There are 9 German universities in the UMass program, all in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, so the 17 of us spending spring semester in Germany all met at the main train station here in Freiburg to go to a hostel in the Black Forest owned by the program's director and her husband. We were supposed to hike up to the cabin, but the weather was so awful that we all got a ride up. That should have been the first red flag.
The weather was terr
ible all weekend. Here is a picture of what the view looked like during one of the clear moments, and then of how it looked for the rest of the time we were there. All of the activities that were planned for us were supposed to be outside. We were going to visit a 400 year old farmhouse and take a hike around the mountain, but both of those were ruled out given the conditions. They had no backup plans of what we were going to do in case of inclement weather, so we were all stuck in the cabin for 2 days with absolutely nothing to do! There was no TV, no computers, and no one even brought any games because we were told over and over again to pack lightly. There was one deck of cards and that was it. The hallways weren't 
heated at all, so we spent all our time running from room to room and quickly closing the doors! I ended up going outside with people when they took their cigarette breaks just so I had an excuse to go outside! There were a lot of...unique personalities on this excursion, and none of us ever really bonded or "clicked," to say the least. Somewhere around the second day, everyone was going stir crazy and ready to leave out of sheer boredom. Jon told me he would have walked back to Freiburg had he known the way. I would be lying if I said I wouldn't have joined him.During the day, we had a seminar class where we discussed cultural differences between the US and Germany, and went over a lot of the bureaucratic things that need to be done. I was really lucky in choosing Freiburg because since the UMass office is located here, everything has already been taken care of for the kids studying here. A really large part of the second day was spent doing academic advising, which I also already did before I left Freiburg. While everyone else at all the other universities was freaking out about getting stuff done, I knew that I had nothing to worry about, so that was definitely a good thing.
The cabin itself was cool, and decorated to look like a really authentic German black forest home, complete with working cuckoo clocks, good luck pigs, and dolls and statues of men and women in traditional Black Forest clothing. The food there was overall pretty good, and the first time I've consistently had square, filling meals since I've been in Germany. The first night we had a traditional German meal of schnitzel and mashed potatoes, with a salad and yogurt with mixed berries in it for dessert. Breakfast was always a bunch of rolls and jams. The second day we had some good spaghetti for lunch. We also could have as many free sodas as we wanted which was cool. At night, we slept in rooms with double bunk beds. There was one room for the guys and one for the girls. We had a weird sleeping bag thing and two wool blankets to keep us warm. Last night we played a fun game which was a cross between German pictionary and charades, which continued long into the night, even after the program directors went to bed.
This morning the energy was high because everyone was so excited to get back to their respective universities after a long long weekend. It was still snowing and very foggy, but we were told that we h
ad to hike back down to the bus stop ourselves. We were all invited back for the 4th of July weekend, but as we were walking, we all agreed that we definitely didn't want to go back, and perhaps that was the moment we all finally bonded. Jon was nice enough to take this picture of me against the "gorgeous" scenery as we were hiking. You couldn't even see 10 feet in front of you the whole way! We finally made it to the train station where we quickly said our goodbyes and all headed to our separate trains. I was so happy that I didn't have to travel 4 or 5 hours back like some other people, but instead was back in my dorm in 20 minutes. I took the hottest shower to warm up and then an amazing nap, and felt like a totally different person.Later on, Jon and I met up with Mitch and Emily, who just got back from Paris to trade stories over dinner. Jon and I both agreed that hanging out with them and laughing hysterically at the stories of our terrible weekend compared to their amazing one totally saved our weekend. It's nice to be back again, if only for a short time. Tuesday I'm off to Paris!
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