Activity update: What the heck has Susan been up to?

I've been asking myself the same question: what the heck have I been doing the last few days?

Here's a summary:

Tuesday:

• Arrive Freiburg, walk around the city a bit after meeting up with Susanne

Wednesday:

• Sleep! until almost 2 p.m.!


• Run


• Explore internet cafe and grocery store


• Assemble bike


• Go for short bike ride


• Cook dinner

Thursday

• 
  Bike ride through black forest (including black forest cake) under sunny skies with some hills of significance and one BIG hill


• Lunch and nap


• Bike with Uta to the Schoenberg and have dinner with her family at her parents' house (where she lives)
  

Friday

• Sleep! (I was really dragging this morning, which makes me wonder if there's something wrong with me. I really seem to be getting a slow start to this trip!)


• Buy a phone that actually works in Europe


• E-mail and print out maps of Malaga and Granada at internet cafe


• Bike to France and back (about 70 km roundtrip). I managed to avoid the worst of the thunderstorms!


• Dinner with Susanne (my host) and her colleagues at the restaurant in the Seepark. We had Spargelpfankuchen!


• Blog & photo catchup

Let's see... I guess some of this warrants some explanation.

Firstly, I'm staying here in Freiburg in the apartment of Ralph & Susanne. Ralph is my roommate back in Seattle; I met him through a mutual friend (Lia). Ralph grew up in Germany and has lived in several other countries: the USA (a few times), Canada, Spain, Australia... anyway, he and Susanne have a place here and Susanne is working here at the local Stryker offices while Ralph is finishing up his PhD at the University of Washington. When I talked about going to Europe for some time, Ralph strongly recommended spending some time in Freiburg. I decided that if someone who had lived so many different places liked Freiburg so much, it couldn't be bad!

Freiburg was also an appealing place to spend some time because my Washington Alpine Club friend Uta lives here. After spending 5 years at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Institute in Seattle, Uta decided to return to her hometown of Freiburg to live with her parents and enjoy life for a while. She and I are hoping to do some climbing and/or mountaineering in the swiss Alps towards the end of my trip, when conditions are more favorable. We're also hoping to meet up with our WAC friend Robert (who lives in Zurich) and even possibly the former WAC'ers Joanna and Krystian from Krakow.

Uta's family has a cute little old farmhouse and a newer house that they built on the property, which is also home to a barn, complete with goat and chickens. The chicks were really quite cute, and Uta's family was fun, friendly, and kind enough to use lots of English!

Yesterday I headed out on a bike ride through the black forest, on a route suggested by Ralph. I'm not sure if I rode the route in the correct direction or not, but it had a very steep hill (about 15% grade, sustained). The downhill was pretty spectacular on the other side! I also stopped at Cafe Decker in Staufen along the way on Ralph's recommendation; he says it's the best black forest cake in the world! I personally thought it tasted a bit too much like brandy, but that's apparently how they make it over here!

The day before I left for Europe, I visited the AT&T store to buy a phone that would work in Europe. Of course, I had no way of testing the phone, and assumed that the woman in the store knew what she was talking about... but alas, when I turned on my phone after touching down here... no signal. So today I bought a new phone which will hopefully suffice throughout my stay in Europe. For better or worse, I have a new phone number to go along with it...

I had never been to France before, and seeing as how Freiburg is so close to the border, I had to make an attempt to get over there by bike. Despite a relatively late start in the afternoon, I did manage to find my way over to the Rhein (and more imporantly, a bridge over it), and went as far as Neuf Brisach before turning around. I know now that the word on the street is that the area around Colmar, France (another 15 km further down the road) is very pretty, but perhaps because I only got as far as Neuf Brisach, my impressions were simply: "not nearly as cute as Freiburg!" The villages I rode through seemed, well, empty. It looked like there was less money being spent on maintenance and house painting in France than in Germany. It was a bit strange to notice such a difference just after crossing the river... The funny thing is, Neuf Brisach looks quite impressive in the aerial photo!

And about the Spargelpfankuchen - Uta had explained to me yesterday as we biked past some fields that the asparagus is in season now. And sure enough, once you knew how to spot it (plastic sheets on the ground to cover the asparagus and keep it from turning green - they like it white here), asparagus fields are everywhere! And spargel is advertised at most of the restaurants. Indeed, the restaurant we were at tonight had several spargel specialties, including the asparagus pancake! It was actually asparagus wrapped in a pancake, with a nice cream sauce on the side to pour over it, and rather tasty! (But wow - that asparagus is tough to cut!) I'm still not sure why they like their asparagus white over here...