided to spend the morning looking around the city of Freiburg itself. The first thing we did was to climb up to the observation tower, which is about 460m above the city, the views you got from the tower were magnificent; the city and the forest were both spectacular. The city itself is very nice, it has plenty of pretty buildings, and nice little streams running down both sides of the streets within the city centre.
After a couple of hours, we went and caught the train to Basel, in Switzerland. The train journey itself was about an hour long, and after about 45 minutes, both Harriet and me came to the realisation that Switzerland is not a member of the European Union. I know I study European Studies as part of my degree, but I can't be expected to remember everything! The fact that they aren't part of the EU means that they don't use the Euro, preferring, instead to use the Swiss Franc. This is quite annoying when you have a wallet full of Euros! It was a perfect photo opportunity - that moment!
Basel itself is the third largest city in Switzerland, and lies on the banks of the Rhine. The city is quite pretty, and a rather eclectic mix of French, German, Italian and Swiss influences! Whilst walking round the city, it's possible to hear a selection of European languages! We spent a few hours walking round the city, taking in the sights, and taking some photos!
We caught the train from Basel back in a Saarbruecken direction at about 15.35. The first train took us to the Deutsche Bahn station in Basel, where we changed onto a train for Offenburg. From Offenburg we aimed to follow the same route home as the one which we'd taken to Freiburg. This was all going swimmingly, until Karlsruhe, where the train to Landau was delayed by about 10 minutes (about 7 minutes longer than our connection!). So, we sought advice from the Deutsche Bahn automated ticket machine. The machine advised us to travel to Neustadt, from where we caught a train to Kaiserslautern, where we changed to a train to Saarbruecken. Despite the travel complications we arrived back in Saarbruecken a mere six minutes later than we would have done if we'd taken the original train. Back home in good time for a nice early night in readiness for another fun-filled week at school!
As ever, you can see the pics from my Black Forest & Basel Bonanza here!
Plans for the next week are not overly numerous; a party in Homburg, and a day trip to Bonn!
No comments:
Post a Comment