hunting for windmills + hansel & gretel's

This past weekend I visited Katherine in Freiburg for the last time before she goes back to Montana for the summer. We walked around in the hills all day Saturday, deciding on the spur of the moment to hike up to Rosskopf, which is where the four windmills are that you can see from almost anywhere in the city. I'd been once before, with Peter Dowdy and our IES history professor, and it had one of the best payoffs of any hike around Freiburg: panoramic view of the city and the hills, plus the golden checkerboard fields out past Littenweiler to the east . . . . This time it was hazy but still fantastic and totally worth it, though I was sore for days afterwards.

I met a boy in India who said to me, "No no, you are not too large. But when you come to visit me, I take you to the mountains, and we will go jogging." It was lost on him why I thought this was HYSTERICAL. Can you imagine anyone saying that in the States? There aren't too many countries where bluntness is less prized than in the good ol' U.S. of A.

Both pre- and post-Rosskopf, Katherine and I ate our way through Freiburg: Käsespätzle at the Gasthaus Lauren and Mandie long ago dubbed Hansel & Gretel's (in spite of having just eaten there, I continue not to know its actual name); phenomenal Turkish food at Harem on Gerberau; crusty bread with Frischkäse and fresh-pressed orange juice sitting in the sunlight on Augustinerplatz at Aran; and, last but certainly not least, big American breakfast at Sam Kullman's Diner way the heck out in industrial park land. It's a good thing Rosskopf totally kicked my butt -- otherwise I might need to take my Indian buddy up on that jogging offer after all.