05 Aug 2012: Catwoman and Friends

05 Aug 2012:

Catwoman and Friends

Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemburg, Germany

H: 26 L: 16 Weather: Mostly Cloudy, Rain Late

On my penultimate day in Europe, I got to sleep in.  In a real bed.  And it felt good.  It was a lazy day, mostly because Chris, who I was staying with, and his BFF, who slept over in his room, slept in.  A lot.  After they woke up, I got the story from them: Chris's BFF had been hoping to seduce a lady the day before.  But then he ended up having an utterly wretched night that involved him being accused of theft, among other things.  So he ended up having an awful night, and Chris, being the wonderful person that he is, stayed up for him and talked to him some before they went to bed, thus meaning they were both up till like 5am.  I, meanwhile, got to read another couple of chapters of "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" while waiting for them to wake up.

After everyone was awake, I demanded food.  ("Demand" is not much of an exaggeration.  Breakfast is srs bsnss for me.)  We journeyed to get a croissant from one of the stores by the railroad station, which was one of the few places that was actually open on a Sunday early afternoon.  I got a plum croissant, which was delicious.  One of the many things I'll credit to Europe was the deep love of European breakfast pastries it imbued in me.

After getting food, I wandered around Freiburg with Chris.  Freiburg is an adorable little down.  One of its cutest features are the Bächle, the tiny canals on the side of the street that used to be used to fight fires in Medieval times.  Nowadays, they are mostly used for the entertainment of tourists.   And they are, indeed, adorable.  My favorite kind of water source is the river, and so with bächle everywhere I felt like the whole town was full of little rivers.

Bächle!

Chris, being the good ex-linguist he is, was sure to give me a crash course in Alemannic German, which refers to the variety of German spoken in southwest Germany.  Many German dialects are on the brink of extinction due to encroachment from the standard dialect, but not Alemannic, which Chris claims is at least not completely dying.  In fact, you've seen some Alemannic already in this post; "-le" is a diminutive suffix in Alemannic (like "-y" in English used to be and still kind of is; "dog"-->"doggie", "Tom"-->"Tommy", etc.).

Eventually, we made our way to a part of town and ate at an Italian restaurant called "Bella Italia".  It was delicious.  I had some sort of wonderful salmon pasta (another theme!), and all things told, when I paid the tab for the both of us, the total was about €16, which is exceptionally cheap for Europe and includes service charge.

After Bella Italia, we headed to see The Dark Knight Rises (in English) with some of his German friends.  They were all pretty awesome—I can see why Chris has essentially converted into being a German national now!  The movie was absolutely fantastic.  I particularly enjoyed Anne Hathaway's portrayal of Catwoman, which was spot on in combining ridiculousness with badassery.  It was pretty fantastic to actually see a female on screen actually demonstrating competence and agency, unlike a lot of media.  However, I practically started screaming at the TV when there was NO TSUNAMI AT ALL after a bomb was detonated offshore just over water.  wtf.

After the movie, we all headed back to our respective domiciles; it had started to rain, and I don't think anyone was eager to loiter around.  Chris, his friend, and I stayed up chatting for a while longer, then I went to sleep for the last time in Europe.

(Well, last time this year!)