Freiburg im Breisgau

Today is my first day in Freiburg, Germany. I'm here to visit my friend and water polo teammate Andrew from Pomona. He is more commonly known as the Champ, because he's a champ. So, I flew to Frankfurt last night and took a train in the wee hours of the morning to Freiburg. Here's how it went down:

The flight from Edinburgh to Frankfurt was a breeze. Flying out of Edinburgh is a little bit like flying out of Ontario. There were essentially no lines for anything and I had plenty of time to kill at the airport. I bought Thomas Friedman's "Hot, Flat, and Crowded" and started in on it while I was traveling and waiting. Turns out, Champ is reading it, too. Anyway, once I got to the Frankfurt airport, I scoped out the train station situation and got completely comfortable with my train itinerary (2:05 AM departure from regiobhf track 2). I found the platform and everything, and then I went upstairs again to kill four hours in the airport. This was exceedingly boring, and I got a headache just sitting there and reading under the bright airport lights. When the waiting was done, I headed downstairs to catch the train. There were probably twenty people on the platform who shared in my despair when the announcement was made that our train would be 90 minutes late. The announcements in the train terminal are not made in English following the German. So, this very nice woman helped me out. She even got out here English-German dictionary to look up the word "breakdown". So, we stood there with our translation guides in hand and tried to communicate. It didn't go too well, but the process was enjoyable. It's lucky that she had been there because I would have been going nuts without the information she gave me. I was sitting on a bench when the delay was announced. I had my hands on my head and my left leg crossed over my right knee. A small German boy wearing a light blue down jacket, probably six years old, walked up to me and put his hands on his head. He was pretty intent on mimicking my posture. I laughed, and he was clearly encouraged. Next, he picked up his leg and crossed it over his other leg (with his knee bent at 90 degrees). I was impressed with his balancing ability. Next, I picked up both legs and pointed them staight at him. He did the only thing one can do in this situation, and that is to leap into the air and quickly kick both of his legs in my direction before returning to the ground. At this point, I knew I was dealing with a pro, so I started making weird facial expressions and pulling on my ears and stuff, and he did it all. This was a real crackup, and it came at a really good time because I was starting to get really tired. This was at about 2:00 AM, mind you.

I went back upstairs to the giant airport lounge region where they have a bunch of reclined chairs for people who have to spend the night in the airport. Having already spent some time in one of those, I decided to sit at the bar/restaurant at the center of the lounge because it was more comfortable. I ate one of my granola bars. Then, an older man told me that I would need to buy something from the bar if I wanted to sit there. So, I panicked a little as I realized that I know basically no German words for liquids. At that point, however, I remembered a scene from freshman year (possibly OA, even) that featured Martha and Jon Kadish going over the German word and pronunciation for orange juice. So, I went to the bar and ordered an orangensaft. This apparently worked.

I went back down to the train platform at about 2:50 AM and waited once more for the broken down train. Finally, at about 3:20, it became clear that the train was approaching. This was also the point at which the top-secret announcements about Freiburg began to be spoken in German over the loudspeaker. The train was scheduled to terminate in Basel, but they kept making announcements about Freiburg. This worried me greatly. Basically, what I could hear was something like, "blah blah blah Freiburg. Blah Freiburg blah blah blah. Blah blah, blah Freiburg blah blah blah Freiburg." I took this to mean one of two possible situations. The first and most worrisome goes something like, "Because the train is so late, it will no longer be stopping in Freiburg. If you want to get to Freiburg, you need to...". This scared me. The other possibility was that the train would no longer be going all the way to Basel, but would instead terminate in Freiburg. I was freakin out.

In any event, the train came and I got on and everything worked out ok. I hailed a cab in front of the train station in blah blah blah Freiburg and it took me to Champ's flat. In fact, I've been here for about 12 hours by now. I got in at 6:30 AM or so.

That is the story of the first leg of this trip. So, any of you who say that my worries about travel going wrong are unfounded in any way, take this as an example of how something always goes wrong for me. In fact, while I was sitting in the airport, I began to think about my various excursions this semester. Turns out, of the 6 significant trips I've taken, only 2 of them have not featured significant delays that have made me super nervous. Think Iceland detour, Newcastle suicide, Lancaster water polo trip timing belt disaster, and Bahn breakdown. That's not even counting the Firbush bus breakdown. Awesome. I think I have every right to expect the worst. I am proud to say that while I was at the Frankfurt airport, though, I used Rick Steves' method of changing your expectations. Instead of expecting the train to arrive at 2:05, I just expected it to come at 3:35. And it did.

