What a fun weekend in Germany :)
Our train ride went by pretty quickly on Friday. It took about three hours, though. Kristin was there waiting for us! It was so good to see her. I haven’t seen her since this summer since she studied in Russia last semester. Our train got in to Mannhiem, Germany which was about a 20 minute train ride from Kristin’s house. The first thing I notice was how clean the public transportation system was in Germany! I was amazed. Nothing like Paris. We took the tram over to the Mannhiem castle before heading back to Kristin’s apartment. It was beautiful! I already knew I liked Germany!
We headed back to her apartment to drop off our things. She lives in an old US military base that is now converted to student dorms. Part of the area, however, still has US militia stationed there. It's a bit far from the center of Heidelberg, but it is a very nice area. Her apartment was huge! It was so clean, as well. She lives with two German girls that are both graduate students at the university, but one was away for the weekend. We did get to met her other roommate and she spoke English, too. She was so nice! She recommended a Japanese restaurant for us to go to for dinner since it was Friday so we couldn’t eat the typical German food, being that there is meat! We all ordered fried rice that had a lot of different vegetables in it. It was really good! Then we were headed off to a “free vodka” party for international students. I thought it was a joke at first, but nope. There really was free vodka and you just had to pay 50 cents for a mixer. What a great night! We hung out with some of Kristin’s friends and this other German kid who we randomly met at the bar. We headed back late, and probably didn’t go to bed until after 4am.
Saturday was such a great day once we finally got up! Our day started off with toast, but this was not your regular toast and butter...we put sprinkles and chocolate shavings on it! Who would have thought….delicious! I believe it is a Dutch thing.
After breakfast, we walked through Heidleberg. Kristin was such a great tour guide. We were very lucky to have her! First thing first, we got bretzles! :D I was so excited.
Then we walked through the main street and stopped at a few stores. The first store we went to was called dm. It is similar to a CVS but has very very cheap things. I bought tons of nail polish and some other little trinkets. Good thing I don't study in Germany or I'd be there every day! It was great. We headed over to the gummy bear store after. Yum. We even got to sample a few! We of course, were hungry again, so we stopped at a Germany pub for a late lunch. I ordered schniztel and tried Kristen’s spatzle. I enjoyed both of them! Expanding my horizons one country at a time ;)
After lunch, we saw a really beautiful church. Inside, there was a small art exhibit. It was different, but pretty cool ! I really liked the stained glass windows. They weren’t like anything I’ve ever seen!
We next headed to the bridge. From the bridge, we saw the Heidleberg castle. It was built before 1250 AD! Most of it is still in really good shape, but a part of it was destroyed.
Our next mission was to get up there! The tram stopped running because it was after five, so we decided to walk up. It wasn’t terrible; a little over 300 steps. We had a beautiful view of the city and the castle was amazing. It was definitely another breathtaking site.
We walked throughout the castle and got to even play in it! It was a lot of fun. We saw a footprint in the cement and the story was that there was a young princess who lived in the castle with her family. A knight was visiting her one day, but the King was about to come into the princess' room. Since she wasn’t allowed to have visitors, the knight had to jump out of her window, leaving the impression of his footprint due to his heavy armor.
Next, we stopped in to see the wine vat. It was so big! Unbelievable. I can't fathom having that much wine!
Since we walked around a lot, we decided to reward ourselves with a treat; spaghetti ice! It is an ice cream sundae that looks like spaghetti. They put vanilla ice cream through a spaghetti press to make the noodles and you can get any toppings you want. I got a lot of berries on mine. It was delicious!
Before catching the tram back to Kristin’s apartment, we stopped at the supermarket to get some German candies!
Once we got back to Kristin’s, we rested for a bit. Then, we decided to go to Pizza Hut for dinner. Yes, Pizza Hut. I know I was in Germany, but we were all craving it. And Pizza Hut in Europe is actually pretty classy. Kristin speaks German very well, so she usually would just order for us. But it was Pizza Hut, so I knew they would speak English. The lady was amazed when I spoke English. She though we were all German since Kristin ordered her food in German! Guess I just look so European now :P We shared a pitcher of beer and all got pizza . We stayed there for quite a while, just chatting and catching up with each other. It was really nice. We were going to go to a few pubs, but we were all pretty tired and knew we had to get up for our train in the morning. So we walked to see the castle all lit up from the bridge and then caught the 12:10am train back to Kristin’s apartment and hung out there for a while.
We had to get up early to get to the train station! Everything worked out well, until we were about an hour into our train ride. There was some technically problems at the Paris train station, so we had to go to Champagne first and wait for AN HOUR OUTSIDE for a different train to pick us up. It was so ridiculous. They compensated us with a free box lunch that didn’t include the usual sandwich, chips, apple and cookie. Nope, it had some tomato pate, three pieces of bread, apple sauce, mints, taboule, biscuits, and water. Good thing there was a peanut warning on just about everything….but luckily I bought three German pretzels and a doughnut at the train station before we left. So I survived. We didn’t get into the Paris train station until 4:21pm! We were supposed to be in at 12:51pm. Not ok…..I was hoping the crepe place we wanted to go to would be open since it was a Sunday, and luckily it was! If it was closed, we might have cried. We got our crepes and sat on a bench for a bit to eat. Then finally headed home!
I went to church by myself right around the corner from my house. The boyscouts were not behaving! I couldn't stop laughing at the things they were doing. It was pretty good entertainment!
Tomorrow, I have my first expose in my education class. It is a 15 minute presentation on the differences between the French and US special education systems. All in French...going to be rough! I can't wait until its over :)
A bientôt!
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