Sorry I didn’t post yesterday, but I didn’t do too much and went to bed late so I figured I would just put two days together today. We had a really tough class yesterday. We have two professors, and today was our first day with the second one. He speaks a lot faster than the first one, and the subject matter was more difficult to understand quickly. We listened to songs in German and watched a couple short tourist films; one on Heidelberg and one on Leipzig. After class, we went to eat and then ended up at a bar. So I had my first German beer, and while it was good enough, the experience just wasn't that special. Ah well. I went home after that and just relaxed, helped to make dinner and then read.
Today, we didn’t have school because of the Ascension and also Vater Tag. I had a great day! Johannes took me and Andrew to a town called Speyer not too far from Heidelberg (it’s about a 45 minutes ride on the S-bahn. The S-Bahn is different than the Straßenbahn, it’s for distances between cities more than just around one city).
In Speyer, we first visited a Jewish museum. A Jewish community lived in Speyer for about 400 years during the middle ages. They were wiped out in the 14th century or so though, and never quite made a recovery. They did leave many interesting artifacts and buildings behind, though. The museum itself is very small, only three or so rooms to walk through, but then you go outside to take a look at the old synagogue and the ritual bath building. This was very interesting to me, and exciting because I could actually read about 75% of the explanations on the walls. :D
What's left of the old synagogue
The ritual bath building, very cool. Inside is even cooler though.
After this museum, we went to see the gigantic old Catholic church. On our way there, we passed these two guys, and I completely thought they were statues so I snapped a picture. Then,as I walked by one of them moved and made a clicking sound! Turns out they were mimes? actors? anyway the one in blue beckoned me over, kissed my hand and then had me pose for a picture. :P
The "statues"
This kind of made my day, though I felt pretty silly for thinking they were statues. They stood really still, though, okay... Anywho, the church itself is huge, but what I found most interesting was the crypt and tomb. There are a few German kings buried there with members of their immediate family along with five bishops.
The church in Speyer
We then grabbed some lunch at a really cute Italian restaurant named “Pasta Pasta” and had some quite delicious food. Finally, we went to visit a Technology Museum. This too was extremely cool! The museum is privately owned but has an amazing collection of technological artifacts, from all sorts of old cars, motor bikes, fire trucks, tractors and trains, to several planes, a U Boat and finally, a Soviet Union space shuttle. I thought the coolest part was the space shuttle.
The Soviet space shuttle. Whoever owns this museum has ALOT of money.
The inside of the space shuttle
More of the museum, but not all. There are two more buildings and a ton of stuff outside too
After all that, we headed back home to Heidelberg. We met up with the rest of my host family and two other families from the neighborhood to head up the mountain to have dinner at a restaurant built next to the ruin of a lookout tower they have here in Schriesheim. What a beautiful restaurant, and what delicious food! We talked in German and English and played some card games and then headed home. I am truly grateful that my host family is so generous and welcoming, they're making this experience even better than it already would be. :)
Mine and Andrew's view during dinner tonight :D
The outside section of this restaurant. You can kind of see the ruin behind the trees in the back
Tomorrow, we are going to have a scavenger hunt around Heidelberg, now that we have gotten to know our way around. We are doing that instead of class, so I am not complaining. :P Good night!
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