Finally a day to be a college student

Tomorrow I will have been here for a full week. It doesn't seem like its only been a week. My days have been jammed packed with getting stuff for my room, orientation, classes, grocery shopping, figuring out where things are, homework, setting up a German bank account, making friends, and loads more. But today I got to have my first normal Cassidy lazy,college, relaxing day.

Last night my friend Colleen and I went out to a biergarten that is down by the river that goes through Freiburg. It was really nice. We had flammkuchen, which is like pizza but instead of tomato sauce its sour cream. So really nothing like pizza but it's the easiest way to describe it. It's REALLY good. I know a lot of people don't like sour cream but you can barely taste it. In addition I had my first and second beer of the semester. I felt kinda bad that it took so long to have a beer in Germany, it just seemed wrong. Both were good but I like the first one I had, Furstenberg. Colleen and I were able to order without English, it was rough German but we did it! I was really proud of us.

We ate and had our drinks and then our friend Kayla came and met us. It was exactly what I wanted, hanging out have some drinks, talking and laughing. It was really fun. It got cold outside so we moved inside where the atmosphere was cozy with a mixture of German and American music playing, which continues having me question where the hell am I? The other day I was doing homework with my door open and one of my German flatmates had their music one and the song switch from a German song to Jack Johnson. I was SO confused.

The biergarten was what the doctor ordered after our trip to the Black Forest. It was beautiful! It was an easily descent down into a valley, basically gravel road. We passed homes along the way, it was beautiful. We ended up at a Best Western, yup a Best Western. We had Koffee und Kuchen, coffee and cake. Mine was minus the koffee with Black Forest Cherry Cake. It was delicious. Then we went to this small chapel that is apparently the oldest in the area, dating back to 1140. It was nothing to the chapels I saw in Italy last summer. It was interesting to see how simple it was, two very different cultures.

Here are some of the trees along the path. Colleen pointed out that these trees were probably in Twilight. I could definitely picture Edward jumping from tree to tree.
This was the easy path down into the valley, where we would eventually end up at the Best Western.
This is a garage that was along out way. I loved all the little and big houses. Dad, screw Ely, you should move here!
Believe it or not but this is the Best Western! We ate at the restaurant that is a part of it. If you can see in the windows, there are figurines. Apparently they twirl on the hour, but as go-go Americans we didn't have the patience to wait 20 min to watch them.
Me and Black Forest Cherry Cake. Can you say yum?

Our way back was a lot more of a work out. It was not ridiculously difficult but I was definitely was getting tired. Good thing I went to the Boundary Waters and did all those portages because they definitely helped me get through it. Once we were out of the valley we were walking along this country road. It was beautiful. I ended up walking in between groups by myself and just taking in the nature. I love it! It's been so nice to have this absence from the big city and be a smaller city and then even better to be so close to amazing nature. I just wanted to sit like I did in the Boundary Waters for hours and take in the scenery.

Here is some of the countryside that we walked through once we were out of the valley. It was incredible. I wish I had had more time and was by myself to really appreciate how beautiful it was. (Not that I don't like people, but when people are behind you discussing if they like the song "Teach me how to Dougie" its hard to appreciate it. Just if you were wondering, they decided they didn't like it but they loved a good "Stanky Leg". I will have to respectively disagree, both "Teach me how to Dougie" and "Stanky leg" are fabulous examples of how great America is.)

It has been a week of walking and on my feet a lot. So I started being nice to my feet by staying off them by sleeping till 12:30 like every college student must then immediately putting on my Ugg house shoes. My feet have been hugged all day. They love me!

Tomorrow I have class and then a big grocery store trip planned. I am very excited. My German professor had us go to a supermarket on Friday. I had not seen this one and it has so much more than the ones by my place. I am ready for some variation!

I am also trying to plan a trip with Paige, but we are both not sure if we want to spend a bunch of money traveling. We are both taking advantage of being in Europe traveling and seeing different places, but not sure if we need to travel across Europe on the weekend but rather go see more unique, smaller attractions.

I have experienced missing the first Texas Football game and I am not sure how I feel about it. I feel so disconnected from them. It's very depressing. I know many people don't understand it, but I am from Texas and its football season and I am not able to have any football in my life. This is not normal. I usually go home for a weekend just to see Texas play, that may sound ridiculous but apparently I have burnt orange blood. But I feel like my blood may being slowly turning back to red or blue because I am so far away. I was thinking about it today and its gonna be like the 2010-2011 UT Football season never happened. I might have to have my parents tape all the games and keep them for me and have a football marathon when I get home. Actually maybe that is the thing to do.

Cassidy News Alert: Mom start taping all the UT games and saving them for when I come home. Next, I am not going to go on Texassports.com so I won't know what is going on. I will need everyone to keep quite about UT football to me, don't tell me ANYTHING. Then when I get home I will have the biggest Football Marathon known to man.

I'm already seeing issues with this plan, but we will see how long it lasts.

Hook'em

Cass