Heidelberg (Saturday, Feb. 14)

On Saturday the 14th, a group from the Institut went to Heidelberg, which is roughly 1.5-2 hours away from Schwabisch Hall. The bus left at 8:30am, and the meeting place was listed as "ZOB". The morning of, on the way out the door, Courtney and I realized that we had no idea what that stood for. Oh no! We were terrified that we were going to miss the bus. Just in case, we went to look in front of the Institut (a typical meeting place), but, alas, no group was to be found. Desperate, we asked a bus driver who was stopped at the nearby bus stop if he knew what that meant and where we could find it. Luckily, that was the perfect person to ask! Turns out, ZOB = Zentraler Omnibus Bahnhof, or in English, the central bus station. He kindly gave us directions. We showed up just in time to make the bus (part of which we suspect was because Ursula Utz, our wonderful hostess, was the tour guide, so she didn't want to leave people she knew).

On the way to Heidelberg, the bus stopped in a little town (I forget the name), and Ursula went and got pretzels (a regional specialty) for everyone. She told us we would get pretzels at some point on the trip, but neglected to mention when. This stop was about 20 minutes in. By an hour later, Courtney and I were both quite concerned about the fate of our pretzels, and when on earth they were going to hand them out. "PRETZELSSSSS!!!!!!"
Anyway, turns out we were waiting, for some even-now mysterious reason, to get to this little picnic bench about 15-20 minutes from Heidelburg, so we could all gather around and stand, in the cold, eating our now-cold pretzels and (for those who like it) drinking coffee/tea.



Upon arriving in Heidelberg, we walked from our drop-off point (Neckarmunzplatz) to Karlsplatz, a square with some crazy trees and also to a science school.


The sign with the "H" on it is a bus stop sign. They are everywhere.


Our first stop on the sight-seeing tour was the Heilige Geist Kirche (Holy Spirit Church), the historic cathedral in Heidelberg. It was originally Catholic, and after the Reformation it kept switching back and forth between Catholic and Evangelical (depending on the religion of the local prince at the time), then they actually built a wall in the middle of the sanctuary and shared it for a time, and now the wall is down and it is an Evangelical church.




This is the church from the back. The whole back wall is lined with shops (and has been for hundreds of years), and nowadays they mostly sell tourist junk. :D Between me and the church is also a small market selling fresh produce and flowers.






This is the inside of the back part of the church. The rounded wall is a series of stained-glass windows, and the pointed archways and soaring ceilings are in the Gothic style. And someone's head is in the picture...







This is a sample of the wonderful ceiling decorations, from the middle part of the sanctuary.







This is a view of the sanctuary from the balcony, with me in it to prove I was actually there. ;)





After looking at the church and hearing a bit of the history from Ursula, we went up this crazy-narrow staircase, AAAALL the way to the top of the church (well over 200 steps, I'm sure). The view of the city from there is fantastic, and you can walk all the way around to see every direction.

View of the castle from the church:

View of the university:

View of the Alte Brucke (Old Bridge):

The old bridge was our next stop. Nearby was this crazy baboon statue/mask thing that seems entirely out-of-place, but sort of fun:







<--- The entrance to the bridge (taken from on the bridge)

Statue of the prince who had it built --->

Next we visited the Studentenkarzer (Student Prison), where for over 200 years (1710-1912, I believe...), misbehaving students were incarcerated for up to 2 weeks. During this time period, the city had no jurisdiction over the university students, so it was up to the school to discipline students when they, for example, were being too loud during quiet hours or were drunk in public. The walls are covered with art and poetry, and I'm not really sure how it got there; I must have missed that part of the discussion...

We also saw the grand hall where the Universitat Heidelberg has all of their graduation ceremonies and everything.



At this point, we had lunch/shopping time. Me, Courtney, Alexei (super-cool Romanian who played FussWasser with us, has lived in the US for the past 8 years, and has a PhD in Chemistry), Tonatiuh (Mexican guy who hit on me a lot the first week, but has since chilled), Marwan (Saudi Arabia), and one other person I can't remember, went with Ursula. We went to a sit-down restaurant that is apparently frequented mostly by students, and somehow lost Marwan on the way in (we never did find him, but he managed to make it back to the bus in time to leave). I ate sub-par Schnitzel with broccoli and cheese on top (the schnitzel on the 3-Euro Schnitzelburgers at a stand in Schwabisch Hall is way better), and we had no time left for shopping (we might have gone to a quick place, but Ursula wanted to sit down to eat), but that was okay I guess, because we had time to sit and chat, and Ursula is really nice. On the way to the restaurant we saw some pretty interesting shops and restaurants, including Subway, Pizza Hut, and Hard Rock Cafe.

Somebody remind me not to write posts this long. I have to take a break now. Part 2 to come.