A Sunday afternoon well spent

It's spring!

It definitely feels like spring in Heidelberg. Whilst I hear that it has been cold and rainy in England, we enjoyed temperatures of between 20-25 degrees here the last couple of days, and the sun has been shining in full force :D

It's been a strange week this week, because the students at school had a project week, which meant no lessons; they were instead assigned to different group projects which they had to work on and then present their work to everyone on Friday. I was put into the group 'Alles Aus Plastik', which was half researching plastic, it's advantages and disadvantages and the alternatives, and half making stuff out of old plastic bottles and containers. It definitely wasn't the most interesting topic, but more than anything I just spent the week not having a clue what anyone around me was saying. I thought chemistry was hard enough in English, in German it's ten times worse! Literally, I was passing the time by counting just how many letters the Germans can manage to squish into one word. I got a bit of a break on Thursday when I was put with the group which was investigating chocolate, and that was much much more interesting. Unfortunately I'd already missed their daytrip to the Ritter Sport chocolate factory on Tuesday :(

Anyway, as I didn't get the chance to make the most of the lovely weather because of work, I took the opportunity of a free day today to walk along the river in Heidelberg and investigate the shops on the other side of the river. On my way to cross the bridge, I stopped at one of the many ice cream shops on the Heidelberg Hauptstrasse and bought myself a pot with one scoop of pistachio, my favourite, and one scoop of almond ice cream, which I've never had before but is popular here. I honestly think I experienced a little bit of heaven eating that ice cream. It was a dangerous discovery really, because there's now a good chance that it'll become a weekly thing. Still it was hard to worry about it as I sat down on the grass by the river, sun shining, and tucked in, enjoying the feeling of being warm without needing my big winter coat for the first time this year.

I love the Germans. You can't really see, but the guy on that bike was just cycling around with a trailer full of a selection of mini beer barrels. Any opportunity to drink beer I suppose. Then again, the American students were also out in full force today, and with celebrations starting early in the day for St Patrick's Day, pretty much everyone seemed to be enjoying a pint in the sun.

Unfortunately the weather is set to turn bad again tomorrow, and we'll be back to good old ten degrees and clouds. Nevermind though, because I made sure I left time to pop into the supermarket and buy some chocolate, so I'll be busying myself with making a load of white chocolate cookies instead. Ahh, sometimes it's such a hard life.

That's not apple strudel!

Last week was a particularly busy week, because I welcomed my first visitors to Heidelberg! Mum, Kim and Helen arrived on Thursday evening, and as I was lucky enough to have been given Friday off work, three days of walking, shopping and eating ensued. Ok, so more like 80% eating, and 20% shopping and walking.

Thursday evening was spent checking into the hotel and then wandering around Heidelberg a little to find somewhere for dinner. We ate at a restaurant which was nothing special, but perfectly good for our first night. I tried spätzle, and for pudding we ordered apple strudel. Except it wasn't, because the pastry wasn't crisp and flaky, and so began our search for the perfect apple strudel. We went for another quick walk before heading back to the hotel; it was the first time I've been in Heidelberg at night, and the castle looked absolutely amazing all lit up. Unfortunately it was pretty difficult to get a decent picture of it, but you get the idea.

On Friday, we got up and caught the bus to Neckargemünd, where I showed them around the school and took them to my flat. Joanne made me go from room to room and introduce everyone, much to my embarrassment, but it was nice for the students to meet my family and it gave them an opportunity to practise their English. Next up was a walk through Neckargemünd and lunch at the Eis Cafe, although we managed to stop ourselves eating solely ice cream for lunch, instead going for the savoury option of salads and Flammkuchen,  which are basically pizzas but instead of a pizza dough base it is a tortilla wrap. They are also really, really yummy. After that, we spent the rest of the afternoon indulging in a little bit of shopping, before we simply had to replenish our energy and went to an amazing bakery/cafe for afternoon coffee and cake. I had a cherry pie cheesecake, which tasted nearly as good as it sounds and was probably even worse for me than it sounds... 

Dinner that night was yet another opportunity to embrace German cuisine and we found ourselves in a nice traditional German restaurant, where the servings were insanely generous and the staff had an interesting uniform consisting of old fashioned dresses and far far too much orange make up. 

Saturday began with yet another trip to the bakery/cafe from the day before, and a light breakfast of not one but two pastries each. It's all ok though, because it was just preparation for what was to follow; the walk up to the castle, which I'm hoping will have given me devastatingly good thighs by the time I come home in July. It was great to stand and look out over the city and the river, you can almost forget how stunning it all is when  you are walking around the streets. 

