But my fortune made me nervous. It said something like, "An adventure is coming." I got even more nervous when T read his fortune, something about "you will know the right way." I read these in combination to indicate that T was going to lead me on some crazy adventure, and I wasn't quite feeling up to an adventure at the time. Maybe it had something to do with the cold I had developed on our second day in Germany, or maybe it was related to Africa fatigue… I don't know.
The next day, T and I started to feel like our hosts needed a break from us, so we suggested that, on January 3, they could send us off somewhere on our own via public transportation. Instead, though, they loaded us into IC's car along with her TomTom and sent us off to Heidelberg. After a bit of a rough start (the TomTom led us to the center of town, where without a real map or any tourism information, we were a bit disoriented), we had an enjoyable day on our own.
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| View of the town and the Neckar River from the castle |
I went to Heidelberg knowing exactly two things about it: An American military base is located there, and the city hosts a colony of wild ringnecked parrots (and if you know me, you know which of these two things I was most excited about).
The town is very popular with tourists (but not, I think, due to its military or psittacine residents). When we first got there, I was hearing more English than German around me. I was happy to see a lot of Asian people (who don't often come to Morocco) and Asian restaurants. Thai food for lunch was an unexpected treat.
To my disappointment, I never saw any parrots, but the city has several interesting churches and an impressive castle.
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| Outside the Jesuitenkirche (the inside was very interesting, but I felt taking photographs would be irreverent) |
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| Church of the Holy Spirit – a massive structure, the outside of which is lined with tourist shops selling cheap souvenirs |
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| Old bridge over the Neckar River |
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| Statue with ruins of the castle in the background |
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| A very photogenic castle, don't you think? |
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| Entrance to a grotto on the castle grounds |
An additional benefit to our outing was that T was able to navigate us to a natural foods store, where I stocked up on tofu, quinoa, and other vegetarian delights.
I will be very happy if our day in Heidelberg was the "adventure" that my fortune predicted. After a year and a half in Morocco, I couldn't get too nervous about going out on our own in Germany. It just feels like such an orderly and safe and logical place by comparison. Perhaps if I had gone to Germany straight from the United States, I would have found such a day in Heidelberg to be a bit boring, but given the circumstances surrounding our visit, I thought it was a pretty delightful day. And it had just the amount of adventure that I was looking for.
Old castles in Germany seem very forbidding. It's v. interesting to see them, but I'd feel kind of nervous (overwhlemed?) to go way inside. I wonder what it would feel like to live in them. (Did even the longtime inhabitants get to see all the rooms / passageways, etc?) Imagine cleaning the rooms!! Imagine having pets in those castles (and if you know me, you know exactly what kind of pets I'm thinking of). You'd have to keep close watch over them so they don't get lost.
ReplyDeleteCitrine, the only castle I went into was only accessible via a very well-organized tour. I was surprised by how relatively small individual rooms were, but that makes sense when you think about trying to keep rooms heated through the long, cold German winters. You must be right, though, that inhabitants wouldn't be familiar with their homes the way we are with our "little" apartments and houses. I suppose that's why Martin Luther was able to hide out at Wartburg for so long!
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