Now that that's done, I must finally tell you about my wonderful trip to Heidelberg, Germany.
On Thursday last week, my friends Alexa, Sara and I took off for Heidelberg. We left school around 4:45 and got there nine hours later. Because, you see, we had to first take the tube to the train station at Liverpool Street, then take a train to Stansted Airport, take a plane to Frankfurt Hahn Airport after waiting for about an hour and a half, wait two hours for a bus to take us to Heidelberg, and then actually take the two-hour long bus ride. Anyway, now it's three in the morning (we lost an hour because of the time difference), and Alexa's cousin (also named Alexa) picked us up where the bus dropped us off.
So here we are in Heidelberg, with Alexa as our hostess. We get to her house, which was lovely, and she immediately offered us some freshly baked foccacia bread. We at first said no, then she asked if we wanted some water. We were pretty thirsty, so we accepted this offer and went upstairs to put our things in the rooms we would be staying in. I got my own room (what a nice change). After we came back down, we see two glass bottles of seltzer water set up with four glasses; a little more than we were expecting, but we weren't complaining. So we sat down and poured some water, when Alexa came out of the kitchen with the pan of foccacia bread and asked if we were sure if we didn't want some. At this point we were kind of like, sure, what the hell, so she brought out plates and served us this very delicious bread that her Italian husband had made earlier that day. And then she offered us some wine. Which we kindly refused.
The next morning, we got up around 9:30 to start our day. We went downstairs to a gigantic breakfast feast, made by Alexa's Italian husband Guiseppe, of bread and jam, cherry tomatoes, cold cut meats (the salami was delicious), granola with warm milk (we think they made the granola themselves), fresh-squeezed grapefruit (or orange, I couldn't tell) juice, and then Guiseppe made us eggs with ham and various vegetables mixed in. So we were pretty happy. Then we realized we didn't know how to get to Heidelberg Castle, Alexa wasn't home, and Guiseppe didn't really speak English. Luckily Alexa called and she gave us directions--we were to take the tram.
We walked to the tram station, and then around the lot trying to find a place to buy tickets. We finally realized there was a machine we had to figure out in order to get tickets, which we were trying to do for maybe 5 or 10 minutes before a very nice English-speaking German man asked if we needed help. He told us the cheapest way was to buy a day pass for up to five people, costing us only 8.50 euros. He also told us when we had to get off the tram when the time came.
We walked around the downtown pedestrian shopping area for a while (it was pretty deserted because it was around noon on Thursday), and then we tried to find our way to the castle. We once again were offered help, this time by a very nice English-speaking old German lady. We found our way to the place where we took this thing up to the very top of the hill where the castle was. Unfortunately, we didn't realize we had to get off at the second stop, not the third and last stop. So here we are, at the top of some mountain, trying to figure out how to walk down to the castle. Yet another nice German man helped us out. We walked down this empty road, singing songs from "The Sound of Music" (don't ask), making our way to the castle. We took a lot of really great pictures; we had a great view of the entire city from up where we were, and the castle was really cool.
Later that day we went shopping around the cute little downtown area, where I bought a necklace that was labeled "ketten," whatever that means. I should probably look it up. We also went into a lot of really cool used bookstores and a record store, just a bunch of neat little shops around this area. We didn't buy any books, however, as most of them were in German. We also got lunch while we were there, probably the most delicious goulash soup ever and for drinks we got radlers, which were beers mixed with Sprite. So good. In any case, this was a terrible idea in hindsight. I'll explain later.
We went to Alexa and Guiseppe's shop, a little clothing store in some kind of mini-mall, where we met them. Alexa then took us to her mother's house, where we met Felicitas, a very cute, very old German woman who doesn't speak much English, but that didn't seem to stop her from having a grand old conversation with the three of us while Alexa made her dinner. We also ate Christmas cookies. Yes, at the end of February.
Once we got home, we hung around for a bit, looking at Alexa and Guiseppe's wedding pictures from 13 years ago (Alexa the younger was 8 at the time--so adorable). In the meantime, Guiseppe is getting dinner ready. Oh, cruel fate that had us eat anything at all earlier that day.
