Hiking around Jena

One Saturday back in September I realized that I'd forgotten the cord and plug for my laptop at the institute, which I'd need to finish something on Sunday. Rather than just riding my bike up there and back, which feels too much like a regular work day, I thought it would be fun to take a hike there, through the hills on the west side of town. I've been on pretty well all those trails before, but they'd since put in all sorts of interpretive signs and activity centres, about animal tracks, really old road construction, stone property markers, and tree species, among other things.

Here you can see a witch's cabin, that's been built by the side of the path. ("Hexe" means witch in German.)
Inside they had a book with some fairy tales, which I read to Jeremi. I'm sure it's designed for families with kids, but it's fun for foreigners to practice their German as well!
Here was a board illustrating various mushroom species that can be found in the area at different times, some of which are edible, and some of which are poisonous, and most of which had rather colourful names.
Then we stopped up at the Haeckelstein, the memorial to Ernst Haeckel, a well-known biologist/ecologist who worked in Jena.
The view from there was lovely, and shows just how high up I have to ride my bike each day. (Okay, so this is a bit higher than the institute, but you can't really see the bottom of the valley from here either.)

Slowly we made our way back to town, meeting up with some friends in the park by the river who were grilling for our friend Matthias's birthday. We didn't have any beer or food with us, so we headed into town to pick some up, so we could come back. On the way we passed by the annual Neugasse festival (which last year featured children playing with matches). This year, there was the usual hippie atmosphere, though the weather wasn't quite as nice as the year before.

We took in a bit of the puppet show on the way... (We actually knew one of the performers, because Jena is that small.)
Then we headed back to the park for some grilling and beer drinking. To keep warm, some people were kicking a soccer ball around, not really even playing, and our friend Raul slipped on the damp grass and fell, much to the amusement of everyone. It really didn't look serious, but when it was still really hurting him an hour or so later, as we were getting ready to head back to the Neugasse to see a concert, he decided to head to the hospital to have it checked out.

The night went on, more beers were had, and at some point, Matthias thought it would be a good idea to try out one of the kiddie cars that they had set up for the street festival. It turns out it wasn't really built for adults. (He ended up on the ground shortly after this was taken.)
Eventually we all ended up back at Matthias's apartment for some more beer and cake. Soon after this we were joined by the group that had gone to the hospital - it turns out his arm was broken after all!

Poor Raul. The cast was only on for a short while, but then they put him in a crazy metal arm brace that allowed for a slight amount of movement in the joint, which was slowly increased over several weeks until he could move his arm properly again. This only went to reinforce his long-held belief that the best way to take part in sports is seated on the couch, with remote in hand. And this wasn't the end of the sporting injuries this fall - read on about Jeremi's rugby exploits!