Kylajane37's travel blogs:
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Back with Old Friends
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Today we woke up and headed to the regular Frankfurt airport to meet up with Liz and Jason. Our meeting went smoothly and we headed to the parking lot to get in the Opal minivan we'd rented for the next ten days. Once in the car we realized a couple of things. Number 1: Liz is pregnant! She is about three months along. This is great news and I am really excited for her. Number 2: We had absolutely no plans for this trip! So we started to brainstorm. For almost the entire trip, we never really made plans for more than 24 hours in advance. When we tried, something almost always through us off track. It was at turns exciting, spontaneous, occasionally frustrating, but really fun!
The one thing we knew was that we were supposed to eat a meal with some German relatives of Jason's in a town called Bruchsal, near Karlsruhe. We assumed this meant the dinner meal so we started pulling out guidebooks and maps to figure out where to spend the day. We noticed that we were too far from Heidelburg. I'd heard good things about the place both from a German friend in Oxford and from a German man who stayed with my Spanish family for a week when I was there. We read a little bit about it and headed there. We got out of the car and began to stroll around. It was a beautiful little city on a river with a castle on the hill. Jason decided to try to call his relatives. We soon found out that they were expecting us for lunch! It was about 11:30 then so we figured we should abandon Heidelburg and head to Bruchsal. We all vowed that we come right back...but you know how that goes. So, Heidelburg is a town I'd like to come back to someday.
Nevertheless, I wouldn't have traded lunch with Gisela and Verner for anything. Gisela cooked up a delicious lunch of meatloaf, strudel, and vegetables with salad and desert to boot. Then they led us up to the top of nearby hill for a view of the countryside. Most importantly, Verner recommended we visit Friebourg, just an hour or two south of there. They were somewhat horrified to hear that we planned on camping, despite Jason's arguments that we were well prepared. All in all, it was an excellent introduction to Germany. We decided to continue on to Friebourg. Our rental car was kitted out with a GPS system which we nicknamed Vivica, because of her posh British accent. It was really a fantastic tool. She led us directly to a camping ground just outside Friebourg. We were the only folks pitching tents to camp, but with warm sleeping bags we had no problems. We learned if you climbed up the hill behind the campsite you could reach the heart of the city of Friebourg. We decided to do so just after setting up camp. It was a fantastic hike. Friebourg is right at the edge of the Black Forest so is surrounded by hills and woods. We hiked up and around and eventually found a lookout to see the sunset over the city and its really cool munster (cathdral). We then headed down into town and sampled some delicious German beer. Only by ten or eleven at night were we hungry enough for some more food so we had a few kebabs and headed back to the tents. We were really taken with Friebourg. It is a university town and just had a really great feel.
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