16 December 2005 (Friday) – Germany Freiburg – Freiburg city, Christmas Market

I had to wake up very early again today to take the train to Freiburg. And I had Burger King €0.99 burger for breakfast again! The moment I reached Freiburg train station, I got hungry and there’s this Chinese restaurant that sells pretty cheap Chinese food, so I had my lunch there before proceeding to the tourist information centre to check out my hostel.

By this time, my luggage is pretty heavy already cos of the Christmas gifts I bought…especially the 2 bottles of Nutella chocolate for Sze Mei! I bought that cos she likes to eat that with bread and she usually buys it in places other than UK – pay in € rather than the more expensive £.

It’s a pretty long walk from the train station to the tourist information centre and from there, it’s another 20 minutes walk to the hostel. It’s the only one I can go to that accepts budget travelers who are over 26 years old and don’t need to have those hostel affiliation memberships.

I don’t have much information about the sights to see in Freiburg and so asked the guy from the information centre for advice and I am very shocked by his reply! He simply just referred me to the map he has given me and pointed to numbers 1 onwards on the various sights which is is the first time I have been given this kind of reply!

And when I asked about where to get the nicest blackforest cake (Freiburg is the gateway to the Black Forest and I expect to eat some nice blackforest cake there) and he can’t tell me that either. Sigh…but luckily, I am able to get very good advice from the people at the hostel.

I was running out of cash and so instead of taking bus, I walked all the way from the tourist information centre to the hostel instead…and anyway, I also have to walk abit from the bus-stop so I might as well walk and get my bearings right.

After I checked in at the hostel, I went exploring the hostel cos its pretty big and they have quite abit of facilities and cute stuffs around. I just realized that I forgot to take pictures of the lockers they provide for free…pretty cute. They painted it to look like a radio transmitter etc. And because I am running out of cash, I opted to stay in a big dorm (more than 20 people in one ultra big room) which cost me €12 per night instead of a smaller room which cost €16 per night.

The room is actually not bad and one amazing thing is that in such a big dorm (almost full), there is no snoring throughout the whole night! Or maybe it’s because I am already so tired that I didn’t hear it.

After putting away my things and taking pictures of the hostel, I went out walking to the city centre. There’s actually nothing much to see other than the Munsterplatz, which is basically a cathedral. I then went shopping and went to this very old café for my blackforest cake. According to the lady from the hostel, the café sells the best blackforest cake in Freiburg and usually people take-away and those who eat-in are usually the very old people and how true she is! Other than this little gal who is there with her parents, I am the youngest around liao! I chose to eat-in (it cost slightly more to eat-in than take-away) cos it’s very cold outside and there’s nowhere I can sit and eat my cake unless I bring it back to the hostel but then I haven’t even started walking around the city yet and anyway, I decide to take a rest as well and relak relak…hehe

When I came out of the café, I realized that it was already snowing and it got super cold for me to be walking around much but still I had to walk around.

Around evening time, I went for the Freiburg Christmas Market. It’s as small as the one in Munich and there’s nothing much as well except that I feel that the people there are in a more Christmas mood than the people in Munich…maybe because Munich is a big city.

I ate some flour thingy which I was told by one of the locals that it’s only available during Christmas in the Christmas Market (after failing to get much information from the stall owners cos they don’t speak English and I don’t speak any German) and there were lots of people eating it and so I also bought one to try. It is actually just plain flour that my grandma used to fry prawn fritters, and topped it with icing sugar! And that cost me €2.50! There’s nothing much else to eat and I bought my roasted chestnut again and I bought a burger from Mc Donalds in case I get hungry later and there’s nothing else for me to eat in the hostel. And luckily I bought it cos I did get hungry.

After that, I went back to the hostel and sat at the chair in the activity area and read my book and ate my burger until around 9pm when I decided to call it a day and went to bed! Haha It’s very early to be sleeping but then there’s nothing to do and I am also very tired from all the early wake-up calls.

It’s my last night in Germany and as it was very cold, I didn’t even bother to bathe and just went to sleep in my going out clothes…except for my jacket cos I need to fold that and used it as my pillow!

There is additional charge for linen and to save money, I didn’t pay for that and so had to use my sleeping cover. But this hostel dun even provide any blankets at all and it was so cold that I couldn’t sleep despite the heater being located just beside my bed. I then walked around the whole room and on all the heater to the fullest and I still feel cold. There’s only 3 heaters in the big room and I guess its not enough to heat up the whole room. In the end, I went down to the reception and explain my situation and he is shocked when he felt how cold my hands were! And so he gave me a blanket without the sheets and at no extra charge and told me not to let it touch the floor and that I am using it with my sleeping bag as well.

There is this other German guy at the opposite of my room who slept pretty early. The whole room is pretty empty other than the 2 of us and then we started chatting and being located at the 2 corners in the room, we didn’t bother to move or anything but just shout across the room! Haha and then we had to stop talking when others came into the room etc. He is actually in Freiburg for work…doing lift maintenance and usually travels around Germany for that purpose. And he is staying in a hostel instead of some other place because that is the cheapest.

After a while, we both went to sleep and I didn’t even hear the others coming in or whatever, I slept throughout the night till the next morning. I feel very good from the sleep. Other than the first night, I’ve not had much sleep during the whole trip.