  

We looked around the ruins of the castle and despite not knowing whether it would be worth the admission fee, it was actually very interesting to see. What's a shame is that there isn't any information anywhere to tell you about the history of the castle, so we did a lot of looking at impressive buildings without understanding what we were seeing. It's definitely going to be my mission to learn a lot more about the history of Heidelberg before I leave here. Nevertheless, it was well worth seeing, and the view was fantastic.

After lunch, we continued the more cultural side of our weekend with a walk along the Philosophenweg, or Philosopher's Way. It is a path about half way up the hills on the opposite side of the river, and it gives you a brilliant view across the Neckar looking at the old town of Heidelberg. It is especially good at this time of year, as the trees are still missing most of their leaves so it allows for a much clearer view. Even in the summer though this walk would still be lovely, just because you are surrounded by trees and endless pathways through the woods.

Once the walk was finished, it was yet again time to stop for afternoon tea, and this time we went to a cafe right by our hotel, which turned out to be really good, so we'll definitely be going back. I tried the mohnkuchen, which I have seen everywhere but never got around to trying until now. It is cake/pie made with  a poppy seed filling, and it's really popular here; all the bakeries sell poppy seed pies and pastries. I didn't get a picture unfortunately, but it's a bit like this:

Last but not least, we spent our last evening at the lively Vetter, which seemed to be a favourite with tourists and locals and is known for brewing it's own beer. As I don't drink beer myself, I tried their interesting creation of beer schnapps, which tasted weirdly like apple but were actually really good. For dinner I made sure I really went for it with trying German food and ordered the schnitzel with roast potatoes, which was one of the best things I've ever eaten. The Germans really don't do things by halves though, and none of us could finish all our food. That didn't stop us from ordering a couple of apple strudel to share for pudding though. Ultimately our quest to find the perfect strudel was unfulfilled. It seems that here apple strudel is doomed to be made more like a rolled up apple pie than crispy filo heaven in a slice. It still tasted bloody good to me though, so I ate my quarter, and then as no one else was eating it I just went ahead and finished off the other one too. So yeah, two pastries, a slice of pie and then two apple strudel in one day. Maybe I was being a bit optimistic about my thighs...

I saw them to the bus stop on Sunday morning and then that was it, and I basically spent the rest of the day asleep. However short though, it was a great weekend, and I look forward to welcoming who everyone else when they come to visit!

So much for updating every week...

As I thought might end up being the case because, well, I'm me, I have pretty much neglected the existence of this blog the last few weeks. I kept meaning to update with a new post, but somehow other things kept cropping up. That and the fact that when I actually did have time to sit and write a post I have been so tired that all I've done is slept. Making the most of my time in Germany right there.

So, a quick summary of what I've done in the last few weeks. Despite having only been out here a couple of weeks, half term was from the 18th-25th February, and as both my flatmates went home, I decided to jump on the bandwagon and do the same. I didn't actually go back home to London, but instead I met mum at the airport and we spent a quick but amazing few days in Dartmouth, before I flew home again ready to start back at work on Monday. I know it's not Germany, but it seems a shame not to post a couple of pictures...

The following week was fairly quiet, but we did have a new addition to our flat! A girl from Australia called Francesca who did the same placement as me at the school three years ago is back here to study in Heidelberg for the year, and as she had to wait a week for her student accommodation to be available, she joined us in the flat for the week. We had a bit of drama at first, as having only arrived on Sunday evening, she got locked in the toilet for 40 minutes on Monday morning. Still half asleep, I ended up calling Joanne at 7am having tried unsuccessfully to get the door open, and eventually we had to unscrew the air vent in the door so we could get the key and open the door from the outside. You'll be glad to know that they're putting in a new lock in the Easter holidays... After that though we had a nice week, and it was great to speak to someone who did the exact same placement as me, especially as she was just 18 when she first came here too.


On Saturday, I ventured into Heidelberg again and decided to investigate the castle. I am going to be a history student after all. Although the walk up looks horrific, the view from the top is worth it. Here are a couple of the pictures I took, but you'll see more of the castle in my next post.

It was a really nice day in the end, and a good end to a bit of a tiring and stressful week at work. To finish it off I went home and baked a tray of cupcakes and settled in for a girls film night with my flatmate. All I'll say is I sincerely hope no one ever finds out how much chocolate we consumed that evening.