My hometown, Matsuyama City has a sister city relationship with three cities in the world. The three cities are Sacramento, CA in the U.S., the Korean city of Pyeongtaek-si (평택시 平澤市) and Freiburg in southern Germany. It has been 20 years since the agreement with Freiburg and a goodwill mission visited Matsuyama City from Freiburg. The leader was the Mayor of Freiburg, Dr. Dieter Salomon. In response, Matsuyama City had a welcome party and I joined it. I'm not a good speaker in German. I had a little concern about the conversation with them, but the person next to me could speak English fluently and it helped me. While I was chatting with him, I became eager to visit Freiburg. I've never been to Germany and I think that many people would choose big and famous cities such as Frankfurt, Bonn, Berlin and so on as the first city in Germany. However, I got interested in Freiburg through the chatting.
Freiburg is famous for its clean environment and is located near the border with Switzerland and France. I'd like to just spend time there and have a one-day trip to Basel in Switzerland and Mulhouse in France. Crossing the border between countries is interesting to me. Besides, Freiburg is a two and a half hour railway ride from Frankfurt which is directly connected with Japan. Freiburg is a small and rural city, but isn't so far from Japan in this sense.
Anyway, this meeting motivated me to learn German.
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Posted by: LnddMiles | Jul 22, 2009 at 03:55 PM
The reception party was really fun. I chatted with the Governor and the Mayor, and I posed with two German gentleman, a city councilman and a professor of Freiburg University. The beautiful lady in the picture is a translator. She sent an e-mail to me, saying that she could help me out. Those people including you, would be helpful for me. Anyway thank you for the comment.
Posted by: KUMO | Apr 25, 2009 at 10:53 AM
Doc - this seems like a very interesting meeting and welcome reception!! I would have loved to attend, too!! But since I am not a citizen of Matsuyama - oh, well, what can I say?!?! And if you really want to learn German and even go to Germany ..... do I have to say more??? *SMILE* Well, weekend, but I have special lessons at school today (parents day). Take care and looking forward to hearing from you again
Posted by: Klaus | Apr 25, 2009 at 07:10 AM