Freiburg, Germany
After a quick change of plans and a 27 hour bus ride, we arrived at the temple in Freiburg, Germany. The countryside coming in to Freiburg is gorgeous, with rolling fields of wheat mixed with pockets of dense forest. The pictures I took, and I think any pictures, simply do not give justice to the color of green that is present here. The only comparison I can draw is from the movie “The Village” and ironically there were also strange towers built in the fields like wathtowers, more specifically along the treeline. If anyone has enlightenment on what these are for, please comment.
The city was really neat, the temple sits about 2 km out of the center of town, on a hill and is very visible. By using the word “tempel” and then “murmon” we were able to steer all of the taxi drivers to take us back after our daily exploration into town.
I want to take this moment to mention that while this may not ring true for all of germany, NOBODY in freiburg speaks English OR Russian! We found only one person the whole time that understood the basics in English- the rest was speaking the only internationally recognized and immortal language- caveman. I felt like such a gringo- they had to either point at the cash register or write down the price of everything just so I could pay. Ridonkulus. It’s like they have a different word for EVERYTHING! LOL.
Normally I would have tried to atleast learn a few basic words, but with only 12 hours or so of notice, I was wishing I had taken German in school instead of Spanish.
Moving on… The city was beautiful and the trip well worth it. Nevertheless, I am anxious to get back to Ukraine to a language I can understand. Pictures below:
La migra! Polish style…
So at the last minute(literally 15 hours or so before) we got an opportunity to go on one of the church temple trips to freiburg, Germany. One of the beautiful things about being an American in Europe is that as long as you don’t stay in one country longer than 90 days- you don’t need a visa! The only exception to this that I have found so far is Russia- as I think it posses them off that Americans get to go anywhere so they make you pay a couple hundred dollars even just for a tourist visa and it only lasts 3 weeks. Someone is still a little upset…
Anyways, back on point. We decided to go to Germany with the temple group and may actually decide to stay a week or so longer to see Germany- who knows? I think that if some KGB-like agency was trying to track us, their best bet would be this blog, because we are loving having the feedom to change plans quickly.
Right now I am sitting in a bus at the polish border waiting for them to check our passports and allow us to drive through Poland. I am hoping I will get to stop and have a hot-dog but I doubt that will happen. Anyone know any good polish jokes I can tell the border officers?
