Heidelberg: Heidelberger Schloss

The main attraction to Heidelberg, and the activity that occupied most of our second
day in the city, was the giant castle on the hill, Schloss Heidelberg.













The castle has been destroyed a couple times over the years, but is still well maintained by the city and is constantly undergoing renovations.

















This castle had been in existance since before 1200 AD, but had been destroyed and rebuilt a number of times. What came first, though, was the long hike in the hot (for me) 85 degree weather up to the castle. The stairs were numbered, but it wasn't exactly fair since some of the steps were about 2 feet long, and some were close to 5 feet long before the next step.










Once we got to the top though, the view was great of the surrounding Old City. This was all of the touristy area of the city. The castle basically overlooked the entire town, which you could see from the outer walls closest to where we walked in.













We all walked around and enjoyed the weather outside, and Sebastian held his mom's umbrella as she took a picture of us.













We enjoyed the view from the ramparts again.













After walking around the outer walls we made our way into the ruins on the inside. The castle had been struck by lightening twice since originally being built, and repaired once. The second time it had been out of use for so long it wasn't repaired. But there were ruins all over the place and some of the collapses that happened to it were pretty cool.































Some stairs that apparently lead nowhere. The door didn't work.

















There were also reconstructions of the giant barrels that used to be placed in the basement of the castle and used to brew beer. They were enormous. They had a couple of small cafes built into it where people could eat. Besides the outer walls and the ruins on the inside, we walked around the castle gardens area, a giant terrace behind the castle, set up against the hillside. The city keeps them well maintained with trees and flowers, and it's nice to walk around on a sunny afternoon.

Heidelberg: Food and Dining

The food and dining of Heidelberg deserves its own post because of how unique and awesome it was. The first night we arrived in Heidelberg, we didn't have too much time to do touristy things or see sights, so we pretty much just ate dinner and went back to sleep. The hotel recommended a small restaurant down the street, modeled in the way of old old Germany with dark wooden furnishing and everything.













We went there and ended up ordering the giant meat dish for Sebastian, his dad, and me (we were all starving after our long train ride and their long drive from Munich). This dish had a collection of 5 different kinds of meat (sausages, bacon, steak, chicken, pork) and came with baked potatoes and vegetables. It was, by far, one of the most satisfying meals I can remember having.













The beer they served there was a house lager that is a recipe specific to that restaurant. It was interesting because it was the first time we'd seen a beer from Germany that WASN'T a pilsner, wheat beer, or alt. It was definitely worth it too; it was one of the tastiest German beers I'd ever tasted, and they came in awesome ceramic mugs. The waiter that served us was really old and had been working there forever, and as soon as we told him that the hotel down the street had recommended his place for dinner, he knew what we were talking about and treated us to great service














The next morning we were both starving and headed straight to a cafe for breakfast. This cafe served us these strange cheese/tomato/pesto creations, with an omelet made with cheese, ham, and spinach. The milk was warm (just like every drink in Europe), but we were able to ask for ice to cool it down, and it actually became really good. That day, we didn't eat anything else interesting though. After breakfast, we just snacked while visiting the castle in the day, and had Thai food later, where I got Pad Thai, which is always delcious.














The spaghetti ice was also an awesome part of the food there, though I still don't know whether it exists all throughout Europe. I'd imagine it is, I just haven't been anywhere else to observe. All in all, the food and drink we had there was amazing.

Heidelberg: Arrival and Hotel

The weekend after Amsterdam, we had a recovery weekend of sleep and rest, while going to our German Culture classes at the University. We learned a bit about the German government, German and other country's stereotypes of different people, and why they might think that, and just general facts and ideas about German life. This article is basically about the city of Heidelberg, and how we found the city and our hotel to be upon arrival.

















The two weeks in between Amsterdam and our next trip, there was little action. But the weekend of July 4th, Sebastian and I took a trip to visit his parents, who were taking a Eurotrip of their own. They had arrived the week before, first arriving in Zurich and continuing to Munich, and now Heidelberg. So they booked the two of us a room in the hotel they were staying in, and we arrived on Friday, with plans to leave on Sunday.













