Hanne

13 April 2009

So, it’s Easter. The time of new beginnings, pretty flowers, easter eggs and general greenery. Not all greenery is good, however. I found this out the other day whilst walking in the park. Curious as to what was behind a stone, I knelt down in the foliage to take a look. This was a mistake. This foliage was not grass as we know it, was not harmless food for cows and such. Oh no. Instead, this grass decided it wanted to take a bite out of ME. And that was how the stinging nettle and I became acquainted. It was painful, it was slightly embarrassing, and now I know what my mother as talking about when she warned me to be careful where I sat in the forest!

On Saturday morning I went for a bicycle ride to a field where you can cut your own flowers. Rows upon rows of tulips and daffidols and you take a knife and slice their stems as close to the ground as possible. Rather gruesome when you think about it, but they bloom with the most magnificent colours –golden, orange, mauve crimson. Very festive.

We also cooked some eggs and steeped them in food colouring, as is befitting of the season. Two red, two orange, two yellow, two green, two blue. Then they went into a basket full of straw. And on Sunday they turned into chocolate bunnies! That was exciting. We got to search for them in the garden. I also found a bunny made out of a handtowel in the garden, another present from the Easter Bunny. Maybe he has more helpers in Europe because not so many farmers shoot the rabbits? Who knows, it was heaps of fun.

It was also fun to have a barbeque with Clara’s family. Here it is called ‘grillen’ and it is not quite the same as at home… for one thing they do not use gas but rather charcoal. A tray on the ground is filled with smouldering charcoal and a basket on a tripod hangs over the top with zucchini and sausages on it. Clara’s mum asked me what we have with barbeque and I said eggs, but that was before I realized how different German ones are. Nevertheless, Clara’s dad took it as a personal challenge to cook me an egg over the charcoal burner. The first one slid off the tinfoil into the coals but the second one cooked, in a little nest of tinfoil. It was so cute, I had to take about 5 photos.

Then that night I went to visit some other international students in their student flat. Most of the international students I have met here are actually from Skandinavia, as was Gabriel, whose flat we met at. It was great, us girls sat outside on the veranda with a bottle of wine while the three boys hurried about in the kitchen, cutting tomatoes, rinsing salad and cooking the pizzas. I heard some very intriguing stories about Finland there, too. They have some weird sports. For example, the wife carrying championships, where you complete an obstacle course in the shortest possible time whilst carrying your wife on your back. Or the cell phone throwing competition. Or the sauna championships.

Sauna has been a topic that has come up many times. In fact, just about every time Heidi, my friend from Finland, is around. She sings its praises and is trying to get us all to go on an outing to the sauna together. Hanne (yes, she spells her name the same way as me! She is from Norway) told us all about HER experience in a Finnish sauna. It involved an elderly woman telling her to ‘bend over’ and then proceeding to whip her all over. Both were naked. They do this in order to improve circulation. I am intrigued.

I am also intrigued by some of the wildlife I have seen here. Such as the squirrel was watching over dinner. He was very agile, running up and down each tree from top to bottom to get to the end of the row of trees. Tonight I ate dinner at a pizza restaurant. I was alone, and it was the first time I have been to a restaurant on my own. It was great, I was completely in charge on the conversation. Interior monologues all the way. I had a vegetarian pizza but actually ended up thinking about sheep because yesterday I saw some German sheep and it was quite disturbing, they were very grey. Not persil white like the sheep at home at all. Actually they looked like they had fallen into a swamp. And the other interesting animal I saw here was an elephant, in the middle of Freiburg. On Thursday. Actually that was quite sad because it had really cracked skin and did not look very happy. It was a football playing elephant from the circus, in town to make an advertisment. But I thought I would mention it because it was odd to walk out of the bakery and nearly bump into a pachyoderm.

Today I went on a trip with a few others to Titisee, a lake about 45 minutes from Freiburg. Titisee is in the heart of the Schwarzwald and has about 10 souvenir shops, all of which sell the same gifts. Cuckoo clocks, black forest cake, lederhosen. Very touristy but it was nice to go for a walk around the lake. Plus I find souvenir shops awesome. Whenever we have anyone to stay in Auckland I always take them down to Queen Street and they are finished long before I am! I think it is also a very popular place for motorcyclists too, because I saw the most motorbikes there that I have seen since arriving in Germany. Oooh they were so purdy. So many Ducatis, even new Ducatis, I saw an 09 monster just casually parked up the other day and drooled. Yum. Today it actually made me really miss riding, because there were so many people wandering around with helmets and jackets and every couple of minutes another bike would roar into life and I would almost get whiplash turning to perve on it. Withdrawal symptoms, maybe? Haven’t started to shake yet though…

Just one more story before I go, and it is one of chance and the mathematics of randomness. Except as I am not a mathmetician I am just going to tell it as the storyteller does, under the guises of chance and fate. What happened is that on Saturday I sent a facebook message to a girl I went to High School with. She moved to northern Germany over two years ago and I thought we could catch up at some point. I got a message back right away to say she was actually here in Freiburg, but only until this morning. Strange or what? Anyway, we met up in a little café and it was awesome to catch up, and awesome that we managed to catch each other.

That’s about all for now, so I’ll leave it there and get on with living and collecting more stories in the coming week…

Schöne Grüße aus Freiburg,

Hanne