Urgh urgh urgh!!! This next entry has literally been a trial to post. Firstly, I ran into difficulties typing it in the first place, as there were some server issues in accessing the journal. Then, after almost an hour of typing up the story, I lost the whole thing when the computer farted. So, here goes try number 3 - I've backdated it a few days since it was supposed to go up earlier than now...
So...after our fruits de mer debacle and a short stay in chilly Strasbourg, Toli and I began our drive back to southern Germany to return the rental car before meeting up with his parents in Vienna.
We decided to go by way of the "Wine Road", which runs between Strasbourg and Colmar, the winemaking capital of the Alsace area. Similar to Germany's "Romantic Road", it's a combination of several roads leading one through various medieval towns, vineyards and wineries. However, we should have learned from our drive to Strasbourg that French roads have poor signage and rarely lead directly to the destination in mind. We got lost at least half a dozen times (at one point, going halfway up a moutain) and managed to spend a few hours going less than 100 km along this picturesque, but circuitous road. About a third of a way through, we finally gave up and took the highway directly to Colmar, where we eventually did taste some wine and purchased a few bottles for Toli's parents.
It was mid-afternoon by the time we finally did leave Colmar to head for Germany, but we were making relatively good time towards our destination until another little adventure took us by surprise.
As we were heading into Freiburg (a fairly large German town close to the border), Toli noticed a wounded bird hopping along the autobahn. The sight distressed him enough that we decided to turn back and see if we could help.
Upon realizing the size of the bird (about the size of Hedwig in "Harry Potter"), Christine promptly freaked out like the wuss she is and wouldn't go near it. Toli, however, perservered, and managed to coax the bird into his sweatshirt. It struggled just a little, but he was able to wrap it up snugly and carry it back to the car, as Christine frantically searched through her German dictionary for translations of "animal protection agency" and "wounded bird".
We drove towards a nearby gas station, planning to call a local animal agency when Christine saw a sign with "Zoo - 600 meters". After checking with the gas station to make sure the zoo was still open, off we drove and soon realized that in Germany, "zoo" doesn't always mean zoo! Sometimes, it means pet store! Even so, we walked in with the wounded bird. The staff was unable to help us, as it was a wild animal, but they kindly provided us with an address and a crudely-drawn map, directing us to a woman who could help.
Undaunted, we went driving around looking for the address (getting lost once on the way), which led us to an apartment building. But there was no apartment number listed with the address! So, Christine went knocking door-to-door, asking if anyone knew of a lady who helped wounded birds. Fortunately, the third try was a charm, and the woman living there led us to yet another apartment building down the way where we finally found the woman who could help us with the bird.
Sadly, though, after more than an hour of searching for someone to help, our poor bird did not survive the ordeal and tumbled dead out of Toli's sweatshirt. It had literally been squirming in our laps on the car ride over to the apartment, so we surmise that it had died as we were taking it to the rescuer (whose name we actually never learned). The woman, who was about as heartbroken as we were, explained that the bird had suffered some sort of internal injury (as evidenced by some blood on its beak) and that it had probably been hit by a car before we found it. She assured us, though, that we had at least given it some comfort and warmth before it died and spared it from a panicked death on a noisy highway. We learned that our bird was a European "bussard", which
translates literally to "buzzard", but in the U.S. they are commonly known as hawks. See - http://www.hawk-conservancy.org/priors/buteo.shtml for more information.
It was a sad drive for the rest of the night, as we were both distressed by the bird's death, especially Toli. However, the sadness was tempered by the knowledge that so many people had come forward to help us rescue the animal - the lady at the gas station, the young man at the pet store, the old woman who helped us find the address when we got lost, the woman at the apartment who led us to the bird-lady, and of course, the bird-lady herself.
(An explanation for the title of the entry: Since the encounter, Christine has affectionately referred to the bird as "Fritz the buzzard", but Toli has pointed out that it's not a fitting name for hawklike bird of its size. We've compromised by calling him "Frites" - as in pommes frites. Go figure.)