Another day, another adventure

Life in General
This last week was filled with some pretty excellent things. I've finally finished my book, Pillars of the Earth, and though I've read it before I still think it is an excellent book. I've started working on some plans for the breaks we have throughout the semester. I'm looking at Amsterdam in April and Rome/Florence in May.
I've finally setteled into the living situation, it only took me a month! It's been really intersting trying to figure out the customs and ways of doing things within my flat and figuring out how everything works. My flat-mates are pretty quiet folks, it's customary in Germany to leave your door closed while in your room, which is different from home where an open door means "come on in." One of my flatmates recently got a Tenor Saxophone, which couldn't possibly make me more excited. As I left my sax at home I'm really looking forward to playing a little, and helping him learn a bit!

The Weekend

Last weekend I spent Saturday around Freiburg, checking out some more places and doing ever more exploring. I went for a hike through the Black Forest, only about 1/2 mile from my building. It was nice to get outside and into the wild at least for a bit. I walked over to Günterstal, another village near Freiburg, then took the tram back into town where I walked up another hill above downtown called Schlossburg. There are some old fortifications and look out towers on the hill and at the very top is a lookout tower. Unfortunately by the time I got to the top it was getting dark and starting to snow, so I didn't get any good pictures. Just means I will have to go back later.
That evening a group of us went downtown to the Discotheke and enjoyed some dancing.

Morgenstraich
On Sunday night, at about 12 midnight I headed to Basel, Switzerland for the final Fasnacht celebration, called Morgenstraich. This giant parade occurs at 4 AM! All of the lights in the city are turned out, and the only illumination comes from the lanterns of the paraders. I'ts really amazing to see all of the amazing artwork on the lanterns, floats, and costumes. Even after the parade was over you could still find groups of drummers and pipers wandering the streets playing.The festivities were still going on even when we were leaving at 7 in the morning! I don't think I had ever seen quite so many people in one place at that hour of the night, it seemed like the whole city was out, young and old alike.

I got home around 8:30AM, headed back to my room and... took a shower and went to class all day on Monday. Best I can figure I got around 10 hours of sleep between Friday morning when I woke up and Monday night.

Not much else exciting going on this week, it finally felt like spring this week and we've had plenty of rain, but also some warm and sunny days. I took a German test today and have been working on presentations, essays, and assignments for all my classes. This study abroad thing sure includes a lot of studying. This coming week is our second field study trip. I'll be heading to Luxembourg, Brussels, and Paris for the week. I'll make sure to take lots of pictures and post them online!