white male consumer

Today is Monday, the 5th of September. I arrived in Zurich last Wednesday. The flight itself was fine (with the exception of the airport security in Heathrow, who insisted that my film be x-rayed). The first hurdle was finding my luggage, which I eventually did after panicking a bit. Then, it was the train ride. I purchased a ticket, and got onto the appropriate train. Fifteen minutes later, I was at the main train station in Zurich, with absolutely no idea of what to do next. I asked a woman where to go, in my broken German. She told me to go back to the airport station, which I did.

Yes, stupid. So, once I got back there, I took another ride back to the main station. I wandered around, looking at the signs, and –wonder of wonders — found a train going to Basel SBB. Not only was this stop written on my ticket, but it was also mentioned in the small reader they gave us weeks earlier to prepare.

I had two minutes to spare.

This was a considerably longer ride, perhaps two hours. There was one man sitting on the opposite side of the aisle whom I talked to briefly. Friendly type, who after finding out that I didn’t really speak German, switched into English and asked if I was from England. I said American, to which he responded by saying “good” and giving me a thumbs up along with an enthusiastic smile. This was reassuring.

At Basel SBB, which was much larger than the Zurich train station, I again had no idea where to go. But, once again, I got incredibly lucky and found the proper train, with perhaps five minutes to spare.

I was relieved when I got to Freiburg — on-time even. I walked outside, and noticed a line of taxis. I got in (a very nice Mercedes-Benz minivan), and told the driver where I wanted to go — mumbling the address and pointing at a piece of paper where I had written it down.

Once I got to the IES program center, things went smoothly. I took another taxi to where I am staying (a group of former French Barracks only recently renovated and turned into student housing), where I met my roommate from America, who is participating in the same program as I. A day or two later, I met two more of my roommates, these ones Germans. All told, there are six people in my suite, one of which is another American. However, he is studying at the actual German university here.

Wednesday night we went out to dinner and a beer garden, Thursday there were a few orientation sessions, and Friday we had our first class, which was German (I only placed into 102, this was expected). Saturday I was able to explore the old center of Freiburg, alone. It is a pretty nice place, I took nearly a roll of film (my digital camera needs to be cleaned, so for now, all of my photos are on my film camera, so it will be awhile before I put them online (if ever)).

Sunday we hiked throughout the Black Forest, which is a story for another day.

This post sort of got bogged down talking about just getting to Freiburg, so I hope to write more soon about my experiences here. My internet at my room will be up and running in a day or two, and I will have a lot more time to put towards this travelblog. Till then.