We were sitting at the table, munching on chips and olives with almonds in the center, and drinking the most bitter orange drink in the world (called compari--we kind of dreaded having to drink it, but we couldn't really refuse), when dinner was ready to be served. At this point, none of us are really hungry as we had just eaten a bunch of chips, olives and downed the compari. Yet once again, we couldn't really refuse. It was a wonderful dinner, with the first course being a bowl of pasta with creamy tomato sauce and cheese. We ate that all right, delicious. But that's not where it ended. After that was done, he comes out of the kitchen with chicken and roasted potatoes. At this point we're a little stuffed, but what could we do? We accepted the portions he gave us (not small) and ate all of it. Plus we had some salad, not to mention the dessert of fruit and cookies, and a constantly filled wine glass. Lucky for me it was red wine, which I don't particularly like. I pretty much felt like I had to throw up, there was so much food inside of me. But it didn't end there, either. Alexa then brought out her homemade lemon liquor, which she mixes herself--it was basically lemonade, but with 95 proof alcohol mixed in. She gave us each a shot, and then a second. Even with the massive amount of food in me, I could still feel it. After we refused a third shot, she said, "Well, there's always tomorrow." And boy, was there ever.
The next day was a bit more relaxed. Alexa treated us to a day in the gardens near Heidelberg, which are apparently some of the best gardens in Europe or something. I forget what the brochure said. But it was lovely, there was a mosque that had been built in 1492, some temples, statues, and a bunch of fountains that weren't working. Because it's February. We also saw a bunch of dead plants with no leaves or flowers, because it's February. It was sad, but the place was still pretty regardless. Then she treated us to soup and cake.
We got back to the main drag, where Alexa dropped us off as she had to be in the store until closing at six. We had a while yet until then, about an hour and a half, so we just kind of shopped around some more. I got a few gifts and that was really about it. Oh yeah, and we bought a tiny bottle of absinthe.
That night we were once again assaulted with another enormous feast. We started out once again with pasta, sprinkled with little bits of seafood here and there, and some baked artichoke things that were fantastic. And then came the main courses. Yes, plural. This time of what Guiseppe called "fish" but what I would call "all types of creatures of the deep." In the pan were whole calamari (we could make out the squids' heads), little octupi, shrimp and probably some other swimmers that I'm forgetting about. Also, there was eggplant parmagiana. Luckily for us we hadn't eaten a lot that day (for this exact reason) so we were able to eat more without fear of regurgitation. And we also had a constantly filled wine glass, but this time it was white wine, so I drank a bit more. Three glasses, to be exact.
Then came the lemon liquor. Oh, wonder of wonders. This was such a terrible idea. We each had probably four shots at least (it was so good, and Alexa kept offering it to us!). I had also had some kind of Italian liquor to help with my upset stomach (are you surprised I had a tummy ache?). So we were pretty happy that night, to say the least. And don't forget the little treat we had waiting for us upstairs.
Yes, we still had the absinthe waiting. It wasn't a lot, far from it; we probably shared a shot and a half between the three of us. And was it delicious; it tasted exactly like licorice, and is probably the only hard liquor that I can drink without making a face afterwards. Fortunately for us there was no more, as we probably would have seen the "green fairies" Nicki asked me about later.
And then we had to go to bed, as we were getting up at 6:30 am in order to eat one more giant breakfast and catch our 8:00 bus to the airport. That was a fun morning. At least two of us had indigestion, we were exhausted and thirsty, and once again had to eat. But it was so good, Guiseppe made us breakfast sandwiches of ham and cheese in between toast. And then they drove us to the station, where we got on the bus and headed on our way. And to finish this story quickly, basically what happened was we waited an hour or so for our plane at 11:40, went back to London, found out there were no trains until an hour later, and took a bus into central London instead. Voila, our weekend was complete.
I'll add pictures later, in a separate post. Or you could just look on Facebook.
2 comments:
For the quote do u mean from Crocodile Dundee when he says New York must be the friendliest place on Earth?
nope, but good try. substitute "germans" and "people" for two other words.
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