El viaje de mi vida

Check out the photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/mpknutson

So, kind of a lot has happened since I last wrote in this blog. Way too much to sit down an write about, let alone to make you read all at once. I would never want to put you through such agonizing pain... so I'll break it up in segments. Anyways, December flew by more quickly than all of the time I have spent here. The main highlight, thinking back, was the "Christmas" dinner I had with my flatmates on the 13th, before Maren set of for a month in India, Alfonso left for Budapest and for home in the Basque country, Dominik to Sweden and then home to Germany, and Emma's family arrived for a whirlwind tour through Spain with Christmas and New Years in Madrid. Dominik was home cooking the whole day as the rest of us were busy with class and work, and during the evening I helped Emma decorate with home-made wreaths (made with illegally attained pine tree branches), candles, and Christmas music. It was the most festive our decrepit kitchen could possibly look, and it looked incredibly nice, I think. A delicious dinner of roast chicken, a very tasty German soup, roasted vegetables, and baked apples for dessert was followed by presents from our Secret Santa, which was quite a treat. Dominik, having taught me his masterful coffee making skills, gave me the perfect coffee mug and a personalized jar to store the raw ingredient. I ended up drawing his name as well, and found him a very interesting looking novel in Spanish about pirates in the New World, and a bottle of 43 Spanish liquor, which is absolutely fabulous, and a recent discovery of mine. All in all, it was a chance for us all to reflect on the time we had spent together over the previous months, and it was just another example of how we had really come to be a family in such a short amount of time. It was by far one of the best nights I have spent in Madrid.

After such a relaxing night around the kitchen table, it was back to the busy Madrid life for the next week. Before I knew it, I was off on the trip of a lifetime with my great friends from Madison, Dave, Chris, and Kyle. As always, I was terribly unprepared to leave, with so much to get done beforehand, and in utter denial that I was actually undertaking the trip I had in store for myself. After frantically packing and cleaning my room on the 19th, I set off for the airport with hiking boots on my feet, travel wallet full of boarding passes and hostel directions for the next two weeks, and my backpack stuffed to the brim with the essentials. An adventure through Freiburg, Germany, Bern and Leysin, Switzerland, Prague, Berlin, Rome, and Paris was what lay ahead, much of which I would be undertaking just with Dave.

The easyjet flight to Germany was very smooth, and I passed the time changing my mind between resting my eyes and reading the Historia de la Edad Media book I had brought along. Mostly, I just thought about how funny it was that I was on my way to see Dave in the south of Germany, where he had grown just as comfortable as I had in Madrid. There were also a few funny moments such as when the girl sitting across from the empty seat next to me asked me in French how long I thought the flight was going to take, saw that I had no idea what she was saying, tried unsuccessfully to ask me in English, and then found our common language in Spanish. After landing, I had about an hour to kill before I could catch bus for an hour into Freiburg, so I spent my time doing some quality people watching, which I found to be incredibly enjoyable. There is something about German culture that I have really been drawn to the last few years. While sure, things there might seem very orderly and rule-bound, I also think they have the most incredible family dynamics, at least from the little I've seen. For a solid hour I sat and watched smiling families reuniting, the fathers always a kiss and some sort of sweets for their waiting children. As I saw my bus pull up to the curb outside, I exited into the chilly German air, quite happy to be bundled up for my journey north. Upon boarding the bus, I saw the same blond German girl from the plane, and after an exchange of laughs and second greetings, sat down next to her so we could actually talk, as we had both been dozing on and off the whole flight. We talked about Madrid, where she had been living for over a year, about Germany, the great city of Freiburg, the States, etc, and before I knew it, we were at the Freiburg bus station, and after a quick goodbye, I set off to find Dave, whom I knew had to be lurking somewhere in the shadows. Sure enough, I was shocked to see his face so soon, and before I knew it we were on our way to his apartment-style dorm through the frigid German night.

More than anything, I was immediately struck by how quaint the city was, so quiet compared to the bustling streets of Madrid. After meeting a few of his roommates upon entering the apartment, I dropped my things in his very cozy room, and we spend the next few hours just catching up as it had been way to long since we'd had a proper face to face conversation together. I met Julie, a friend of his from Madison, who stopped in to say hello, and Dave introduced me to my first German beer, a type of wheat beer called a weizen, which tasted like nectar from heaven.

The next morning we woke up late, had a breakfast of German bread, cheese, and eggs, and headed out to see the city. First we headed to the Christmas market in the middle of town, a bustling center of delicious smells, tasty food, and all sorts of Christmas things being sold. We ordered two glasses of Gluwein, hot wine filled with spices, which was a delectable treat during such a chilly morning. From there, we headed to another market which surrounded a beautiful cathedral in the center of town, where they sold the freshest vegetables, fruit, cheese and meat. We hiked to the top of the highest hill in town and had a great view of the city through the fog. After a lunch of a typical dish of which I forgot the name, but consisted of penne noodles, sauerkraut, bacon, and cheese, we took a little siesta in his room, and I met his friend, Eric, who came over to accompany Dave and I to their German class that evening. For the next two hours, I sat happily though their last day of discussion of which I didn't understand a word, despite my attempts, and munched on typical German cookies which I hadn't tasted in a while. I met a friend of a friend here in Madrid, as we were all from Madison, which was also a funny coincidence.

After a walk through the Christmas market that night, which was absolutely beautiful under all the lights, and an amazing wurst for dinner, we met up with Eric to go to the University bar, which was built in an old bomb shelter. We later headed to another bar in a different part of town where we ran into some of their other friends. Of course, I had to try a few of the tasty German brews, all of which continued to rise to the title of my favorite beer ever. The next day was spent seeing more of the town and the university, drinking tea in Dave's cozy apartment, and mostly just relaxing and enjoying each other's company as we knew we had quite the journey ahead of us. Frieburg seems like the perfect city to live in; just the right size, young people everywhere, and bikers and streetcars making the city a prime example of European sustainability. Of course, we worked in a few more trips to the Christmas market for more wurst, and we made a tasty dinner of chicken and green beens for a few episodes of Entourage we watched in memory of the other Madison boys with whom we would meet a week later. We both packed up our things, safely stored the train tickets we had bought earlier that day, and fell asleep as our 6:00 alarm time was drawing near...