Freiburg.

The name somehow tones awkward and heavy. Its the name of more than just a middlingly cutsey university town. Its a whole bloody year.

I've been postponing writing about Freiburg, fearing that whatever I would say about it would become solid, an inescapable lived thing.


The truth is: it's green here.


Not black. I hoped for black. The Forest, the ascetic philosophical existence, windy peaks, heathcliff it's me.


Instead I've been landed with an emerald green city'chen'. In so many ways.

1) It's no metropolis, in the Sydney, Vienna, Budapest stakes. 20 minutes walking and its rolling whatsnots and spiky hedges.

2) Ride-bike kids, with recyling in wicker baskets mow you down, bellowing 'Achtung, Achtung!' as they swoop through the cobbled streets to a twisty network of alley cafes.

3)Finally, and of most concern: I myself am green. PInned in with all the other no hopers without a word of german to their names, reading off a photcopied map, eager and pleased to find free public toilets.