pictured: the meal routine - cook & cleantoday is our last day in treplin, germany. and i can say i'm pretty happy about that. to think of the showers and mosquito-free toilets that lie in our future is really, really - exciting.
and i really just wish i had spoken german. i think it would have been a bit different. or i wish that i hadn't felt so awkward here. this is the first place that on the last day, i feel no more comfortable than the first...
even with all my complaints, it has actually been a pretty nice time wwoofing on the barenfang biohof. i especially enjoyed harvesting day (even though it's much harder than one would think). even more, i really grew fond of harvesting food for lunch and dinner. there's nothing like a meal cooked with ingredients from a few meters away. mmm...
to celebrate the last day alex and i decided to bike across the country and see what fun poland has to offer (it's really not that far - 15 km - but still, sounds cool).
pictured: poland and germany separated by the oder river
first up was checking out frankfurt. not the frankfurt you've heard of. the other one. the one that has to have a parenthesis of the bordering river whenever it's mentioned - frankfurt (oder). the one that you won't ever visit. because there's nothing to do.
a small, working town, it actually felt very big compared to treplin. there were grocery stores! and there were malls (ek, but oooh, air conditioning). but that's about it. it's a bit of an ugly town. but at least they have pretty good bike paths!
and poland is just across the oder river. a town with an ugly looking name - Słubice - seems to be nothing more than a place for germans to get cheap cigarettes, petrol, and haircuts(?) because that's all there is when you cross over. store after store of that. and we couldn't even buy anything even if we wanted. they don't use the euro (yet) and the people apparently speak german, but don't like to (i get it).
pictured: alex in poland // me in poland
so, you can see why we didn't stick around long.
back to frankfurt (oder) (seriously, parenthesis every time...sad, sad, sibling city). we cooled off in a really big, nice looking church for a bit. took some pictures of the nicest buildings (really, nothing else even slightly resembles the old, nice buildings). then headed back to treplin for a swim in our favorite lake.
pictured: people really try to make things nice in frankfurt (oder) - not easy, but funny! // the nice buildings of frankfurt (oder) - museum of young art and city hall
a nice day. but our legs feel like jello (a description my friend katie once came up with - and it's so accurate!)
tomorrow it's berlin time. for a day. for the world cup final (unfortunately germany lost, so maybe it won't be as fun as we were hoping). then we are off to bavaria to see if the stereotypes of round bellies, suspenders, and all that german kitsch is really true.
pictured: the barenfang meadow at sunset
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