freiburg

Gabe and I visited Freiburg, Germany last week and stayed with our friends Clayton and Angelika, a married German/American couple with the cutest mocha colored boy I've ever seen. Gabriel met Clayton in Nashville while doing a little work with The Foundry years ago, and since then they've stayed in touch via facebook and emails. They're the kind of people where if they had a club, you'd want to be a part of it. Our goal was to see a bit of the countryside, have thoughtful conversations, relax and laugh. We picked blackberries the size of grapes, visited a horse farm where Clayton use to humbly shovel manure as his first job in Germany (also home to one of the most beautiful Friesian I've ever beheld) and ate Vietnamese food. We also celebrated Shebat from Friday night to Saturday night and sang songs in Hebrew before breaking bread.

Angelika and I spent Friday playing with pink and blue eyeshadow before venturing off to learn a little about portrait photography.  She'd like to one day do photography as a profession, so I was happy to show her some pointers and teach her a bit about lighting and camera operation. She was like a dry sponge, soaking in everything I said. If she only knew how much I still don't know.

Here are some shots she took with my camera in the magical field where all you have to do is drop a bit of change into the provided tin can and you pick your own flowers. I was teaching her how to operate a 50mm lens in manual mode, which is not easy, but she did a great job.

We spent Saturday night talking about southern dialects and ghetto slang, and then eventually slipped into them mid conversation. I learned that "dude, you trippin'" is correct, but "dude, you be trippin" is incorrect. You can only use "be trippin" when referring to someone else. For example, "Dude, he be trippin" is correct. Deep down, I think I already knew that.  

Clayton reminded me so much of my brother, Ryan, in his mannerisms, his accent, his sense of humor. It was like having a piece of home at the dinner table. I can't really explain it, but somehow I think they'd get along really well. Maybe it's because they both, at some point, had an afro.