The Last Days of the Grand Tour

(Note: This post was posted many days after it was written; life got in the way of posting it earlier.)

Dear readers:

I’m writing this on an airplane from Dublin to New York… playing catch-up, I suppose, since I haven’t been able to post an update in a while. Plus, I’ve got something like four hours to kill, and I just finished “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” by Stieg Larsson (for the umpteenth time; LOVE that book). So, I’ll update you on the events of the past few days – maybe not in chronological order, because I’m not sure if I remember the chronological order – with some Random Facts added in for the sake of variety and entertainment value.

1) Heidelberg University has a Student Jail -- where, around the turn of the century, they put students who were guilty of petty crimes like drunk and disorderly conduct or criminal mischief. Which would be only mildly interesting, except that the students got hold of cans of paint, and painted all over the walls of their living area -- painting silhouettes of each other, and writing the stories behind their incarceration in rhyming verse. (I couldn't understand them, but Ina told me the poems were hilarious.)

An example of a typical wall in the jail:

Some bedrooms:

2)
Saw posters around campus, the whole time I was in Heidelberg, for an "Orchid Party":

Ina explained it to me, and I thought it was so funny that it needed to be shared with my American friends, in the hopes that they might bring the tradition (or something similar to it) over to the US.

In Germany, some academic disciplines -- e.g. Classics, History, Literature -- are called "Orchid Disciplines", because, like orchids, they are lovely, delicate, and not practically useful at all. Also, apparently these majors are not very large, for the most part. So, they host parties for all the "Orchid Disciplines" together, instead of hosting parties for them individually (which is apparently what they do with the larger majors), so they can get to know each other and bond over their... orchid-ness.

3) 
On the edge of town, on a mountainside, lies a lovely monastery, which Ina and Jorg and I visited:

We didn't get the chance to go inside, but we saw the grounds (which were lovely), and right as we were about to leave, we happened upon a restaurant and high-end grocery -- where all ingredients and products were either made/produced by the monks themselves, or obtained from other local sources. We bought some almond pesto and had it with pasta that night; it was really good.

We also happened across this drink while we were there:

Malted lemonade -- seemingly not very interesting, right? What made it interesting, was that we'd seen ads for this lemonade all over town, all week long, and Jörg and I were so impressed with the ad, that it became an inside joke/impossible wish: "We're going to buy that stuff before I leave." "Definitely!" But as soon as we walked into the monastery grocery: there it was, on a shelf! So we bought it, and it was perfectly respectable.

4)

As it happens, Neckargemünd -- sister city to my hometown of Missoula, MT, and city where Kallista studied German over a summer in high school -- is a short trip down the Neckar river from Heidelberg. So, more for the sake of the journey than the destination, Jörg, Ina, and I, all took a boat down the river to check it out:

What a cute town! Much cuter than we expected; Jörg's friends had made jokes about it, when he told them he was visiting there. (To put things in perspective for my Montana friends: they were the same sorts of comments that one of us might make if we were visiting, say, Anaconda.) We spent a short while walking around town, taking pictures and trying to keep our sunburns -- which we'd developed on the boat there -- as shaded as possible.

During the walk, there were quite a few moments of unexpected beauty:

(On the left: a public bookshelf -- a concept that's started to pop up in some of the more hippie-ish corners of the US, but that I think should be everywhere!)

And of course, my favorite thing -- half-timbered houses -- showed up on every corner!

5)
When we got back from the boat trip, we went picnicking on the Designated Grilling Area in a park in the center of town. I wasn’t able to get pictures of the food we made, because it was so dark outside that we had to use Ina’s phone to even see whether the beef and bratwurst were done(!), but we had a really nice time.

Fun fact: "Designated Grilling Area", in Germany, means: in this area, you can bring your disposable grill(?!?), use it here, and then throw it away. Whereas, at home, it means: you can use the grill we have provided for you in this grilling space, and then clean the grill when you're done. Maybe this is my Montanan-ness talking, but I had never seen a disposable grill in my life, and using it was a very, very interesting experience. (Especially in the dark!)

6) One last Beer Fact:

This brewery is STATE RUN. Apparently it was an abbey brew that wasn’t very successful and was essentially bailed out by the state. It sells well enough now to actually earn money for the state.

It's also worth mentioning that beer in Germany is So. Incredibly. Cheap. Which makes sense, because there’s no sin tax on it; beer is taxed like any other grocery item there (although wine is not).

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That's about it! Tune in next time, when I reflect a bit on the trip overall.

Much love --

- Beth