Fabulous Freibourg!

Guten Tag!

Well today we crossed over the border yet again, although thankfully this time the experience couldn’t have been more different than our brief interlude with Weil am Rhein, and we’re pleased to say we had very few encounters with creepy Rumplestilskin-lookalike German children!

After nearly missing the bus on account of the fact I almost forgot our passports (crazy that you can jump in the car and be in an entirely new country in just minutes), we made it to Freibourg – a beautiful wee town in the Black Forest. After getting the run down from the Tattoo coordinators on where we had to be and when, we ventured off into the depths of this beautifully quaint German town, where we gorged ourselves silly on account of the fact that it was such a novelty to be able to afford to it! Germany is so much cheaper, and we have heard of Baselites crossing the border once a month to do their grocery shopping, which is not at all surprising.

We had prime position during the street parade as everyone else took refuge on the other side of the street out of the scorching summer sun. We felt very sorry for all the band members who were so hot they were near fainting! All but one of our encounters with Freibourg residents were lovely, and I’m sorry to say that I got into a bit of argy bargy with a German gentleman. While I was standing ground, manning our parade position, Brad cooled off in the shade so thankfully he didn’t witness my most un-ladylike outburst! Basically this man started talking rather crossly to me, most of which flew over my head as I didn’t realise I was the recipient of his outburst at first due to the fact I had tuned out to all the German conversations around me. Next thing you know he’s pushing me and yelling at me in an angry German stream of abuse. Mum, Dad you’ll be pleased to know I stood my ground and rather than stand there meekly in shock, I gave it back to him in full force. Looking back I don’t know what came over me, but I must have tuned into an inner pool of anger buried deep within, because I turned to him, pursed my lips like a cat’s bum and started screaming out a few choice words of my own – a lot of which I won’t repeat at risk of damaging your innocent ears. Let me just say, after our little run-in he was no stranger to the ‘f’ word (sorry Dad), which I screamed at him a total of five times! Worked a trick though and he kept his hands to himself and his mouth shut for the remainder of the parade – poor Man, I almost feel sorry for him. Just for good measure I turned around a few times during the parade to fire off a few sharp looks, just to keep him in check. Let that be a warning to anyone trying to stand in the way of a Kiwi girl and her bagpipe parade!

After watching Michelle perform in the street parade and mini Tattoo, where Brad refused to kick a ball around with a small German disabled child (bet you’re proud Les) on account of it being too hot, we ventured off into the twisting and turning alleyways, only to stumble upon a goldmine – a food market. Brad was like a kid at Christmas as he ran back and forth between the countless bratwurst stands, trying to decide which 30cm+ sausage he was going to have for lunch. Like any sensible growing male, he decided to not have to decide and ate all three, which he declares were the best sausages of his life! Like the views from the Swiss Alps, words really cannot describe our lunch and we spent a good hour marvelling over them, whilst stuffing our faces. Dad, honestly you would have loved it – 40cm long kransky, chorizo, bratwursts you name it.

Admittedly I wasn’t as keen on the sausages as Brad was, after witnessing the naked men gang down by the river Rhine, but thankfully Brad managed to push this image from his mind.

When we arrived back in Basel, we spent the remainder of the afternoon wandering around the city, eating ice-cream after ice-cream... and yes – I finally got my Swiss Chocolate Doodle and it was worth every Swiss Franc (a lot of them).

Back to London tonight, where we’ll spend the next few days applying for jobs, before it’s the weekend again – sigh, it’s a hard life!

Love you all to bits and wish you were here to enjoy the German sausage, Swiss Doodle or the less sumptuous man sausage on the Rhine – whatever takes your fancy (and I know some of you will fancy the latter - Les...?!)

xxxx