Heidelberg!

So I said in my last post that my two fellow Au Pair friends, Mallorie and Seline, and I were going to go to Heidelberg and do some sight seeing, and we did. To get to Heidelberg, as we do a couple times a week, we first start by taking a bus from Weisenheim am Berg (the little village we live in) to Bad Durkheim. From there we catch this trolley/amtrak thing to Mannheim. Then Mannheim to Heidelberg it is a train ride into Heidelberg. As you can see, we make quite the trek, but its funny and different every time. All in all, it takes about two hours each way to get to Heidelberg and back so I am going to be making my way through some books pretty fast.

But anyways, back to the story... In Heidelberg, we actually met up with my friend Christoph. He was the boy we had as an exchange student like 7-8 years ago. It was so awesome to see him again and get to spend some time with him. He ended up coming with us to the castle so we spent all afternoon together. So after meeting up with Christoph, we headed to downtown Heidelberg to find some food and the castle. Mallorie introduced me to this delicious Turkish food that I fell in love with. I can't remember the name of it, but it is like a pita thing with fresh shaved meat and vegetables in stuff in it. They top it off with some sauce and it is heaven! The guys in the shop were hilarious and speaking a mixture of Spanish/English/Turkish and I'm sure German too. It was pretty awesome. After getting our food, we wandered down old town and found the Castle.

To get up to the castle, because of course it overlooks the town, you have to hike up like 310 stairs I believe. It was actually a really pretty walk up with little houses and whatnot built into the side of the mountain, all of it covered in gorgeous Ivy vines. Once to the top we spent an hour or so just walking around and loving the view. Today, the Castle is pretty much just ruins, but you can still see how grand it once was. I sacrificed my camera batteries to Mallorie so she could play photographer. So as soon as she and Christoph hook me up with their pictures, I'll be sure to post them. We got some gorgeous ones of the castle, and probably even more of us goofing off.

After we were done at the Castle, we headed back into Heidelberg. Saline went her separate way to take care of some things, and Mallorie and I hung with Christoph. He is actually moving to Heidelberg in a couple months and had an apartment to go look at, so we went and gave our token two-cents opinion on the place. After seeing the apartment we got back on a bus and headed back towards downtown. We said goodbye to Christoph there and he got off, and Mallorie and I should of but we weren't paying attention and stayed on the bus. We ended up in the other side of town and missed our planned connection back into Mannheim. Around here, especially on Saturdays, the buses only run so late and we planned our return trip in time to catch the last bus back into Weisenheim. So having missed our connection, Mallorie and I ended up making a 30 min trek from a neighboring town back into Weisenheim. It was super windy, dark, and kinda spooky, but now its making for a good story and I, at least, enjoyed the little bit of physical activity.

But after all was said and done, we arrived home safely and were able to get some much needed sleep. We are actually heading back to Heidelberg later this afternoon for a special Single Adult Sacrament Meeting, and I'm hoping the return trip goes a little smoother. If not, we'll just have another great story to add to the collection.

Until next time...