Robby: And here we are! The plane ride was uneventful, mostly just sitting in tiny seats and no sleep. Germany is as rainy and cold as ever; we stumbled around in a sleep-deprived state, ate some bratwurst and then took a 3-hour nap. I noticed some graffiti on the freeway down from Frankfurt--spraypaint slogans just like in the US, those big bubble letters, kind of cool. I was thinking... why don't they spraypaint in blackletter or Fraktur?

We're at Cafe Gecko now starting on our first pilsners.

Next stop was the Goldener Schaff where we had sauerbraten with hausgemacht sp”tzle (and a few pilsners...). Excellent food. We wandered up the hauptstraþe (main street) and wound up near the old bridge at an irish-english pub called something like Tapper Tandys. Karaoke with American GIs singing "Friends in Low Places", it was halloween and even without costumes it was pretty scary. We drank many more pilsners and then headed back to our Hotel.

1 November 2003

Robby: Another rainy day, but made better by a lovely breakfast at the Hotel Kohler. It started to clear up and so we headed up the Hauptstraþe an then the castle, and then all the way up to the top of the mountain via the tram. It was nice to walk through the dark forest, along paths that have been upkept since the 1400s (with stone markers from back then too). We're lucky that we are here now, the leaves are just changing and so there are some gorgeous colors in the forest. We walked to Boxberg where we used to live (in 1980-81), then down through Rohrbach and then back to the hotel, through small paths that went past little german gardens dotted with flowers and garden gnomes with plaster mushrooms. We called our Mother and she sounded surprised but very happy to hear from us. I've noticed that Jonathan and I are almost twins: pretty much everything we do is almost exactly the same, from dressing and looking alike to what book we brought on the plane (Fast Food Nation)! Funny. We even finish each other's sentences. Our German is about the same too, it pretty much consists of ordering beer and we can both do that VERY well.

We ate at a Hungarian restaurant down the street and ordered the exact same thing(!). Now we're geeking at an internet cafe before heading out to get some more pilsners...

We headed over to a bar called Goodfellows near our hotel and had a couple of "Groþ Pilsners" and a free shot of schnapps from the owner of the bar, who is a syrian guy named Eddie. Nice fellow. We went to bed around 1:30.

Jonathan: Yet another great day in Heidelberg! So much fun to walk the whole way (well almost) from the castle to our old apartment. The food is right up my alley as well, lots of meat and potatoes. Every here looks so healthy, probably because they walk everywhere. Lots of mountain bikes up in the mountains. Crazy forest, reminded me ofÝ a scene from one of those roman movies where the romans are marching through in their short skirts and then all these hairy barbarians attack!Ý It was really very pretty up there. More soon!

2 November 2003

Robby: A sunny morning! We had our nice Hotel Kohler breakfast then rented bikes (the hotel rents bikes for euro 5 a day) and rode down to our old school, the Internationale Gesamptschule Heidelberg, took some photos and visited the school yard. It was such a nice day out we just kept riding; after the school we headed to Kirscheim and through a bunch of bike paths around small German gardens and farms. We wound our way back to the river and then to Neuheim and around the north side of the river, then I got a flat on my bike and had to walk part of the way home (fortunately it wasn't that far away). We then brought our bikes back and spent the rest of the afternoon walking around window shopping, as all stores are closed on Sunday. We bought some postcards and then came over here to our internet cafe.

It was interesting to see the old school again after all these years. It certainly has aged, it was a brand-new school in 1980... It's also funny to see all the places we used to visit, not much has changed. More later!

Jonathan: Woke up and Rob and I were both out kinda late last night (mit Bier) so the morning started out very slowly. The bikes were very cool, since it is so flat here you just ride and ride and ride. We saw parts of the city that we would never have seen via car or bus or train, highly recommended if anyone reading this comes over. We were both feeling better by noon and all the fresh air really helped. I dont think it will be a late night tonight. We have some shopping to do tomorrow, or maybe more hiking, we will see!

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