3 November 2003
Jonathan: Rainy and cold this morning but we were up much earlier then before, about 7:30. We decided to go shopping today and are pricing stuff out. We still haven't purchased much but many ideas are in front of us. Christmas is in full swing, lots of junk but we should be able to pick the good stuff out. As the germans would say "it is not possible" NOT to find something here for christmas. More later! We ended up hooking up with one of Robby's friends from high-school and staying out very late. More below...
Robby: A cloudy day, but made sunny by yet another cute note from Lynne that fell out of my suitcase. How funny! There must be hundreds that I haven't discovered yet. Our breakfast was good, nutella and bread, yogurt, cheese, etc. The coffee has a kick, which is a good thing 'cos the spätzle really slows me down (and...er...the beer too :-)). I called my old friend Oscar and we plan to meet tonight at 7pm at a bar in the old town. This should be interesting...I haven't seen him since 1984, and that was only a quick visit. He and I were good friends when I lived here in 1980-81. We hit the big shopping center Kaufhof and checked out the christmas stuff...Germans really do love christmas. As Jonathan mentioned above...the phrase we hear a lot is this "It is not possible...". Germans have all kinds of rules here that are really funny. And everything must be registered. The guy at the hotel who rented us our bikes said "In Germany, everything must be registered"... in other words, it is not possible to rent a bike without registration. We had some snacks at a little cafe, a chicken curry pastry and coffee for me, and a pizza thing and coffee for Jonathan. Got some berliners (puffed dough thing with cherry filling and sugared top) for the road. We took a bunch of pictures as the sun came out, and bundeled up for the cold wind coming down the Neckar. We plan to hit the castle tomorrow for Jonathan's birthday. We're waiting for a nice sunny day to hit the Philosophenweg (Philosopher's path) and may rent bikes again and try to ride up the Neckar valley a bit. Jonathan suggests filling our pockets with wursts so as to impress the locals. He says that the smell attracts the ladies. Not that we're actually TRYING to impress anyone...We met Oscar at the Stille bar and had a few beers. It was great to see him again after all these years. I am surprised at how good Jonathan and I were with our German, and Oscar said we sounded pretty good for not having spoken in 22 years! We went to the Max Bar after that and then to a Tapas restaurant (Oscar is Spanish) and had some olives and ham, with some great cheese and paprika, drank a few more beers and talked about the old school. During the course of the conversation we talked politics, as all Europeans do, and we were interrupted by an older German man named Wolf, who was angry about Iraq and the whole situation... He started in English and eventually ended up 6 inches from my face barking at me in a solid stream of very drunken political German. He was allright, though, eventually he said "I don't hate Americans, I just think they're stupid" and slammed his fist on the bar. He appologized and then complained more about Rumsfeld (this name also sounds like some joke word in German...). I didn't understand much of the German, but I did find out he was a German army officer during the 60s.
We said goodbye to our drunken friend and walked Oscar back to his car, it was really great to see him after all these years. The night was still young so we stopped by to see our old pal Eddie in Goodfellows, and through the door saw some girls dancing with him, so we went in and had a few pilsners. After this the girls and their boyfriends asked us to sit with them, so we got to meet them and had another shot (courtesy of Eddie...this time it was tequilla!). We talked politics, they told me that all Americans are stupid (is there a theme going on here?) I told them I'd do my best to let our leaders know that the German people are dissatisfied with our politics! We made it home at 2am...
4 November 2003
Robby: The sun was out today! A great way to start Jonathan's birthday. I had breakfast downstairs while Jonathan slept a bit more, then we walked up the Philosophenweg, it was such a beautiful day, the leaves are changing and it was just truly great to be out in the sunshine. We walked over to the castle and on the way had some "schnitzelburgers" off the Hauptstrasse. The castle was fun, lots of great photo opportunities. Saw the big wine cask and then the pharmacy museum, and then walked around the castle gardens. We took a nice long stairway down from the castle and then did some shopping down the hauptstraße. Had a good night with Oscar and his family... we're tired and now are off to bed. HAPPY BIRTHDAY JONATHAN!
Jonathan: We had a very long day of walking it was very much a tourist day with the philosophenweg and also the castle. We had a good time but I was a bit tired from all the activity from the night before. We ended up taking a nap around 5pm to 6:30. Robby called his friend Oskar and then we went to his house for dinner. He had 2 kids that were 7 and 5. It was great to see that no matter where in the world you are kids are the same at bedtime. I had to look through all sorts of helmets and swords his boy showed me after dinner!
5 November 2003
Robby : What a great day! It was really sunny out so we walked up the Neckar river to finish up our final shopping. It was a bit cold in the morning but it warmed up considerably as the sun got higher in the sky. We then hit the Hauptstraße for one last shopping binge, then went to the Kaufhof for some more final shopping. People here in Germany are funny when they are in large groups, everyone just pushes ahead without really looking to see where anyone else is, and noone forms a line at checkout...so we get a lot of little old ladies pushing through crowds of people to check out at the counter.
Jonathan asked this question: "When does bratwurst become bratBEST?"
After our shopping bonanza Jonathan and I went out bicycling up the Neckar and through the old part of the city (alt stadt). We almost made it to Neckargemünd but the sun was getting lower in the sky so we headed back to town. We then just rode around parts of the city where we had never been. It was great, and the sunset was spectacular.
This is our last evening in Heidelberg. We packed our bags early (tons of glass and breakables...) and then headed to a great little restaurant I knew of, Der Schnitzelbank. Fantastic dinner, I had the Gorgonzola schnitzel and Jonathan had the "Art des hauses" schnitzel. This place is really great, it's hundreds of years old and all wood down there, very dark and smokey (as are most places here). After dinner we came here to the internet cafe, amongst smoking teenagers playing networked games, swearing in a mix of german and english.
We leave tomorrow at 5am...so it's either early to bed or stay up late drinking hefeweise. Which will it be?
6 November 2003
Robby : We're back! We only had a couple of pilsners at the Cafe Gecko before we left...so not too much of a late night! We sadly left the Hotel Kohler at 5am and got the Lufthansa bus back to Frankfurt, then caught our plane back to the states at 10am. It took longer to fly back than it did to fly over (10 hours instead of 8-1/2), but this time the flight wasn't as full so we had a chance to spread out. We watched "The Italian Job" and "Charlie's Angels 2" and saw Normandy out the plane window as we left Europe. We also saw the Outer Banks when we flew over the states
This was a really great trip. It was fantastic to spend so much time with Jonathan, he and I have been through so much together throughout the years, and we still get closer. It was also really great to go back to Heidelberg after all these years. It was worth every penny. I just hope it doesn't take us another 20 years to have another great trip together!
Thanks for reading! --Robby
