Host Family Happenings

I’ve been in Germany for about five days now, which means that already my trip here is about a quarter over. It’s been a great experience so far. My host family, the Faßbinders, consists of Peter and Dorothea (Doro for short), who were married in 2004 and each have two kids. The kids are all in their twenties, however, and live away from home. I’ve only met one, Simeon, who was very nice, and helped me to access the wireless, which I was struggling with. The Faßbinders live in Emmandingen, Germany, which is a smaller town in the south of the country. If you’re looking at a map (like I am right now), it’s in the bottom left corner of Germany, in that little triangle section that sort of juts into France. According to my host family, Emmandingen is powered 100% by green energy, which is crazy.

Of all the things I imagined myself doing with my host family during my first full day (Sunday) in Germany, attending an African music festival was pretty low on the list. Yet that’s what happened, and here are the pictures to prove it!

In addition to the music we saw some cool dancers perform, and they turned out to be obnoxiously flexible.

Case in point.

They also ate fire.

Incredibly multitalented individuals.

Awww.

My host mother, Dorothea.

The Emmandingen town square.

One of the artists peforming.

On Tuesday, Doro, my host mother, took me to Europa Park, which is sort of like Europe’s answer to Disneyland. Once there, she insisted that I ride every rollercoaster that we came across, despite the fact that she herself did not want to ride. It was fun, but it became a bit exhausting.

Walking into Europa Park!

We visited the Freudenberg (the company sponsoring my time here) industrial park in Mannheim on Wednesday, where I was treated to a personal tour of one of their factories. This particular factory manufactured parts that muffled the sounds and vibrations that car engines produce, and made parts for Volkswagen, BMW, and Ford cars. It was very cool to see. After my factory tour, we drove to Freiberg, a nearby town, where Doro showed me a beautiful cathedral.

Entrance to the industrial park.

Factory floor.

Again.

My guide to the factory, Mr. Blackmore.

The tower of the cathedral in Freiberg.

The Pope is visiting in September!

Cool building.

There was a big farmers' market going on in front of the cathedral.

Another cool building. If you'll notice, Doro's hand is in the corner. That's because she apparently really wanted to be in this picture, and after waving to get my attention, she posed until I took another one.

Which is why there's this.

Cathedral doors.

Freiberg was bombed during WWII, but the cathedral miraculously survived.

Stained glass inside the cathedral.

I love stained glass windows.

Cathedral ceiling.

Exterior of the cathedral.

On the way to the top of the cathedral's tower. I risked my camera for this picture!

I thought this looked cool.

The town of Freiberg.

200 year old graffiti?

Today (Thursday) Doro and I went for a three hour bike tour of the Emmandingen countryside, which included the ruins of Hochburg Castle, and some old German farms. We rounded out our bike trip by stopping by a much more modern German farm, and liberating some plums from their trees. Though the legality of this was debatable, the deliciousness of the plums was not!

Statue of a snail I saw in Emmandingen.

Layout of Castle Hochburg.

Castle.

Castle

Looking out from the castle.

Beautiful view.

More of the castle ruins.

Etc

It was definitely a cool place to visit.

I thought this looked neat.

It's nice to finally be caught up on my blog! Although to be fair I really should have worked on the research papers that I was assigned in Belgium, seeing as how I haven't necessarily started them yet. All in good time!