Greetings from Freiburg, Germany! After several weeks of writing about my “experience abroad” I am finally in Freiburg. I arrived late Monday night and stayed at the Kruezblume hotel, which is actually a small bed and breakfast located above a restaurant. I would highly recommend staying here as the manager really helped me with all 50 lbs of my luggage and extended breakfast for me as I am a severely late riser in the mornings. The following morning I checked into my program at the IES center (which fun fact: Uber does not work in Freiburg) after lugging my suitcases a little less than a mile down cobblestone streets. Once I met with the director of the program, I was immediately taken care of and sent to my apartment where I unpacked and immediately went to sleep. After traveling to 4 countries in the span of 2 weeks, I was exhausted and simply could not explore the city that night. Luckily my housing tutor invited myself and the other IES students in my building to dinner, so I had an incentive to leave my room.
Since Wednesday we have had several city tours and have gone through the basic orientation steps necessary to start the program such as completing a residence permit application and going through security precautions. Nothing too exciting or different from your typical freshman orientation week, which is a bit bizarre considering I am turning 22 in a few months and will be living on my own in a little over a year. I would describe this week as the typical freshman first week on campus reincarnated, but in a different country. On the other hand, one excursion that stood out was this Sunday - as in today - my program director took us snowshoeing on the Feldberg Mountain. Although I am quite outdoorsy and active, prior to today I had never been snowshoeing, so it was quite the experience. Basically snowshoeing allows you to hike in deep snow during the winter time by strapping your hiking boots into a snowshoe that maximizes your surface area, so you do not sink into the snow with every step. We hiked approximately 7 miles in a little less than 5 hours and were able to grab some hot soup on the mountain top. I must say that I am a pretty experienced and well versed hiker, but this hike made my Top 5 Favorite Hikes list easily. I would highly recommend if you were in Freiburg and had a spare day to spend. The conditions were perfect as it had just snowed the night prior and was not terribly cold. Tomorrow I have my second German class at the ungodly hour of 9:15, so I will be promptly going to bed soon as that hike completely exhausted me. Included is a picture of Feldberg Mountain! Til next week -