Some Pre-Trip Rambling, My Housing Info

I leave in four days, and since last I wrote I have mostly packed my bags. I still have to deal with all the small, annoying but important things, like, say, passports and toothpaste. I have managed to pack everything into a rolling suitcase and a hiking pack, which I intend to use for shorter trips as well as the mini European adventure I have planned after the semester ends in July. The advice from all sides is "don't pack too much" and I might not have followed that advice to the letter. Also, insider information claims that Germans don't wear Birkenstocks outside of the house, but I love my Birks dearly and suppose I will be content with identifying myself as "that unfashionable American" come warm weather despite my actual German citizenship. Speaking of German citizenship, it is cool to use my German passport coming into the European Union and my American passport coming into America to bypass the lines, right? Right, Mr. Customs Agent? Right. Besides, customs in Europe is not as scary as say, Australia, where you have to declare the mud on your boots and the Chex Mix you bought at LAX because it might be carrying some foreign bug or invasive species.

But I digress. I have been receiving emails from the friendly folks at IES, one of them telling me where I'm living. I'm on a street called Kunzenweg, and a bit of Google-mapping (now a verb, yes) reveals that it is a street about 4.5 km (that's a little under three miles) away from the IES center. It is a street east of downtown Freiburg, right next to what looks like a nature preserve of sorts (Naturpark Sudschwarzwald):

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So, I'm not downtown like most other student housing, but a current student studying abroad in Freiburg told me via The Facebook dot com that Kunzenweg is in an area with other student dorms, the Schwarzwald (Black Forest) Mountains are nearby, and it's about a 12 minute train ride from downtown. I also did a little bit of investigation and found a site describing the dorms and they say this about Kunzenweg: "Here the Black Forest is practically in your backyard, and the sports complex of the University is also not far away. Around 80 students live here, mainly in four-room apartments with a shared kitchen and bathroom/shower." So, despite being a little disappointed initially about not being downtown, I think this will be a good housing situation. At the very least it will keep me in shape, because I intend on getting a bike and using it to get to classes, doing some nice runs in the forest, and using the sports complex to my benefit.

Another email from IES said to bring warm clothes because there's still snow on the ground and temperatures are -5/3 C (23/37 F) and also told us we'd be doing day trips to the Black Forest and the Swiss Alps. So I found room for my waterproof hiking boots, and as much as I love snow and mountains in combination, I kind of hope the winter weather passes, after our sledding trip, of course.