Giddy Up Europe

Germany, Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Greece, Italy, Vatican, Monaco, Spain...

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Heidelberg!

Sorry about the downtime for the site, I accidentally completely deleted my blog, but I was able to save it all, I believe. Though if you made any comments, they're gone. A word to the wise, löschen means delete in Deutsch.

So there's good reason that Ann Arbor has a bar named Heidelberg, since it's one of Germany's most beautiful cities. Heidelberg is built along the Neckar River and mountains rise up on both sides. There are still a handful dueling fraternities that still exist, though many stopped dueling after World War II. Heidelberg itself was spared during the war as the Allies wanted to keep it intact for troops moving into Germany. Pamphlets were even dropped from planes announcing their plans to preserve it from bombings. Consequently, some Germans were able to flee to Heidelberg as for protection. The castle there is amazing, though it was severely damaged by Louis XIV. Because the city was spared in WWII, Heidelberg has 17th century charm, unlike other cities such as Stuttgart, that were obliterated.

We also hit Ludwigsburg for a day as well, which was pretty sweet, and you can get there by the S-bahn. The castle is huge and the tour was like an MTV Castle Cribs episode. There was even a sweet personal theater built in 43 days using 50 laborers from each of Baden-Württemberg's districts when it was a kingdom. It's also known for its Fairy Tale Garden, which was nice, but not extremely impressive, and was kind of like a run-down Euro Disney. Yeah, my thoughts exactly.

But first, pictures from Biddy Early's Irish Pub in Stuttgart! It's seriously become the local American hang out. Yeah, we don't know why we're going to an Irish Pub in Germany either.


Here's Christine, Jake, and Brett enjoying some brew at the pub.


The "Core" in its infancy taking it down. That was when it was only Jon, Allison, and myself.


Canadian Car Bombs! That's Jeff and Dieter, with Jake joining in and Christine looking on.


That led to this. I don't know why.


But I also ran into a Michigan fan. So I called him over and told him. His words were, "Michigan Nummer eins!" I've seen about five people wearing Michigan gear in Europe, more than any other American university I've seen. I did see an OSU kid at the airport. Hail to the Victors!


Since Jon and I live together, we took the S-bahn home. I don't think he knows what PFO means yet, though.


Sometime last week, there were Stuttgarter Hofbräu girls promoting their beer company by having miniature rally car races. Beer is kind of considered a food group in Germany if you're a dork and didn't know. So much so that there are pages devoted to it in my introductory German language class. There are also nudie cartoons, but that's a different story.


Another night, there was a party at the Universität Stuttgart on its Vaihingen campus, near where Jon and I live. There were bands, tons of people selling beer, food, and drinks, and people all over the place. Europeans all smoke everywhere, but in the middle of this mess were people playing Tischtennis.


Here's a picture from on top of the Kunst Museum overlooking the Schlossplatz.


So on Friday, we hit Ludwigsburg. Of course we need a Ludwigsburg jump picture.


Here's us trying to navigate the gardens at Ludwigsburg.


That's Erica, Claire, Paige, and Allison hanging out with the flora.


They had some monster flowers. That rose was the size of my fist.


As a preview, here's a comparison of baby shots in Heidelberg. Baby Jack and Jäger, how cute!


So I decided to take some animated shots at Ludwigsburg.


Check out the sweet master bedroom. Not bad for back in the day.


There was a pretty sweet auto show in the castle drive way. I mean, who does that?


Here's like a '36 Jag.


So we decided to toss the disc around in the castle garden. That's pretty tight, I don't care where you're from.


We all had dinner at a Mexican restaurant called El Chico. Christine got a free cappacino, but still had to pay for her meal after the attractive waitresses spilled a 0,5 L beer, a pina colada, and a margarita on her new Stuttgart sweatshirt. Raw deal?


Heidelberg! 315 steps to the entrance of the castle from just about sea level.


Check out this sweet hotel in the middle of town. It's an all star hotel, but you can get lunch there for really reasonable prices.


Yes, they even have a Starbucks. I haven't seen one in Stuttgart yet. Weird.


Across the river is Philosopher's Way, where many a thinker has walked and thought about the cosmos. It's considered one of the world's ten most beautiful walks.


The city is so awesome and still retains its original city layout as no major damage has been inflicted on it for some centuries.


In the cathedral in town, there is modern stain glass, as some of the original stained glass was shattered. The cathedral decided not to create replicas, but rather make new original pieces. This is a one about the atomic bomb when is struck Japan. There's also another that even includes images of a laptop computer.


How about this awesome artist doing a National Geographic cover.


Here's one of the towers after the French had come to Heidelberg. In sepia, no less.


On the inside of the castle, Allison and I decided to tree hug some conic pillars. She's a vegetarian. I don't know if that correlates to tree hugging. She says she's a hugger, though, so it's a possibility.


Heidelberg is also famous for Schloßkugeln, which are desserts filled with nuggette, cream, and some other stuff I don't know. It's at the bottom and they're the size of your fist.

People are going nuts these days and Germans are starting to ask me questions in German, like for directions and stuff. Maybe I'm starting to look German? Ich weiß nicht!

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