All girl Saxophone Quartet!
Look at the main street in old Heidelberg, the sky is very gloomy, fortelling or heavy rains!
A shot of one section of the old city.
The foot print of the naughty Knight in the Heidelberg Schloss, stepping into it is said to bring good luck.
The dwarf, Perkeo who was infamous for his ability to drink so much in one sitting. He was said to have either died from 1. The shock of drinking water for the first time in a long time, 2. Arsinic laced beer, or 3. ... I forget.
The Biggest Wine barrel I have ever seen in my life!
One part of the Schloss Heidelberg.
Another part of Schloss Heidelberg, (an intersting thing is that the whole of Schloss Heidelberg is just miniature palaces built next to eachother, to fit the nedds to the ruler at the time).
Emily in an Arch from Schloss Heidelberg.
Matthew in an Arch from Schloss Heidelberg.
The red roffed landscape of the old city of Heidelberg. The big church is where the Marktplatz is.
Emily with the Ruins of Schloss Heidelberg (the free part)
Matthew with the Ruins of Schloss Heidelberg (the free part)
Emily with the altstadt Heidelberg in the background.
Matt with the altstadt Heidelberg in the background.
The HeiligeGeist Kirche
Gates leading into the old city Heidelberg.
Pulpit in the HeiligeGeist Kirche
Ceiling and altar of the Holy Ghost Church (Heilige Geist Kirche)
Emily at the Marktplatz with the HeiligeGeist Kirche in the background!
Matt at the Marktplatz with the HeiligeGeist Kirche in the background!
Random Statue in a Random Platz that we found after leaving our bus stop. Howdy Ya'll!
I must admit, yesterday was truly an adventure! Matt and I decided to take a day trip
Matt was supposed to show up at my house at 7. I am going to assume that my alarm clock was early, because, according to my clock, it was quarter past, and he still wasn't there. So I grabbed my stuff and started walking to his house, I met up with him halfway. It was at this time that he told me that it was just now turning 7 and that I shouldn't have freaked out. We walked to the train station and made it early enough for the train leaving from Mayen East.
We then took a train to Andernach, and switched trains there. The Andernach train took us to Heidelberg, and we got there around 10 am.
When we arrived, we decided to buy a city map and a bus pass. The city map cost a Euro and the roundtrip to and from the Marktplatz cost us both 2 Euros.
We arrived at the Marktplatz (market center)looked around and proceeded to the Heiligegeist kirche (the holy ghost church) which had just opened! We went inside and while the the ceiling was cool, as well as the pulpit, and Organ!!! WOW! The stain glass was mostly newage and weird, neither matt or I cared for it, but the rest was pretty.
After the church, we decided to make the steep 10 min climb up to the Heidelberg Schloss. I must admit, it did not wear Matthew out at all, he has very good leg musculatur. Myself on the other hand, after Burg Eltz the other day, my legs were killing me and Matthew had to wait for me numerous times as I battled the hill! lol. I must have looked so pathetic, panting, out of breath, and here is Matthew, "What are you talking about, this isn't tiring!" GAHH! lol.
Anyways, we finally, finally, reached the Schloss (castle) (Schloss and Burg can both be put into our english word: Castle, however, in German... Schloss is a place for royalty, and Burg is more for troops I believe).
To Enter the Schloss normally costs 3 euro, but since we were students we got a reduced rate of like €1.50. So we looked out on the terrace, of which they have several. Took some lovely pictures of Heidelberg, and proceeded through the castle to buy a ticket for a tour of the interior of the Schloss. I think that the student rate for the tour was €2. We had some time before the ENGLISH TOUR! (Thats right, our first tour in English since we have been here!!!!) So, we went outside and looked at the ruined part of the Schloss. Mom, this is where we went the last night of our first Tour in Germany when I was 16. This part of the Schloss is open to one and all at no cost, because one can only see ruins of the castle from farther away, with another grandious lookout at Heidelberg!
