December 2006

The first weekend in December was the KHG's Advent weekend and I went with them to Oberprechtal, about an hour from Freiburg in the Black Forest. It was a good time for reflection, wandering in the mountains and getting to know people of the KHG a little better. In fact it was the first time that I really started to feel like I fit in at the KHG and the awkwardness subsided.

A few days later and I was in Ulm on the way to Augsburg where I visited Karin, a friend of one of my housemates, and saw a little more of Deutschland. I climbed the (161.5m) tallest church tower in the world in Ulm taking in superb views of the city on the Danube. From Augsburg it was just a hop and a step to Munich and so, after a night at an Augsburg bar, Karin and I took the train in for the day. The weather was awful, the first of winter, with sleet and a bitter wind so the visit was quite unpleasant and involved short stints outside followed by long pauses in restaurants, cafes and shops. I didn't really get to see Munich properly. However I did get around Augsburg, one of Germany's oldest cities, before I went home to Freiburg.

From Stuttgart and Augsburg I took Mitfahrgelegenheit (ride-sharing) offers common among students in Germany - I paid a fraction of the train fare to travel with someone who was already heading to my destination - a fantastic resource!

In the middle of the month my floor of my residence threw its semester party which saw loads of people packing what was formerly our living room till the wee hours. Germans know how to party!

A few days later and I was on the train to Trier to take advantage to an offer of free accommodation I arranged through the Hospitality Club ( www.hospitalityclub.org) - a kind of accommodation exchange service for travellers. The result was two nights in Trier, Germany's oldest city, where I visited heaps of Roman ruins, the Porta Nigra, thermal baths, an amphitheatre, as well as other city attractions such as the Karl Marx House before making a half-day trip to Luxemburg, Luxemburg. There I did a flash self-guided tour of city, taking in yet another beautiful Roman city before return to retire a weary traveller.

The next day I travelled to Aachen, near the Dutch border, the historical home of Charlemagne. I checked out the amazing cathedral and the city hall before taking the bus to it's sister town across the border. Finding nothing worth visiting in this tiny village in the Netherlands I turned around and headed back to the train station from where I travelled to Krefeld, where I would spend Christmas.

A week at the Blankenbergs (Michelle's former host family) in Krefeld was a fantastic (and authentic German) way to spend Christmas away from home and I enjoyed the preparations of the tree and other German Christmas traditions (Germans celebrate on Dec 24.), a German Christmas Mass and trumpets played from the church steeple. The Blankenbergs were, for the second time, extremely friendly, hospitable and welcoming (and they fed me very well). The highlight, however, was my visitor from the Texas who arrived on Dec 28.