A Random Tuesday Coffee Chat

Les has left this week's theme open to random thoughts...  Here is a picture of Freiburg Germany right after WWII.  The allies blew up the entire city with the exception of the cathedral.

Here is that same place today. They managed to rebuild it to look like it did pre-WWII - it is a stunning experience.

Freiburg was a beautiful city.  I will be posting pictures of it over the next while on the blog.  Germany is a great place but I have to say that if I was a pleasure traveler from North America I would have been disappointed.  

First, the service levels are ummmm, not up to standards.  Generally the staff will do the work detailed in their job description - no more, no less.  They give the impression that the visitor is a business transaction,  not a guest.  I consistently ran into this experience during my trip.

Freiburg is a green city too.  That means that when you leave your hotel room the power to the entire room goes off in an effort to save energy.  In this era of needing to charge technology however, it is truly annoying. Please leave one plug 'hot' as a charging station please.
Last, Freiburg is a university town but with few controls over it.  As a result, public drunkenness and the result that goes with it are found throughout the city.  The amount of graffiti was particularly brutal...several truly beautiful buildings were marred by it.

The one thing I didn't mind graffiti on was the cigarette machines all around.  BTW, you have to put in your ID to prove you are of age in order to buy from them.  It was incredible though that they had all this talk of green.  People rode bikes everywhere, power and water was saved - yet cigarettes were common.  A nice oxymoronic moment.  

I think I am going to leave it here for today.  More on my trip to come.