What do the following statements have in common?

I find traveling in unknown territory by myself to be very relaxing.
I always feel like I can rely on public transportation to get me where I need to be when I need to be there.
I like the thrill of staying up for 24 hours straight.
I speak and understand German well enough to navigate transportation crises.
At least I don't spend loads of time and energy worrying and thinking of every possible worst-case scenario.
I won't be needing a haircut soon.



Answer: They're all false.


Champ and I just went to downtown Freiburg and he gave me the grand tour. We had kebabs at his favorite place. He just went off to his 6:00 class, so I stayed behind to write emails. He's also going to go to water polo, but since I didn't bring my suit I'm going to remain here until about 9:30 or so. Then, I plan on meeting him downtown and we'll do something fun, I guess. His flat is pretty far east of the city center, so we have to ride the tram. The weather today has been really nice. It's probably 65 degrees with a gentle breeze and good sunshine.

I'm pretty excited about the trip. Our plans include 3 days in Stuttgart, 4 days around Bodensee, and a two-night trip to Paris at the tail end. I will do my best to update the blog with the latest happenings.

Wish us luck!

p.s. Sorry I don't have any pictures yet. They're coming, I promise.

Royal Botanic Gardens

Here are some photos from my trip to the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh. Further explanation can be found below. Click on any of the photos to enlarge them. The one above has an ant on it. I didn't realize this when I took the photo. Cool, eh?



This is a slipper orchid, I believe. It's called that because the labellum (bottom part) is shaped like a slipper. Did you know that there are over 55 billion species of orchid? Actually, I think it's 25,000, but still impressive. The audio tour was pretty neat. Parts of it used the voices of experts and were in sort of an interview form. So, when the interviewer asked the orchid expert if all orchid species were attractive, the man replied, "No, some of them are hideously ugly!" Who knew?



I think that most of the flowers that look like this are called Cymbidium, or "Tiger Tail". I think I liked them the best.



Recently I mentioned to my mom that the weather here has become very nice and that flowers were blooming in George Square. She requested that I take some photos of these flowers because "Francesca and I like that sort of thing". Well, instead of just going to Geroge Square to get some flower shots...

Oh man! I went to the Royal Botanic Gardens and they were AWESOME! The place is huge, and I literally got lost within it (In a good way). I intended to go along the Water of Leith as well, but I was so pleased with the gardens that i spent the entire afternoon there. I took loads of pictures that will be up on facebook shortly.

The trip began around 1:00 this afternoon. I left my flat and walked north across Princes Street and up Hanover. After a few street name changes (of which they are quite fond here... It would be tough to organize any type of mobile riot or demonstation here, I think) and about twenty or thirty minutes on foot (mind you this is my foot speed, so divide by 1.5 to figure out how long it would take you) I found the place. I didn't really know what to expect, but what I found exceeded what I had been imagining. Not everything was blooming (in fact, most of it wasn't), but it was really neat to be in a place that was so carefully prepared by people who are really interested in the biology and the aesthetics of the plants. A lot of people thought and worked really hard to make that place, and I got to enjoy it for free (unless you count airfare and living expenses and university tuition, but it's not like those add up to much, right?).

I didn't realize until I ran into them, but the gardens also boast a number of big greenhouses. This was probably the coolest part. That's probably why you have to pay 3 pounds to get in to them. There were all sorts of cool plants and smells and more smells and humidity and odors and stenches and plants and smelly plants and smells. I took many pictures of these plants and I've attached some of them to this blog. The rest will go on facebook, I suppose.

I left the gardens at about 4:45 and walked the two miles home. My feet hurt now, but it was worth it.

Name that film: "These guys can honk all they want, but I ain't going faster than 12. It might take us around three hours to get home."

Whenever I'm having an exceptionally good day, I like to get some Kebab Mahal to top it off. So I did that as well. My lamb bhuna is calling me.

Robbie

Stirling, Rugby, Water Polo

It has been way too long since I last wrote. I have a lot to catch up on, and I'll do my best to remember what I've been up to over the last three weeks.