The hotel that Sebastian's parents booked (and subsequently booked for us) was pretty awesome, with an old, yet new look to it so you felt like you were experiencing the city while living in class.

















The city of Heidelberg is awesome. It's pretty much an old old ancient city with a huge castle on a hill, overlooking the city. The city is made up of a modern section (which we really didn't spend any time in, other than the walk from the train station to the hotel), and an old town section (which is depicted in all of these pictures, and includes the castle and the old shops and churches in the city).













The weekend we were there, actually, there were a ton of people there, and the city held an open air concert/festival where people walked around the streets and listened to music, enjoying the atmosphere of the city and socializing with friends. Heidelberg is known for the being the center of Romanticism in Germany, clearly justified in the beautiful architecture of the city, and the area known as the "Philosopher's Walk", which deserves its own post later.













One of the most awesome things about Germany/Europe/Heidelberg (I'm not really sure since I only experienced it in Heidelberg) is the Spaghetti Ice. it's basically soft serve ice cream (though not quite, I can't figure out what they add), and they add some strawberry sauce, some whipped cream, and some shavings of something, to look like Parmesan cheese. Basically, it was absolutely delicious, and considering it was about 85 degrees all weekend, it definitely hit the spot.

















Heidelberg also has a ton of souvenir shops, where I found this fantastic hat that I didn't buy. I thought it made me look particularly German though.

















One hilarious thing that happened....In Germany, it turns out when people have weddings, both the grooms and brides go around cities in Germany before their Bachelor/Bachelorette parties. The goal is to fund their party by selling random things to random people in different cities (I suppose cities usually near where they live). They go up to random people and ask for donations so that they can have their party and they give you some tchatchkie in return. Here you can clearly see Sebastian's parents getting won over by the women raising money as the children look on with shame.













Walking around the city, we found a really old church with a bunch of people inside rehearsing for a baroque music concert later that night. We didn't stay for the actual concert (I think we read it was around 3.5 hours long or something), but we listened to some of the rehearsal and it was great.

















Anyway the city of Heidelberg was pretty cool, and the only other things which I'll have to write about later are the dining, the castle, and the Philosopher's walk, which I found to be exquisite awesome, and interesting. The city itself was like a very touristy, typical German city, where we could walk around and see a number of artifacts from the middle ages, where the Roman Empire built outposts and perimiter fortresses.

OpernHaus Dortmund

On the Wednesday of July 17th, the Wednesday before we left for Amsterdam, I went to the Opera House in Dortmund (Opernhaus Dortmund). We were going to see Don Giovanni, performed in Italian, with German subtitles.













I thought it'd be interesting to see, especially because I haven't been to any cultural events in Dortmund yet (not that there are too many to choose from).














The opera was cool, I didn't really understand too much of it, but I knew the general story so I was able to follow along. A good experience to have, and Dortmund has a really cool opera house for such a small city.

I Amsterdam

After getting home from London, it was another quiet week of sleep and school. We had to rest up and catch up on work, because we were leaving again that Friday for Amsterdam! We ended up buying a train ticket to Amsterdam, and a bus ticket back, so we could go and come back at convenient times.


















It worked out pretty well, because we arrived there in the afternoon of Friday, the 19th, and left in the late afternoon of Monday, June 22nd. We got to Amsterdam and the first thing we noticed was the awesome train station. It looked like it was the oldest piece of architecture in all of Amsterdam.













After getting settled into our hostel, which wasn't actually too bad, we set out to explore the city. Our hotel had I think 16 people to a room, but all of the beds were very comfy and we got a bunch of sheets and a pillow. It turned out that after a night of 16 guys sleeping in a room, it got kind of smelly, but that was my only complaint.

We found a number of delicious places to eat, including the Pancake house and the Bulldog. The city is massive, and even being there for 3 days, we didn't get to explore everything.













One fun thing we did was go to the huge botanical gardens they had. They were pretty cool, not in terms of the number of colorful flowers or plants they had, but because of the number of different types of plants they had and how wide the variety was. I can't remember at all what they were called but they were all pretty cool.













