Germany: Isabella Richter (A New Experience)

Our visit to a medieval farmhouse still stands out to me several months later. On the first weekend of our program, we took a bus half an hour into the Black Forest, winding between mountains along the way. We hiked up to a farmhouse-turned-museum that people lived in during the 1500s. It was built into a hill, which must have been high-tech engineering in the middle ages! We got a tour of the farmhouse and learned about the fascinating and difficult lives of the people that lived there: on the weekends they would take the carriage to Freiburg (the city we live in) to sell their wares at the market; they would leave before dawn and only get back after dusk. We also learned about how everyone, even the children, in houses like this would have to constantly help with the manual labor: cooking, repairing the shingles on the roof, caring for the animals. The house itself was extremely dark and had very low ceilings. It probably wasn’t the cheeriest place to live during the long winters, with only candlelight to see by!

Since only the oldest son would inherit the property, younger siblings from this area often immigrated to America in search of a better life. Hearing that felt like a full circle moment – I grew up in Wisconsin, home to many German immigrants, and now I was seeing where some of that history started!  Afterwards, we sat on picnic benches overlooking the Black Forest and hiked around a little (stopping to take pictures of cows, of course). The experience was a great way for us to get to know each other, and a unique opportunity to see a preserved piece of the region’s history!

 

Isabella Richter

Hometown: Cedarburg, Wisconsin

Major: Political Science; History; German

Program: Academic Year in Freiburg