Randoms

There’s some random things that are different from the U.S. The grocery store here is called “Kaufland” and it is two stories high… so they have an escalator for grocery carts! It’s really cool!

Also, I have to take the Straßenbahn practically everywhere. The Straßenbahn is the streetcar that runs all through Freiburg.

One thing that bugs me here about the crosswalks is that if you don’t leave to cross the street RIGHT when it turns green, it’ll turn red on you while you’re crossing. Although, if I’m catching onto the method here correctly, the traffic lights don’t turn green for the cars at that point; it’s still a red light for them a little longer.

A cool thing about dogs here, is that they all just kind of roam on their own. An owner will be walking with their dog through the city, and the dog will have no leash on. The dog behaves and when the owner calls the dog, he’ll just go running towards the owner. Dogs are allowed on the Straßenbahns and in stores too. It’s really weird, and I’m still getting used to seeing random dogs in these places.

Also I have to mention that this past week there were student protests throughout Freiburg. They were protesting the cost of tuition here. In Baden-Württemberg students have to pay 500 Euros a semester. This kind of put me in shock because if that's the amount of tuition that I had to pay, I'd be super excited and happy. Apparently, tuition used to be free for them, and now that they have to pay this money they are protesting it. I guess if I grew up with tuiton being free and then I had to pay that money, I might be protesting too.