Freakishly Happy

Today we actually woke up and did something!!!!!!!! Hurray! The sun was actually up and shining today, so we decided to go to check out Titisee (ha ha, it's pronounced Tay-Tay-Zay, but think what you'd like). As we left Freiburg, the pine trees on the sides of the mountains became flocked with snow. It was amazing.

The closer we got to Titisee, the deeper the snow got. We stepped out of the train in to a wintery wonderland, with probably a good foot+ of powdery snow on the ground. Immediately John and I got into a snow fight. We walked a little bit and found a huge snow burm and each of us took a side, and took to pelting each other with snow balls. The Germans looked at us as if we were crazy. John had a fun trick all throughout the day, so that whenever I was least expecting it, he'd try to push me on to one of the snowbanks. It worked a couple of times, but then I wised up ;)

We walked around the town for a couple hours, and I was easily distracted and loured in by all of the shopping opportunities. I bought a belt (my pants kept falling off, but now they are securely situated on my hips.. No more plumber's crack here!), a pocket sized wallet and a pair of purple sun glasses (to match the hat and scarf ensemble that Jaci sent me :) I'm so coordinated!) Then we ate a great German meal of sauerkraut with noodles/corn we couldn't really tell which, bratwurst and fried potatoes. We did a little bit more shopping, before walking around the lake (that's the See part in Titisee). The first part of the walk was magical. We walked down a forest path, under an archway of snow-covered trees. We were passed by several horse drawn carriages with people huddled under sheepskin blankets, making their way around the lake.

The second half wasn't so pretty, but was still nice anyway. We walked along the road, until we came to a little cafe. We stopped for blood-orange tea, orangina and John had a chocolate truffle cake. We walked a little ways more, before stopping at another shop. The shop keepers were really friendly, and we kept switching back and forth between English and German. We purchased a reall cute picnic tote, before rushing back to the train station.

At the trainstation we met a wonderful older couple and their dog. As soon as we reached the trainstation, I was smitten by this pup. He had the most wonderful whiskery eyebrows that stood out from his face, and made him look like he was contemplating something important. After 5 minutes of making googly eyes at the him, I started talking to his owner. The woman stood and chatted with us about traveling, and dogs, and school. She was very kind. I love meeting nice people!

Then we rode a over-full train back to Freiburg. All of the skiiers and snowboarders had decided to finish for the day, and the train was full of windburned, exhausted kids and their snow gear. We rushed home, and got ready to go out with our friend Hannah and her boyfriend who is here from the states. We tried to go out to a nice German restaurant, but it was booked, so we went down the street a ways to a great Vietnamese restaurant. Dinner was delightful, it was nice hanging out with another couple.

As we walked out of the restaurant, we realized that it was snowing. Big wonderful flakes drifting down. TONS of snow. It had snowed probably a good 1-2 inches while we ate. Not the powdery stuff either, but the stuff that's really good for packing. John and I again commenced with the snowball fight. It's so much better when the snow packs well.

When we got home we started laundry (oooh, big excitement) and booked a hostel in Munich for tomorrow night and Sunday. Our friend Ashley is there, and we're going to go hang out for New Years/Sylvester. Then on Monday we're hopping to go down to Konstanz and the Bodensee, and maybe do some more traveling. I wish all of you a Happy New Year! or as they say here ein guten Roch in die Neues Jahr! (a good slide into the New Year!) love, Joni