Biosciences Bonn: Heidelberg

Well, we made it to Heidelberg in one piece! The train ride to Heidelberg was at 7:14 in the morning and 2 hours and 20 minutes long. On top of that, we had a long day yesterday because we took a day trip to Aachen, which was an amazing city to see......and now we're in Heidelberg! Immediately after we arrived, we went ahead and purchased an all weekend bus pass so that we could get around Heidelberg easily. Now, the not so easy part. Trying to figure out the bus routes took longer than we expected..mainly because it wasn't too similar to the ones in Bonn. Anyhow, we figured it out, and our first stop was the University of Heidelberg Student Prison. Yeah, I know. You're probably thinking to yourself "hmmm did I read that properly?" And the answer is "YAAAAAAH." It's exactly what it sounds like. Essentially, it's a prison for students if they have been extremely loud or are caught drinking alcohol on campus. In other words, it's an overnight detention haha! So we walked up a few flight of stairs, and when we got to the prison..all of us simultaneously thought "PRISON?! THIS IS AS BIG AS OUR DORM ROOMS! AND THERE'S A COMMUNITY BATHROOM!" Of course, there were also cell doors instead of normal doors, but that's a minor detail that can be ignored. So yeah. We didn't think the prison was too awful. I guess if you decided to get locked up there for a night, as long as your friends come with you, ALLES KLAR! Afterwards, we walked around the "Old Town" area of Heidelberg, which was a very small but nice place to see. Thereafter, we went up to the Heidelberg Castle! We caught the correct tram going up towards the castle, but we got off on the wrong stop, so we ended up in the topmost level. There wasn't much there....but.....there was SNOW! So we enjoyed ourselves a little bit and took some pictures. The snow wasn't clumpy enough to make snowballs, but it was good enough for us Texans! Afterwards, we went back down to visit the Heidelberg Castle, and lemme tell ya. It was an extremely beautiful sight to see, and the view of the city from the castle was just breathtaking. We took a couple of photos and looked around the castle. The pharmacy museum was a really nice exhibit that showed the transformation of medicine through the ages, which fit well with our history of medicine course. Next, we went to look for the world's largest wine barrel. We walked into the bar and saw a rather large barrel, and we were like "okay that's pretty big. That's nice." But. We took a couple more steps in and saw that in the far back area, there was an even larger barrel that was at least 3 times the size of the first one that we saw. The barrel was 7 meters high and 8.5 meters wide. At that point, it was 4 in the afternoon, and it was getting dark (I know right! It's too early to be dark!). We went to our last stop for the day, which was one of the top sites to visit on Travel Advisor..The Philosopher's Walk! It was actually across the Neckar River, so we needed to take a bus to reach that area. We found our bus stop and waited for 10 minutes. Then 15 minutes. Then 20 minutes. Well, the bus just didn't show up, so we started wondering if maybe the bus just wasn't working at all that day. We started asking other Heidelberg-ians...some of which turned out to be other tourists, some of which just ignored us, and one of which told us that the bus should be running and that we should wait. Well, 10 more minutes later, it came!!! We got on the bus, and all of us were really happy that we made it..on to the bus. Next problem: find out where exactly the Philosopher's Walk was in relation to where we needed to hop off the bus. My friend, Rachel, went ahead and asked the bus driver while we were getting settled on the bus, and before I knew it, the entire front half of the bus was actively helping us get to Philosopher's Walk. It seems that many of them were quite interested with the fact that we were from the United States! We got off a few stops later..it turns out we probably could've just walked to the entrance of the Philosopher's Walk and made it there at the same time. Immediately after getting off the bus, we were hit with a really nice view of the Neckar River, so we all took photos while waiting for the crosswalk light to turn green so that we could get to the other side of the road. After crossing the road, we found the entrance to the Philosopher's Walk...and there, the journey began. It was a rather rough walk because it was a steep, uphill, cobblestone path (it was worse than the Heldenfels walk to the 4th floor for the Aggies that are reading). In fact, 30 seconds in (literally), all of us were working up a sweat; we all knew that we would be feeling it the next morning. About 5 minutes into the uphill journey, we decided to take a break. During that break, I looked around and thought to myself...hmmm. It seems like we might be a person short, but who could be missing? I pulled my phone out, and whadaya know. Kyle Cooper: Text Message (3) I read the message, and he had texted me "Hey! Where are you guys?" At this point, I'm just thinking to myself. CRAP. HOW DID WE LEAVE KYLE!? So I ran back down to the bottom, which also wasn't easy because the steep, cobblestone path downhill was a prime area for my ankles to roll, so I