It’s night here, which means it is pitch-dark and there is also a melodious silence in the crisp air; maybe it has to do with Christmas’ arrival. A .5 cm layer of frost ([der] Frost, in German) covers everything and it almost looks like snow, except that it’s made up of weird crystals that, when seen from up close, look like pine trees. It has been that way for a while (it was -8°C last night) and that is not something get evokes feelings of cheerfulness and happy-go-lucky-ness which meant that the stress of midterms worsened. What solved the problem? A spontaneous road trip that spanned four countries: driving from Stuttgart (A), Germany, to Nice (E), France; with a stop in Milan (D), Italy, on the way there and in Basel (C), Switzerland, on the way back. What made this trip crazier and seemingly random is that fact that I was asked to ride along nearing midnight a Friday and by ~13:00 of the following day we were crossing the Swiss border in a hybrid car. Usually I’m not somebody who enjoys being in a car for hours, but this drive is very different. My trip started in Freiburg (B), which is at the edge of the Black Forest, and took me through the Swiss Alps and part of northern Italy to end in the Côte d’Azur, in the French Mediterranean. Seeing everything change suddenly withing a couple of hours is a really amazing experience and it became most obvious in Switzerland. If you didn’t know already know it, Switzerland is a very multicultural country (four official languages: German, French, Italian, and Romansh) that believes in neutrality (its official name is Confœderatio Helvetica, in Latin) and it is for that reason that its de facto capital is in Bern, while the federal supreme court is in Lausanne, and other important offices are spread over the country. How sudden are the changes there? Well, at one point we entered a long tunnel and, suddenly, at the end of it everything was in Italian and not in German. Crossing the Italian border was also different, even though people still spoke the same language. I know this is very stereotypical, but the driving was crazy! People drove a lot more recklessly, faster, and used the horn a lot more often; oddly enough, that made it feel a little like Ecuador.
It was already dark when we entered Italy, so we decided to take a short detour and eat dinner in Milan. The way the streets are laid out, the road conditions, the vegetations, the smells, faster cars breaking traffic laws, speeding motorcycles, music all around us seemed very Latin American–I loved it. We walked around a bit in the old city, in la Piazza del Duomo, and went into la Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II where we ate a incredibly delicious, albeit expensive, dinner. After having spent no more than four hours there, we continued our journey to Nice, but Italy left a good after-taste in my mouth and I can barely wait until I go to Padua, Verona, and Venice in late January.
A small sign (smaller than the “Welcome to North Carolina” signs) let us know we had entered France and, once again, everything suddenly (within a few dozen feet) changed to French, but it wasn’t just the language, but other things like speed limits and road signs looked slightly different. The whole ride from the back seat seemed like a blurry watercolor painting with oil pastel highlights, specially when driving in the Mediterranean area where Italy meets France: driving next to precipice with mountains on one side and the sea on the other.
The arrival in Nice was very stressful because it was very late and we were cranky. To make matters worse, it’s virtually impossible to find a free parking spot because the streets are very narrow in this old city and everybody has a car. After finally managing to park the car we made it to the hotel and slept like logs. The morning thereafter started a lot earlier than I had planned and waking up early was definitely worth it. The sun shone much more intensely than I would’ve had anticipated and the wind blew, which made it very cold, but I didn’t mind at all, because I hadn’t seen a beach in months! Walking around the city was a very refreshing experience, from the daily routine in cold, dark, and cloudy Germany. I hadn’t seen a sun this bright and a Carolina-blue sky in a while and that combination made everything around me look like a hybrid between an oil painting and something out of a technicolor movie. Most of the houses ranged from a light papaya color to a warmer light mustard color, the water fluctuated in coloration from a very deep blue to almost turquoise. The mountains in the backdrop were a washy sandy beige dotted with trees of varying hues. In the distance we saw a hill that overlooked the sea and we made our way there, with the water on our right side. We encountered people going into the frigid water; a small improvised petting-zoo with sheep, cows, goats, and horses; street musicians playing music to which an old lady happily danced; a small Christmas market; and we also saw rollerblader zoom past us.
Once at the foot of the hill we started going up, stopping every few steps to take more photos of the slightly ever-changing view of an intensely blue sea that seemed to be in flames where the sun reflected the light. At the edge of this water, small polished stones served as buffers and created what looked like a half moon from that height. The wind blew even harder and I couldn’t help but stop and just look at the water for a while. The city looks a lot different from up there and it gives you a very different perspective than walking among tall housings in narrow, curving, sloping cobblestone streets. On the way down, we decided to go off on a little detour and went down the other other side of the hill to close to where the lighthouse protrudes into the sea. The road was very curvy and very few cars were on it and trees and paths were also all around us, most of which led to unknown locations on the hill. Being down there, so close to the water, was also something I had missed and that compels me to want to come back in the warmer months, but before all the hordes of people overcrowd the place and before it gets unbearably hot. The food? Also amazing and, luckily, not as expensive as in Milan, though a bit more than what I’d pay here in Freiburg. And that day had come to an end. We left early the next morning and made a small stop in Basel, where we saw the Weihnachtsmarkt and were confused several times by not only by how they speak the language, but also by the Swiss norms and standards.
Events like these do seem ephemeral, but memories aren’t.
La vida no es la que uno vivió, sino la que uno recuerda, y cómo la recuerda para contarla.
– Gabriel García Márquez.
Some of the main differences are that it’s December now, which means that it gets dark by 16:30 and it is cold, very cold–though it hasn’t been as cold lately as it had been; a couple of weeks ago when we had several weeks of -5 °C mornings. I quite like the cold here, but only when we get snow; that is the reason why I went with some friends to 
I went to 
Which brings me to my next point: this area of Austria, not unlike Bavaria, is VERY Catholic. In the old area of town, most–if not all–important buildings, as well as others of less significance, had façades with busts of Virgin Mary holding Baby Jesus in her arms. There were also crucifixes in the corners of big rooms and everybody proudly told you they were Catholic and also stated that virtually everybody in Innsbruck is Catholic. It was more present and latent than even in Ecuador, it seemed, and it contrasted starkly with Germany’s predominant deism and just-cultural Christianity. Even Freiburg does not feel as Catholic as Innsbruck and it seems like we have a Catholic church in every block. Among some of the things we did, we went to the Aline Zoo, where I saw bears and beavers up-close. There were also owls, wolves, lynxes, etc… On the way back to Germany we went on a little detour and stopped by what is arguably the most famous castle in the world: 