On a Friday a few weeks back, my friends Emily, Jon, and Steven (I think that's his name) took the train to Stirling for the day. We went to Stirling Castle and the Wallace National Monument (as in William "Gromit" Wallace) and they were both very cool. The castle was my favorite to date, though it has since been overtaken by Beaumaris Castle in Anglesey. More on that later. The Wallace National Monument was also cool, though the single super narrow spiral staircase that was used for both ascending and descending was a little bit scary. The highlight of the Monument visit was surely seeing the bust of Anaheim Ducks enforcer George Parros prominently displayed alongside those of William Wallace, Robert the "Isaac" Bruce, and others (see the photo. It's actually a bust of Robert the Bruce, but apparently they used Parros as the model for it).
Here are some more photos from Stirling:

Left: Castle. Right: Wallace Monument



On the next day, called Saturday, Emily and I took the bus to Murrayfield Stadium for the Six Nations Rugby matchup between Italy and Scotland. This was essentially the battle for last place in the tournament, so there was a lot at stake. Scotland won, though the game was sloppy (even I could tell). It was really fun to be a part of the mass exodus from the city center to the stadium and the atmosphere was great. There were loads of bagpipers along the road playing away and kilts were worn by many.

I had to leave the game about ten minutes early so that I could make it to a bus that would take me to Waverly train station. I had to catch a train down to Birmingham for a water polo tournament in Walsall (just north of Birmingham). I was, as I often am, super anxious about the whole procedure, but it worked out fine. My train was stuck in Newcastle for about an hour due to a fatality incident on the track between Newcastle and Durham (I believe). So, I got to Birmingham too late to catch the commuter train to Walsall and was forced to take a taxi. I got to our accomodations at about 1:30 AM.

The tournament was the semi-final round of the British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) water polo championships. We played Sheffield, Cambridge, and Cardiff, and won the first two of three. This was enough for us to advance to the final round (which was last weekend). Walsall was depressing.

That's all I've got for now. I'll have to cover Wales and more water polo next time.

wales

Tomorrow morning, I leave for Wales on a train leaving Waverly at 6:52 AM. When I get back, I'll have lots to write about and I'll catch up on my visits to Stirling, a Scotland rugby match, and Birmingham for a water polo tournament. Sorry I haven't been able to write much lately. Expect an outpouring next week.

Edinburgh From Holyrood Park

Here's a video from up on the hill.

Arthur's Seat

No, I'm not talking about the episode of the ever-popular PBS program "Arthur" in which Francine tries to take Arthur's seat. Today, I went out to see Scottish Parliament and ended up walking around Holyrood Park, home of Arthur's Seat. This installment will focus on photographic evidence of my day, as I am not entirely thrilled at the prospect of writing too much.

So... Parliament. It was closed, so I couldn't go inside. The outside was neat, though.

Note: The flags in this photo are conspicuously still. Today was easily the nicest day of the new year in Edinburgh. It must have been easily over 50 degrees (maybe even 60 once the sun came out. yep... the sun). The sun came out once I was about half-way up the hill. More on that later.

So, I hiked up the hill and took lots of photos overlooking Parliament, Calton Hill, the Castle, the Firth, and other various landmarks. When I began, the clouds had begun to peel away across the Firth of Forth and I was very lucky to have found myself at the top just as the sun landed upon the city of Edinburgh. Of all the people I could have asked to take my photo, of course I approached the ONE who spoke very little English. I had been passing loads of Scottish people who were totally viable candidates. Nope. I chose the other guy. He was great, though. A dog jumped up on me. It was a chocolate lab puppy, so it was ok. Probably the best-looking dog I've seen besides Danny-son.

I also took some video, so hopefully I can attach that here:

Girly MAN MAN MAN MAN!

And now for something completely different. If you haven't seen this already, it's well worth it, I'd say. My flatmates and I really get a kick out of it. If you don't think it's funny, I dare you to watch it 5 times through. It gets funnier for me every time.

Ok. This is a clip from a Tollywood film (like Bollywood, but in Telegu language I guess). Somebody has simply taken the sounds from the scene and inserted English subtitles based on those sounds. The words aren't as funny as the dancing, if you ask me. Follow the link and enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDKcevMFUCo