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.