really needed to be careful. I finally made it down to the bottom, and there I found good ole Kyle waiting for me. It turns out that he was taking a panorama of the Neckar River and didn't hear us when we told everyone to cross the road......but we also should've taken a head count before starting the walk up the Philosopher's Walk. Back to the difficult uphill journey (with Kyle this time)! We finally made it to the top and caught up with everyone else. There was a really nice view of the city near the top of the Philosopher's Walk, but lemme tell ya, the real prize was at the end of the trail. We found ourselves staring at more road that was just another trail leading elsewhere. JOY :) I guess it's called Philosopher's Walk because you have a lot of time to think to yourself "what am I doing with my life and why did I decide to try and make this painful, uphill journey?" Later that night, went to dinner (at a rather expensive Brewhouse), but it was very nice food. My bill ended up being €22.30. While I was paying, smart guy Kendrick here decided to work on his German. I paid her €25. I was planning on giving her €.70 of tip (customary in Europe to round to the nearest Euro for tip to the waiter/waitress), so I said "Stimmt so," which translates to "Keep the change" in English. Well, I said it too early and it would seem that my words meant she could keep €2.70 in change, so I might've SLIGHTLY over tipped. At least she was cute though right? The next day, we had planned to walk around Old Town again and just relax and look at different stores in the area. Well, whadaya know. Nothing is opened on Sundays! So we walked and walked and walked past stores that were all closed. :) One of the people in our group decided that he would go back and meet us at the train station because he wasn't interested in walking around town, so I told him to text me when he got there and all that good stuff. Well, an hour later when we're on our way back to the train station, I texted him to see where he was, and I got no response. So I'm starting to wonder if he'll make it on time because if he's not there by the time we get there, he would miss the train back to Bonn for sure. I'm freaking out and running a thousand and one scenarios through my head. "If he's not at the train station, I can call Kristin (one of our program coordinators) to see what I needed to do. Maybe I'll stay behind and wait for him, so he's not here all alone." 5 minutes before we got to the train station, I received a response from him saying "here at the train station," soo problem solved! Now we're all getting on the bus, but we don't sit for too long because we need to make a train switch in 20 minutes. One of the problems was that our first train was delayed 5 minutes, and there was only 10 minutes for the switch between the trains, so we would need to hurry to the next platform the moment we arrived. The train station in Mannheim where we switched trains was not too clear about when our train would arrive. Our next train was also delayed 5 minutes, so we had enough time......but just as it was supposed to get here, another train somehow got there first. Basically, we almost got on that train, but we realized at the last second that it wasn't the right one, so we waited a bit more. What seemed to be our train finally arrived. I had asked several other people at the platform immediately as the train arrived to see if this was the right one, and every one of them told me yes. So I'm telling the group of 9 people "Let's get on the train now because this is it." Well, most other people in the group weren't too on board (haha get it?) with the fact that this was the right train. They asked a couple other passengers as well...I guess at some point, one of them heard that this train wasn't the right one. At this point in time, the train has been there for about a minute (trains don't stay too long at the platforms), I am 90% sure that this is the right train, and the rest of the group is 90% sure that this is the wrong train. Oh. And half of us are on the train and half of us are not. So this is just a recipe for disaster...if the train door shuts and half of us are on and half of us are off, then we're all done for because the group would be split up. I told everyone "Get on now. If it's wrong, we all get lost together." Just in the nick of time, everyone gets on, and the train moves. I ask a couple more people, and they all tell me this is the correct train. Yet again though, someone in the back hears that it isn't the right train, and now we all need to find out how to get back onto the right train. At this point in time, everyone's stressed and worried that this is the wrong train. A few moments later, I find one of the train conductors and he confirms with me that this is the right train. So, long story short, WE MADE IT HOME IN MOSTLY ONE PIECE AS WELL! This was my first weekend excursion on the Germany Study Abroad Program, and I can tell you that I've learned so much from the numerous mistakes/events that have happened in the past 48 hours. I am excited to see what else happens this semester; even though no one wants to miss a flight or get lost in a foreign city, being put in positions like that truly does help one grow and understand how to defuse stressful situations.