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glenatronFreiburg is a nice town, wide streets with pavements divided into bike and car lanes, it's dull towerblocks counterbalanced by the snow-sprinkled mountains that surround it and the older buildings, bridges and walkways almost cartoonishly old-german. In places it looks a bit like the model for one of the Alliance cities in WoW, although with more bikes dashing past at high speed and trams.
Getting here was less than fun, though. There is a bus from Basel airport, 60km away, to the town but it had long since stopped by the time we had spent half an hour waiting to leave heathrow, another forty-five minutes circling over Basel while they tried to clear the snow off the runway before diverting to Zurich so we didn't run out of fuel, waiting another forty-five minutes there before making the twenty minute hop back to basel in time to arrive at around 1:30. There was only one taxi in the taxi-rank on the french side of the airport ( Basel has a French and Suisse side to it ) and the older gentleman ahead of me had just caught that. I was about to turn round and give up when he asked where I was going. Turns out he was headed to Freiburg too, so we shared a fare. It would have been less scary if the taxi driver hadn't been in a borrowed taxi and decided we could travel better in his small car with the large crack in the windscreen, but although expensive he got us to Freiburg and I arrived at my hotel a little ahead of 3a.m. local time.
Not speaking german has been less of a problem than I suspected, and I'm starting to understand more of what I hear, but I don't like not having a solid grounding in the language the people I'm working with are using. I should fix that.
Getting here was less than fun, though. There is a bus from Basel airport, 60km away, to the town but it had long since stopped by the time we had spent half an hour waiting to leave heathrow, another forty-five minutes circling over Basel while they tried to clear the snow off the runway before diverting to Zurich so we didn't run out of fuel, waiting another forty-five minutes there before making the twenty minute hop back to basel in time to arrive at around 1:30. There was only one taxi in the taxi-rank on the french side of the airport ( Basel has a French and Suisse side to it ) and the older gentleman ahead of me had just caught that. I was about to turn round and give up when he asked where I was going. Turns out he was headed to Freiburg too, so we shared a fare. It would have been less scary if the taxi driver hadn't been in a borrowed taxi and decided we could travel better in his small car with the large crack in the windscreen, but although expensive he got us to Freiburg and I arrived at my hotel a little ahead of 3a.m. local time.
Not speaking german has been less of a problem than I suspected, and I'm starting to understand more of what I hear, but I don't like not having a solid grounding in the language the people I'm working with are using. I should fix that.
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Date: 25 Nov 2008 03:08 (UTC)- Crumpwright ;)
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Date: 26 Nov 2008 22:44 (UTC)no subject
Date: 25 Nov 2008 09:37 (UTC)no subject
Date: 26 Nov 2008 14:19 (UTC)no subject
Date: 26 Nov 2008 00:15 (UTC)Hearing Russian always makes me want to learn it all over again too. Some forgotten part of my brain absolutely craves it...
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Date: 26 Nov 2008 14:19 (UTC)no subject
Date: 26 Nov 2008 18:27 (UTC)But then about 10 years went by of me *not* studying it, just like 10 years went by of me *not* riding. Can't say that I remember all that much of it now...
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Date: 26 Nov 2008 22:44 (UTC)