Hail. And a lot of it.
We left last night to go to a club that we heard of online. It was a very select group of students that could be invited to go. We just had to write our names on a certain Facebook page and we were allowed to enter the club early for some sort of deal. This was the sort of investigating we had to do in order to truly understand some aspects of German culture, bar culture.
We left knowing perfectly well that it was going to storm. We had our jackets in our hands until it started drizzling at the station. Thankfully enough, we only had to walk a small distance to the streetcar otherwise we would have been soaked. We only wanted to go a few stops away from where we were anyway, so we didn’t have long to stand on the train. In that short amount of time from entering the car when it was just drizzling, large sized hail started to come down, clashing the roof like tiny pellets, crashing like something was wrong with the car.
My initial instinct was fear; something was horribly wrong with the S-Bahn. There’s something going wrong with the electric connects with the car. The brakes are going to fall apart; they won’t function. We’re going to crash. We’re probably going to be stranded on the side of the street in the rain, cliched.
Hail. Just a lot of it.
(This is Sam. Read her blog “What is a himmel fart?)
Afterword, there was a series of flooding in lower parts of the city that looked like a large Mojito mixed with white ice chunks and leaves floating throughout. Freiburg, the drink city, flooded by hail.
This morning was difficult though. Our adventure last night, leading up to an interesting night of Facebook bombing and meme sharing, really tired me out I guess considering I couldn’t even wake up in time for my 9 a.m. class. Grunged out in nappy sleep hair and zoned out eyes, we endured class. But we couldn’t have our regular breakfast anyway today. It is Christi Himmelfahrt, Ascension,
and almost every store was closed today. Edeka, Penny, all of our favorite grocery stores are closed. We struggled until we found out that the bakery down the street was still open. So, we had the first twenty minutes of class down on the side of the street in wicker chairs, small steel tables, next to a plant littered street from last night’s storm, quiet. The ominous vacation to the streets made the leftovers from the storm feel like shards of accidents. It’s not like everything I’m encountering is showing me things about how the world is slowly falling apart, but using these leaves really made me think about how much we are just throwing away things that are good and green.
Our class ended up deciding to take the afternoon at the Thermalbad (Thermal spa), which is only a short drive West of town. We researched a bit for our future presentation before we left and finished making some Spargel, but once we stepped into that Thermalbad for the first time, we didn’t really want to leave.
It was filled with many different areas to swim or just hang out above the water. Each of them had a different temperature setting and a different kind of length that was recommended for you to stay in there. It was all in Celsius, which was fun to try to remember. There was even a section that lead directly outside to one of the hotter pools.
It was a great chance to relax and remember that life can be good and calm. And that was something that really started getting to my mind. Is relaxation something that I forget in my everyday life? Do I, as a citizen of America, understand that I can have a few moments to myself that can be relaxed and carefree? Do I understand that being submerged in hot water for almost three hours can be relieving to a certain extent? Do I know that? And that was when I reached Nirvana.
There was this greater comfort from the flow of the child splashing next to me as their orange water wings shoved waves on the surface and toward my legs. There was an extra convenience of the half-naked older gentleman that swiftly moved past me as I sat on my back looking at the sky enjoying the gentle movement. Each second was used and channeled as a form of comfort, rather than being irked or disheartened. There was that extra amount of calm. I was calm? I was calm! Enjoy the calm.
I’d drink to that if I drank.