Deutschland - First Stop, Heidelberg

I guess it's about time I start catching up, particularly with our German-Austrian Semana Santa trip. I mean, I could be planning my lessons for tomorrow, but why do that when I could instead be entertaining the masses with stories of airport mishaps and giant, deathly pastry balls and singing, dancing clocks and Easter egg hunts and schnitzel (LOTS of schnitzel), just to name a few. Oh, and of course pondering the timeless question: how DO you solve a problem like Maria?

I'll start by saying this trip was awesome. However, I'll also start by saying that this trip did not start awesomely. It was a warm and peaceful Friday in Madrid, that 30th day of March. We were done with school for 10+ days, luggage packed, ready to go at the airport. Flew to Frankfurt successfully (from which we would take the train to Heidelberg the next morning). By "successfully" here, I mean that we flew Ryanair without dying. I do not, however, mean we flew to "Frankfurt," per se. See, for those of you who haven't had the pleasure of flying with Ryanair, you may not know that many of their flights go to small airports well outside of the main cities they claim to fly to. For example, if you take them to Paris, it actually brings you to Beauvais, and from there you have to take a bus for about an hour and a half to Paris. Luckily, I knew this when I flew to Paris four years ago. And when I flew to London last April. Unfortunately, we neglected to do our research on Frankfurt. Long story short, we wound up in the Frankfurt Hahn airport and not the Flughafen Frankfurt am Main airport. Two good, long hours away from Frankfurt vs. about fifteen minutes. Already the German language getting the best of me. Swell.

Nevertheless, we made it to Frankfurt, albeit at nearly three in the morning. The next day we caught our morning train to Heidelberg. Let me just say that, despite the cloudy and somewhat rainy weather,

Courtyard of the castle

Heidelberg gives a great first impression of Germany. It's a relatively small city with a really charming old town and a pretty sweet old castle. There are a lot of tourists, but it's not too overwhelming, and it's just plain pretty. We had two days in Heidelberg. Days one and two were mainly spent the same way: walking around the old town, visiting the castle, eating lots of schnitzel. The castle is a huge structure that to me is part castle, part palace, part fortress, part miniature town. Most of it is still in ruins after destruction in both the 17th and 18th centuries, so a good portion of the buildings are just old facades surrounded a huge courtyard, which to me is more like a plaza. Anyway, the original buildings of the castle were build around the turn of the 15th century. Various Prince Electors (whatever that is) added to the castle/palace/fortress structure at various

View of Heidelberg from the castle

points in history thereafter. The castle was destroyed various times, such as during the 30 Years' War, when both the castle and its gardens were damaged, and then later in 1764, lightening hit the castle. For this reason only some of the castle remains and has been restored. Apparently after lightening struck the castle, they gave up trying to restore it and people started using the castle as a makeshift quarry in order to build houses in town. Later on this was stopped in an attempt to preserve the castle. Today parts of it are still used for ceremonies, balls, performances, etc. The courtyard is also used frequently for musical and theatrical events.

One of the bigger cells of the prison

On the second day we dedicated the morning to checking out the Philosopher's Walk, which is located across the Neckar River from the old town, and the old university. On the side of a small mountain are a few pathways that university professors and philosophers would supposedly wander along in the olden days. It has great views of the old town and the castle. After we did some philosophical pondering, we headed back over to the old town to check out the old part of the Heidelberg University. The university was founded in 1386 and is the oldest university in Germany. It is apparently one of the more prestigious universities in Europe today. Anyway, as a tourist, I guess you can normally see the great hall, the old prison, and an exhibit about the history of the university, but the great hall wasn't open for visitors unfortunately. Luckily, the prison is probably the most interesting part (the stupid exhibit was mostly in

Graffiti

German). It was used from the late 1700s into the early 1900s as punishment for students who had committed petty crimes or pulled pranks - some normal, some ridiculous (for example, letting the neighbors' pigs loose, public intoxication, participating in duels, etc.). Depending on the offense, students could spend anywhere from a few days to four weeks in the prison. However, they were still allowed to attend lectures while they were imprisoned. They were also allowed to bring certain things with them and guests were allowed to visit and give them things (for example, bedding, food, beer). To help pass time, the students would write all over the walls of the small prison, and the most recent layers are preserved today, which is mainly what you see when you visit. It's a really interesting place to visit, but I really think you miss out on a lot when you can't understand what's written on the walls (obviously, it's in German).

I should explain its title. While in Heidelberg we discovered a couple of stores that solely sold a very specific type of pastry: the Schneeballe, or snowball. (Now, let's all admit that this, not unlike many other German words, makes you giggle a bit inside.)

A 10-cm diameter ball of pastry goodness

Traditionally, snowballs were these huge masses of pastry rolled up in a ball and dusted with confectioner's sugar and then served at special events like weddings. These snowballs actually come from an area in Bavaria, about two hours away from Heidelberg, but they've become such popular tourist souvenirs that I guess they've spread throughout southern Germany. Anyway, they sell them in a ridiculous variety of flavors with different glazes and/or fillings. They are delicious, but deadly. I thought only the US was capable of such ridiculously sized foods, but evidently not. They are not to be eaten in one sitting. But they are a must. (And as soon as I find a recipe, I intend to try making them myself. That ought to impress people: "Hey, whatchya making?" "Oh, just some schneeballes.")

So that was Heidelberg. As I said, a good introduction to Germany. Up next: more castles, more schnitzel, more beer, singing and dancing clocks, and more beautiful Germanness - Munich!

Video: Palm Sunday morning in Heidelberg.