First "month-sary" in Freiburg

Some Pinoys are fond of celebrating "monthsaries" ("monthly" anniversaries), which especially apply to romantic relationships. I, on the other hand, also apply it to significant milestones in my life. Hence for every almost every month after the date of my first day of work at NEDA (December 29), I treated myself to mini-celebrations like a movie or dinner with friends, although people who were present with me during those times not really aware of my primary reason for chilling-out, aside from letting the hair down after a hellish week or just simply getting together to catch up on each other's life.

And so yesterday I celebrated my first monthsary in Freiburg. My two other reasons for celebrating are the following: the end of the first month of my German language course, and finding and moving in a new and more permanent room. One unofficial reason is simply because it was a Friday! My would-be classmate Bismarck from Malawi who invited me for a couple rounds of beer last night actually refer to Friday as Father's Day, when men are given the right to have fun. I know there's a hint of gender insensitivity to that term but blame them, not me. Afterwhich, I headed to Augustinerplatz for the other invitation from Juan Carlos, the Bolivian student who picked me up from the Hauptbahnhof. As a coincidence, I met most of the people whom I met exactly one month ago when I arrived in Freiburg, plus some other new faces. These are mostly students in the Faculty where I'll be studying and are supposed to be busy finishing their thesis before the November 15 deadline. But then again, there's beer and it's a Friday. And Friday in German is Freitag. This literally translates to when you have fun and there's nothing else to do, that is "free day."


Our class picture, taken during our last day in class (August 29). Our instructor Karin (left) treated us for coffee at Europa Cafe.