Category: Germany and Scotland

23 August 2008

At noon, we left to find Műnster Cathedral. Five hours later, we found it. Never went in but Sean took a picture of the mooning gargoyle.

Sean decided he needed a bratwurst, finally finding some from a street market vendor. I took mine and bit into it. He read the look on my face. It was raw. Neither of us had thought about it but he had made the purchase in an open air market where locals bought their groceries. Yuck!

Lost

We wandered around Freiburg, not really doing anything but enjoying the ambience.

“If we were going to do the St. Peter-Margen bus/hike through the Black Forest, we had better get to it,” I told Sean.

So, again, we asked directions to the Bahnhof (train station). This time, we actually get clear directions, however, it soon became clear that we were not good at following directions either. We knew where we went wrong, but instead of going back to that road, we decided to continue going over and up in the right direction. Did that work? What do you think? We wandered and wandered. I was getting exhausted.

“Sean, I have to sit down and take a drink of water.”

“Okay.”

So, I was sitting there drinking my water and looked up. I wish I had taken a picture of the sign but I didn’t so I have included my drawing of it. It was a beautiful sign with the ubiquitous golden arches. We had eaten at that McDonald’s the day before. I didn’t know what hbf stood for but I knew it was the central train station.

“Sean.”

He looked down at me and I just pointed up at the sign.

Of course, we took the hard way over the steep overpass instead of under. We hadn’t seen that part of the station before and Sean wondered if it were a different one but no, it is the same one. Sean got his four mile hike only it was five and a half.

The Black Forest

I am writing this from a hotel/restaurant in St. Margen, waiting for Sean to make the four mile hike from St. Peter. We wanted to hike in the Black Forrest but after yesterday’s downhill uphill hike, I didn’t think my legs would hold up. We took a bus from Freiburg to St. Margen. Sean got off the bus in St. Peter; he looked at me questioningly through the window and shrugged. I called him. He hadn’t seen which way the bus went and didn’t understand the name of the town where he was supposed to be going.

“That’s okay, Mom. I’ll talk to you later.”

Click.

I continued on the bus about ten minutes to St. Margen, and walked into a hotel/restaurant.

“Ich spreche kine Deutsch.” It was the only sentence I knew in German. The hostess just looked at me expectantly without saying a word.

“English?”

“Would you care to come take a seat?” She spoke fluent almost unaccented English. I had a huge rare steak and a salad. I didn’t order it rare. They didn’t offer me a choice. I ate leisurely as I wrote in my journal.

I had been there about an hour. I called Sean again. No answer. Four plus times I dialed, no answer. I texted. No answer. I didn’t panic, exactly, but I had a strong image in my head of myself talking to the German police, “I’ve lost my son in the Black Forest.”

Soon, my phone rang but reception in the Black Forest was sketchy and I do not hear well anyway.

“How many towns in the area have the ‘Saint’ in them? He told me to ask the hostess.

“How many pounds what?” I asked.

He repeated. I still didn’t understand what he was asking so finally he hangs up. My brain finally interpreted the question so I went back inside to talk to my server.

“It is too far,” she cried, “and it is raining!”

It was indeed raining. My rain jacket had been soaked inside and out just from my short trip outside for better phone service. I walked back outside. Lo and behold, there was Sean coming up the sidewalk, his grin splitting his face.

“Hi Mom.”

“Did you like it?”

“That was beautiful Black Forest,” he said in German.

Back to Freiburg

It was entirely too late to go to Rothemburg, so we got my bag out of storage and went to the Inter City Hotel right next door to the train station (the better not to get lost on the way to our 07:53 train.) Why didn’t we stay there the night before? It looked closed and we were too exhausted to think to look for a bell.