Freiburg

Freiburg was a really pleasant change from Stuttgart. However my initial walk through the city from our hostel had me thinking otherwise. Going through “crack” park as nicknamed by the drug deals observed by other students on our trip proved an interesting juxtaposition that i immediately took notice of. A beautiful high rise church surrounded by a lovely fountain and large spaces of green grass had many unhoused people and men that had a knack for predatory cat calling multiple women on our trip. Here i also noticed a lot of demographic clustering throughout my walk. People of similar races and ethnicities tended to hangout in groups with the same identities. It made me think about how different spaces do or do not foster cultural integration. However because Germany is quite migrant, I began to fully realize how much language impacts who you do and don’t have access to. Living in the US my entire life, in a given week I do not typically meet someone who does not speak English. However hear we meet many people everyday that may not speak German or English. In that sense it seems like cultural segregation because of language barriers makes more sense in Germany. But why are these patterns so strong throughout the United States. Claiming to be a melting pot, the US is more like a pot that has different ingredients that often stay separated like oil and water.

Freiburg was really special to me, I cannot quite put my finger on it but the inner city with the large caste and small canals felt like something out of a royal Disney movie. I loved the accessibility of the public transit with the tram system being able to take you virtually anywhere in the city. It was intriguing to me that even with such easy and accessible public transit, so many people chose to ride their bikes. Why? Is it quicker? Easier? More exciting? Freiburg also had me thinking a lot about the term and idea of public furniture and how if you make something for people to sit and hang around, they will use it. Even something as simple as that little dancing circle mark was really just a cement circle a few feet lower than the regular ground but it created a stage like space with a ring around for people to sit. Was that the intention or did people just adapt to the space? Either way, that urban planning created a beautiful tradition of weekly dance nights. Dancing with Tye in that circle will hold a special memory in my heart.