It's Fall in Freiburg

Cool little car

With this on the back panel!

I pulled out my Canada Goose parka I haven’t worn in some time. The zipper on the pocket of my favourite coat broke today. I’ve been looking for a replacement for months since it has become faded but I want the same coat, “stamping of feet” and sadly SunIce doesn’t make it anymore. Knowing the heavier coat I left in Sevilla is also wearing out, (before it’s time, in my opinion, it is a designer made coat and therefore cost the bomb, Bruce bought it for me in Switzerland but it hasn’t stood the time well). So here comes the parka to bridge the gap. Hung it up and then decided to take off all the labels that shout Canada Goose, put it on the kitchen chair and Lexi found it. Ohhhhh, thank you Mom, such a cushy bed, hours later and she hasn’t left. Well she has to pee sometime… and she popped up to have a bite to eat and immediately ran back to the coat. I guess I get to share it with her, not a bad thing really.

Went to Bad Krozingen to Corfu, Greek place for lunch with Christoph. We had bigger plans but both he and I are not too energetic due to our colds, so just lunch it was. The town was open for shopping today, unusual on a Sunday but apparently they do it more often there than Freiburg. Raining so all the outdoor booths were a bit soggy, well, those not under tarp roofs. Looked like all the stores just extended their retail space to the sidewalks, we didn’t walk around much but might be a good thing to do on a less soggy day. 

Snow has fallen in Feldburg which is a ski destination not far from here in the mountains. Christoph said it is the earliest ever reported and temps here in Freiburg have fallen about 10 degrees Celsius in the last day or so. It’s Cold Outside! My sister in Alberta will be saying “you don’t know the meaning of the word!” And she’s right, and I’m a wimp.

As you know we live in the tram turm, or turning radius for the tram, it travels completely around our building. The architect, who lives in this building built it. Apparently our neighbours complained about the screeching of the trams, worse than usual I guess. The architect complained to VAG, the transit people for Freiburg and guess what their response was? Well trams are going to be trams and make sounds on curves… i.e. NADA, you built there, you live there, your neighbours bought there, and now you complain? Quite ironic I think, the people at VAG are probably laughing at us. 

Sunday, Christoph is still sick with this cold and I’m not much better either so we postpone an outing with him. Bruce and I take the big bike to Shalimar for lunch, along the trail to the Mundenhof. Being fall many of the trees are bright red right now, beautiful!

Lunch was good, as always, and we drive back through the green space in the middle of our little burg. The pond has dried up, as have the streams but the vegetation is lovely. There are many trees with small red berries on it, the leaves in various stages of turning red.

These are mini's, good way to get my veggies.

Home and I walk into the ensuite bathroom to find a lot of ladybugs (also called ladybirds) on the ceiling and walls, I’d left the window open a crack and they flew in. We get the small ladder, a spatula and start getting them out the now open window, shoo! Bruce is up the ladder and I’m hanging onto him for dear life as he twists around to get them off their high perches. I actually like ladybugs, but any bug in a quantity of a dozen or more isn’t a good thing. I think they all made it out alive, I hope so. Next question I have no answer to, why are they there? We are three floors up, no plants, nothing visible to eat…

Well Done!

We’re out another day, daily occurrence, come back to Bruce’s plastic keyboard cover in pieces on the floor, looks like the brat, aka Lexi, had a really good time with it! Well that’s okay, they are cheap, but one has to go to a MAC store to get them, natch.

The box Bruce's order of popcorn came in.

I ordered new insoles for my Wolky shoes. They are very comfortable but insoles are wearing out www.wolkyshop.co.uk They are big, grey, clunky looking shoes but I can walk a long way in them and since that’s what we do, practicality over fashion wins. Anyway they are delivered by DPD couriers, (not to confuse with DHL, more common here). The best thing is the tracking system online for DPD, you can see where the truck is, you are told how many stops before yours and within a half hour what time it is expected to be delivered! This is good use of technology that has been around for a long time, GPS anyone?, but hardly any other courier company uses it! DHL comes a close second but the post offices are way behind in Freiburg and Sevilla anyway.

Sunday out with Christoph although his cold has come back with a vengeance. I had found a Thai restaurant, but he had a better one in the North section of Freiburg, we live in the West. Drove through neighbourhoods we’d never seen, very interesting and varied between poorer ones and rich ones. The restaurant is in Malterdingen and is called Chada Thai www.chadathai.de and it was great! Food, service, pricing, all good, a definite return to. It was raining but they have a large outdoor patio area for seating that would be lovely in better weather. Poor Christoph is really under the weather and I’m still not 100% yet either so we didn’t make a large outing of it but did see another part of Freiburg we hadn’t before so all good.

Outside Chada Thai, all begonias.

 Oh dear, the Donald has invaded Der Sonntag, the Sunday paper, can’t escape the guy, his behaviour is being analyzed by a professor here, can't tell you more, doesn't translate well.

All for now, Cheers Bx2 and Brat Cat