Your average week

Hi Everyone,
So I've finished another glorious week in Freiburg and don't really have any crazy stories or anything to share, so I'll tell you what I have done.

On March 10th a group of us went wine tasting at a local winery. We had a private tour and got to see all the important rooms for the wine making operation. The coolest thing is that they have giant wine barrels, that stand as tall as a 2 people. They all have cool carved fronts and hold tons of wine. The evening also included lots of wine drinking, all of them quite good. The red wines aren't a big deal in Germany and it's more focused on the whites. They also divide their grapes by quality and harvest time which makes for much more variety and many more choices when looking for a bottle.

The next Wednesday was St. Patrick's day, and as you can imagine we had some pretty good time. We all got together at someone's apartment and had an "Irish Flag" meal with Orange, Green and White dishes. It was good fun and nice to get together with everyone for a meal and a few bottles of Guinness.

Last weekend we had a long weekend and had originally planned to take the trains over to Munich for some sightseeing on Saturday, however the plans feel through due to time, cost, and homework constraints. Instead we stayed a little closer to home.
Friday
On Friday we went to Heidelberg, a town about 2 hours north of Freiburg to see the castle and enjoy the beautiful weather. We took the local trains using the great Deutsch Bahn deals to get there and back for only €5.60 each. We arrived and took a nice stroll by the river until we reached the part of town with the castle. Heidelberg castle rests on top of a hill overlooking Heidelberg, so we got our exercise in by walking up to the castle. Unfortunately the only way to see the inside of the castle is to pay an additional fee on top of the entrance fee, which we didn't want to, but we enjoyed check out the castle facade and the pharmacy museum that is part of the compound.
Heidelberg was never hit during WWII so the whole town and castle are still in great condition. Naturally, like every sight in Europe, there was restoration work happening on the castle so some of my pictures were scarred by scaffolding.

After the castle visit we headed back into town to have some late lunch and a local beer. Because the weather was so great we also figured that we needed to get some authentic German Eis (ice cream). By the time we had finished enjoying the town and the sights it was already time to head home.
Saturday
On Saturday I decided to head to the SC Freiburg soccer game against Mainz. This is an experience in itself just being part of the crowd, singing the songs and doing all the chants. It also happened to be Freiburg's first win in 12 games which made it that much more exciting. Final Score: Freiburg 1 - Mainz 0. I of course had to get the traditional soccer scarf to wear proudly around the stadium and around town after the victory! It was a really exciting time and we enjoyed the company of good friends and crazy German soccer fans very much. GO SC FREIBURG!

That's about all for this week, but next weekend I'm headed to Amsterdam to meet up with my friend Lexi and see the Netherlands!