Keri Goes Abroad: Rain, rain, rain

Friday, March 6, 2009

Rain, rain, rain

I finally put up pictures in my room, so I could take a picture of the inside of my room. This is the only one so far because it's been so rainy and dark that my white room looks like a bleak cell in photos, though not in real life. It's actually very comfortable. And yes, I make my bed like this every day. Life in Germany is making me more organized, believe it or not. Even my roommates, who are a little messy by German standards, are the cleanest and most organized people I've ever lived with. And very respectful of others' space and things.

For the last few days, Freiburg has had an excessive amount of cold rain. It's the kind of rain that drips steadily all day, creates giant puddles, and gets everything everywhere soaked. And I made the mistake of buying a dollar-store umbrella, which promptly broke. I have now invested in a (slightly) more expensive umbrella. Due to the rain, I don't have any pictures from the last two days. I do, however, have pictures from before that.

Earlier this week we got to go on a field trip during class. Come to think of it, we've done that every day except for today. Anyway, our field trip was a scavenger hunt around a part of the city that we don't know very well. The class split up into two groups, and my group got to go to the part of the city that is essentially a hippie commune. It's actually pretty cool - all of the buildings have solar panels on the roof, and many are made out of recycled materials. Some people live in RVs, old streetcars, and treehouses along the road. Most of the resteraunts are all natural markets. It felt very familiar, and all of the people looked like they belonged at the Common Ground Fair in Maine, which made me comfortable.

On a whole, Germany is much 'greener' than America - everything is recyclable, and people actually take the time to sort things out and recycle them. I'm very impressed with the public transportation, too. And though it's not that fun to have to walk everywhere in the rain, it feels much healthier than at home. Some of the other IES students and I were talking the other day about how people are not necessarily more athletic, but they are thinner. An obese person looks very out of place here, and would have a very hard time doing anything. The seats on the streetcars are small, bathrooms are small, doors are small: everything would be much more difficult as a large person. It would be hard to be big here, since portions are smaller, food has less preservatives, and you walk everywhere. Which is all very good.