Der Schwarzwald und mehr!

On Sunday, we went to der Schwarzwald (the Black Forest) for a day trip. We hiked up the highest peek, and the most bizarre part was that the only place that there was snow was on the trail. Great. We were literally slipping and sliding down the mountain. It was a really cold and kind of cloudy day, especially at the top of the mountain, but I'm sure it was still better than Chicago and Beloit weather :) The coldest it's gotten here has been 0 degrees... Celsius.
The picture to the left is me with Nicole and Erika right after we made it to the top of the tallest peak. Soon, we climbed to the top of the lookout tower.

Here I am at the top of the tower. I'm kind of blocking the gorgeous view, but that's posted below.
We also went to two little towns. One had a gorgeous baroque cathedral and some really cute little shops. Another (das Titisee... that's what it's actually called) was more touristy and had a lot of Christmas ornaments and Brezeln twice the size of my head. Pictures of a lot of that are below, too.

I've only been here for six days and it feels like I've been here for a month. I've already made some good friends with people who I never thought I could get along with. I've also been pleasantly surprised that everyone is really cool about my being vegan. A girl in my seminar/traveling group is vegan too. I didn't really start telling people until yesterday (just that I was vegetarian) because I wanted everyone to get to know me first, but apparently that wasn't even all that necessary. I even made anultra-conservative guy (along with some others) tofu stir fry for dinner last night because he'd never had tofu. Everything tastes better here, so it tasted amazing thankfully.
I suppose I should actually start playing student. We started our classes yesterday, but only the seminar and German class. We don't start the other three until we get back from Berlin and Tallinn on February 5. We're MISSING KARNIVAL by being in Estonia. I can't believe they scheduled everything like that... We're also going to be in Estonia for the Superbowl. Should be interesting, at least.
Anyway, my professors seem great. My German class has a huge disparity in German ability. I'm in Intermediate II and it seems like only one guy belongs there. Me and three other guys should really be in Advanced I and the other four should be in Intermediate I. Oh well, it will at least be good review and will be much better than any Tom Freeman class. My seminar professor is hilarious. He's British and kind of reminds me of Ed Mathieu in his gestures and hilarity. He tells more jokes than Ed, though. But it should be a good semester.
I just got my textbook this afternoon and although classes started yesterday, I'm already about 70 pages behind in reading and have another 70 pages to read by tomorrow afternoon. Intense!