After this we went back for our tour, which to be honest, there isn't much of the castle left, there are like 3 buildings which have been restored and what not, but most of it is ruins. There are no originals left in this castle. It was a very long tour and the funny thing was that the tour group was comprised of three couples, a couple from Holland, a couple from Italy, and then Matthew and myself, the only native English speakers in the tour! haha! WOW!
The tour while I am not sure how much we really did see, took over an hour. She just filled us with all sorts of history and her English was very good. I felt badly for her, because she had just given a tour in French, now English, and afterwards, German I believe. The funny thing is that many Germans who have prefected their English sound British. lol. It is really quite lovely sounding, but at the same time hilarious.
After this tour, we decided to head back down to the Marktplatz for money and lunch! Matthew by this time had...€5 and I had €30. lol. So we found a Geldautomat (ATM machine) and took out money. The charge to do so is so high, however, Matthew can seem to withdraw as much as he likes, I can only withdraw €150 at a time..... I am not happy about this, because this means that I will be charged €5 everytime I withdraw!
I bought Peach gummi bears from a store that my mom and I discovered our first time in Germany, and then visited it again last summer. However, there are two gummy bear stores very close to each other and after having purchased the gummis, I came to realize I had bought them from the wrong store, lol, so I had to go to the right store and bought peach gummis from them as well. lol.
We walked up and down the main road for a long time looking at cafes, etc. We walked for a long time looking for a nice place to eat, and ended up at the Heidelberg Universität. There a student found us and asked us if we could be test subjects for a pychology experiment they were doing there. I told him that we might like to later ( because we didn't have the heart to say no, we are Americans, and would probably only understand 10% of what is happening).
We finally decided on the Weiße Schwan (the White Swan) where we each had a beer, Matt a dunkel (dark beer) and me a Radler, along with käsespatzle (cheesy noodles) and I had the side salad, while Matthew had Pommes frites (French fries). The enviornment was nice, we could people watch from the inside, our server was very nice, and we enjoyed just relaxing after how much walking we had done. Even though we had used suncream, because it was extremely sunny and hot!!! We were both kinda pooped and irritated because we were hungry.
After lunch, we went to the Käthe Wohlfahrt store (hand made christmas specialty store). We didn't buy anything, but it was fun to look!
We then bought ice cream and ate it while listening to a street performing saxaphone quartet! They were all very good, the music was tons of fun, and these young girls were really kicking it!
After this, we decided to double check when our train was supposed to leave. I thought it wasn't supposed to leave until 8 pm. however, when we looked at the sheet it said 18.00 hours meaning 6 pm. So we rushed back to our bus stop, at which time it poured and eventually started hailing.
Thank God I brought sun screen and an umbrella! We would have been fried and then wet and possibly bruised from the hail. lol!
We made it to the train station on time, but because of the rain, the rain was running late, and our two switch offs to get home we very close together. We made it to Koblenz and the Koblenz train was still waiting there because it had showed up early, but when we got to Andernach, the train had left on time, so we were forced to wait an hour for the next train to Mayen. We decided to brave our way into Andernach, not far from the trainstation, came to a little eatery and procced to buy a huge plate of fries, just so that we could be someplace warm and cozy.
When the plate of fries arrived, Matthew and I both looked at each other like it would never all get eaten, there was so much and without any condiments!! However, we actually managed to eat the whole thing!
We walked back to the trainstation, got on the train, came home and slept!
It was a good day, and I was really happy that Matthew got to see Heidelberg. We had hoped to meet up with Aaron Judisch, Dr. Judisch's son who lives in Heidelberg performing as an opera singer, however, he is currently in the states for his nephew's baptism and will be back in Heidelberg on Monday. lol. Go figure!
Today Matthew and I plan to go into Koblenz for part of the day and possibly hit up the bars a bit there tonight. It should be fun. I will take pictures and hopefully post them tomorrow if we are still going! Lots of love to everyone there! We miss you, but are doing a lot better now! ;)
So, Biss Dann! :3
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