Besides the plants, Amsterdam has an enormous English movie theater that we went to one night, to see the movie, The Hangover. It was amusing, but not a great great movie.













Besides the food, and the garden, the one primary highlight that everyone has to see is the Heineken Brewery. The place was huge, and your trip was a self guided tour that lead you through the Brewery and stopped you at different stages of the beer production. One station, where the beer was fermenting in giant containers, they let your try a taste of unfermented beer, which just tasted really sweet.













It was a pretty cool tour, especially in one station where they had these futuristic looking chairs with tv's and personal speakers inside, where you could select on a screen different years and view the different commercials Heineken's had all throughout their years of existence.













And the best part of the tour by far was the included, EXTRA COLD, drinks they handed out at the end.

















Probably in the top 5 of the most refreshing drinks (and by refreshing I really mean cold) I’ve had in Europe so far.

















This is a map they gave us at the hostel with a number of "interesting" phrases on the back.













Night view of one of the streets.

London Calling (Day 3)

We got home late again after Fabric, but were extremely happy with the night. Really cool building, lights, speakers, floors, and general atmosphere. The next morning though (June 14), I woke up early and took a train to Oxford to visit my friend Ana who goes to school there. I ended up getting to Oxford somewhere around noon, and wandered around the town for a while. The town actually has an old castle in it with a huge hill that sits above the town. I ended up hanging out up there for a while. Then, when Ana finally got out of her classes, we met up in the city and grabbed some lunch, toured around. The day was filled with informational knowledge about the inner workings of Oxford University, and random catch up time.

Later, after I left, I got back into the city and immediately went to meet back up with Sebastian and Sundeep. My other friend Tom, from high school, showed up too since he was home from vacationing that day. But we ended up going to the Absolut Ice Bar, a bar created by the Absolut alcohol company and the interior of which has a room made entirely out of ice. The chairs, pillars, walls, tables, and bar were all made out of ice. The floor was metal grating, so we wouldn’t slip. Walking through the door was like walking into a freezer room in Costco, there was a ton of mist, you could see your breath, and the room was freezing.

They gave us these awesome ponchos to wear with fur lining, and we were toasty. Since I’d just come from 75 degree Oxford, I was in flip flops, and therefore slightly concerned for my feet.

The bar was awesome, the glasses made out of ice satisfied my perpetual quest for ice cold drinks in Europe. If I ever become a billionaire, I will definitely be opening my own ice bar, to satisfy my own needs. Anyway the bar had a list of customized drinks that Absolut creates with all of their own things, and we had a lot of fun exploring the bar and its ice-encased interior.

After the bar it was close to the end of our trip, and so we just went back to Sundeep’s room and hung out until it was time to begin our trip home. We had to catch a night bus from the nearest bus station to the main train station, and then take a train all the way out to the airport, where we had to wait for our flight back to Dusseldorf Weeze, take a bus back to Dusseldorf, and then a train back to Dortmund, where we caught the subway to our building. All in all, a lot of hassle to travel, but one of the most epic weekends ever.

London Calling (Day 2)

Saturday we slept into the early afternoon, figuring a good night's sleep would be worth it, and we could figure out what we wanted to do after waking up. We ended up grabbing breakfast as C-Bass realized he needed to go to a laundromat because all of the clothes he brought with him were dirty. So we ate breakfast, did some laundry, and then took another walk through the city, seeing sights and eating in the parks. That evening we decided to go to the club called Fabric, rated on DJ Mag as the number 2 club in the world! The second club had way crazier lights, and 3 panels of vibrating floors!! No special dj, but the laser lights that they had set up more than compensated for any lack in club-music-stylism.














You can kind of see the laser lights in the left of the picture, but it was a lot brighter and there were a lot more of them.
Anyway, we were there for all of Saturday night, and as a club, this was definitely on average better than Ministry of Sound. But because we caught Ministry of Sound on the night Markus Schulz was there, it was definitely the best club I've ever been to. Fabric was definitely the close second, and I'm sure on their ridiculous nights the club is awesome.














Above is Sebastian (my Penn roommate), Sundeep (my friend from high school), and me.