Market, Geneva, and Brennan's Visit

After such an exciting and active weekend, I was wondering how the week was going to follow that. I will say that Monday and Tuesday were fairly uneventful with the highlight being Tuesday evening hanging out in Rin’s room where Emma, Rin and I all went through each others Facebook photos, commenting and liking on the worst ones of course haha it was hilarious. I love hanging out with them, but it does make me miss my close girlfriends back home like my sister, Shaun and Caroline. Wednesday we all decided we wanted to hit up the farmer’s market, so Rin and I met Emma after she was done with class (yay no Wednesday classes!) and we went into the city center. Our first stop was the thrift store that I discovered by Augustiner Platz because they’d been wanting to check it out, and I was the only one who knew where it was. If I need any clothes throughout the semester, this place will definitely be my go-to first. It’s a really neat second-hand store with definitely a lot of vintage pieces (oh and free postcards, so you better believe I snagged a few). They each made their respective purchases, and then we made our way towards the Münster which is where the farmer’s market is on Wednesdays. 

Market!

First off, I need to say that I absolutely adore farmer’s markets. I’m 100% behind the idea of buying local, buying fresh ingredients. And a lot of the time, the stuff that the vendors sell will actually be cheaper than in the stores and taste so much better. Now from my walk around the market the previous Wednesday with Erika, Doug, and Mamaw, I knew that there was a spice vendor with an enormous variety of spices. This was stop #1 for me, as I needed some spices for the lentil soup that I was making: cilantro and cumin. Side note: fresh cilantro is near impossible to find in normal grocery stores here (it’s also called Koriander). I was successful though in buying dried cilantro, as well as cumin, dried chillies, and chai tea. As an added bonus, she threw in a little bag of honey-flavored bonbons.

The spice lady

SO MANY SPICES

Meandering further in the market I also ended up buying 50g of organic ginger and a bag of apples for €1,25. We also saw the cutest St. Bernard puppy, a massive wheel of cheese, and a line of assorted rubber duckies in one of the Bächle.

So many fresh fruits

THE MASSIVE WHEEL OF CHEESE

Die Bächle

After they grabbed lunch at the hummus place, we parted ways and I went home to start on my soup. What a productive day it turned out to be! I made my lentil soup (which is delicious btw), did all my laundry, went to the store, and went on an hr long exploratory bike ride around Freiburg. I did actually think I was lost for a little bit until I found the Dreisam River, which I just followed into town.

Martinstor in the city center

Dis bridge, crossin' it erryday 

One of the many fields I went past

Action shot on Lola!

Thursday morning, bright and early, we departed for Geneva, Switzerland to go visit the WTO and UN for class (casual, I know). Actually business casual to be exact, which in case you were wondering, it isn't the most comfortable thing to try and sleep on a bus in. We arrived at the WTO and after going through our security check (they withhold your passport...not a fan), we went and listened to our speaker who really gave us an overview of the WTO and how they function. Afterwards we were given a two hour lunch break with limited restaurants around. We ate in the botanical gardens, and while they were beautiful, it was the most expensive salad of my life. But afterwards we walked around and went down to Lake Geneva where we also found some grapes growing (I think they were technically still part of the botanical gardens) so we ate some grapes. Actually we ate a lot of grapes and they were delicious and we're pretty sure we weren't supposed to...whoops.

Our speaker at the WTO

Lake Geneva

Emma eating stolen grapes

We made our way to the UN after lunch for our guided tour. From first glance, I was very unimpressed with the building. But the inside, boy was it cool. Except for the carpet. The carpet was gross and felt weird on my feet. Our tour guide was really good, and the human rights room and other meeting rooms were really cool. Also, it's really neat how it's kind of a museum as so many countries have donated art pieces to the UN in Geneva.

One of the meeting rooms

The ceiling in the Room of Human Rights

I mean I guess I'm pretty professional or something like that

By the time we got to downtown Geneva, we really only had time for dinner. We found this great little place called Chez Ma Cousine  which was reasonably priced for Switzerland and had phenomenal chicken. Afterwards we still had about an hour, so we walked around, saw the outside of the cathedral and some cute little streets. At that point though, my wallet was hurting, so I'm glad we left when we did. Geneva is gorgeous, but stupid expensive.

It's not a trip with me without the selfies 

Cathedral in Geneva (don't remember the name and too lazy to look it up)

The average shops in Geneva...Rolex and Hermes

After getting home at midnight, I was pleasantly surprised to see homemade truffles made by my roommate Birgitt which were left out for everyone. OMG talk about a delicious surprise! Friday was pretty chill, though everyone was very eager for class to be over as most everyone went to Oktoberfest this past weekend. I wish I could have gone, but I couldn't justify spending $300 to go to a beer fest and drink. I'm glad I stayed home though because my friend Brennan got to visit me for the weekend! We met during the language program I did in Münster, and now he's working in Germany about 4 hours north of me. So I prepared for his visit, cleaning and such and going grocery shopping with my new roommate (his name is David and he's awesome btw). Elise, David and I all hung out at my place and waited for Brennan to arrive. After he arrived we just hung out and talked and had a couple of beers. It was so great just getting to catch up with him. The following day I took him on a little tour of Freiburg and we went to the market around the Münster and ended our day at the Feierling Brewery in town. We sat there for several hours just talking, making friends with some Israelis from Heidelberg, and just having a great time in general.

Das Münster on a beautiful sunny day

Hanging out at the brewery bar

Gotta love that local brew

We came back and went to the store to get stuff for dinner because I had planned to make a "bitchin" Käse Spätzle with a green salad. It's essentially the German version of mac n' cheese, only better. Elise and David joined Brennan and I for dinner and after hanging out and eating with great company, we all made our way out to hit up Schlappen, basically the go-to student bar. However, when we got there, Brennan realized he had forgotten his wallet, so we had to take a taxi back to the dorm to get that for him. Ugh, talk about your inconvenience. We get back to everyone ordering absinthe...so we had to join in on this. Woof, talk about some potent stuff. Though luckily after seeing Chase order it in Prague, we were able to do it correctly! It was a great night with great company (Miruna had joined us at Schlappen as well).

Oh dear. Something that green can't be good for you.

Brennan: "Oh I definitely don't remember taking that picture." (btw the other guy is David, my new roomie!)

Brennan, David and I all slept in this morning and just hung out casually for the rest of the day. After eating leftover Käse Spätzle and Bratkartoffeln, Brennan sadly had to leave. I had so much fun with him this weekend, and he's already planning on coming back! Yay! Now it's back to school work and the daily grind. But hey, my daily grind is in beautiful Freiburg, Germany, so I guess things could be a lot worse! And now we're just one week away from our Luxembourg, Brussels, and Paris trip. I mean three different countries in one week I suppose is just typical for studying abroad. Oh wait, just kidding not really hehehe.

Song of the Week: The Love Club by Lorde

Best meal: The käse spätzle I made myself, duh. Recipe here. 

Geneva must do: Do the tour of the UN! It was wicked cool.

Geneva don't do: Eat. No like I'm serious. A tall hot chocolate at Starbucks was like 7 Swiss Francs. roughly about $7.50. So yeah. 

Highlight of the week: Saturday walking around the market with Brennan! We tried some delicious new wine (wine that isn't fully fermented) and ate something delicious that we still don't even know what was in it.