Weinheim Part Zwei

Since Lenea was not able to make it to Weinheim with me on the USO tour on Tuesday, I decided to be her personal tour guide. I tried not to duplicate the pictures I already posted, so here are some new ones from today.

Another view of MarktPlatz with the castle in teh background on the hilly mountain. I am not sure whether it is a hill or a mountain, so I am just going to call it a hilly mountain for now.



Random housing. Just playing with my camera settings a bit.



Moss on the side of a wall...



...and cool vines up the wall.

This little waterway sneaks its way through the "old town" part of Weinheim, which is where the lower income housing is located. See the wall to the left? I took a picture of that yesterday with all of the crazy bricks jutting out and textured people on the side of it.

These two little creepers were just hanging out behind someones house/apartment. Kind of bizaar and cute at the same time.

These doors are at the bottom of most buildings. At one point in time they were used to slide coal down to warm up the homes.

Enjoying goodies from a cafe in the MarktPlatz (market area) of Weinheim. It was a beautiful day! I forgot that my camera was still on the crazy setting where it picks up one color, so this is what I got...a splash of red on my coffee mug :)

Apple Streussel with pure whipped cream. It was very yummy! What I love most about the Germany pastries and desserts is that they aren't as sweet as American treats.

At first I wasn't a fan of German coffe because it is much stronger than what I am used to; then I learned how to doctor it up just right to truly enjoy it. Two creams and a sugar substitute and I am a happy camper. The little cookie that is wrapped in the black plastic is to die for when it is submerged in coffee-ness. Mmmm!

As we were walking towards the strassenbahn (the train), this sign caught our eye. Paul, Lenea, and I are going to check it out tomorrow. We are going to ask Major Sterling, the female dentist who so kindly tried to set me up with one of her coworkers, if she wants to go with us. She is the neatest lady who is filled with spunk. She is fantastic!

After Lenea and I got home we ate dinner (spaghetti) and went to the free spinning class that is offered Tuesdays and Thursdays at the gym. Elizabeth tagged along, but Paul opted to stay home. Smart man. It was an hour of death. You sit on a stationary bike as the instructor tells you to pedal faster, add resistance, sprint (which is standing up and pedaling at the same time), ...yadda, yadda, yadda. Tomorrow should be fun. The first spot I noticed pain was on my hiney bone. Those seats need more padding! We joked about strapping a pillow to us for our next class, but honestly we might just do it. Haha. Then slowly I noticed that my legs were burning. All of this happened in the first five minutes of our warmup. I am so out of shape. We are going to take Paul with us next time, and start taking the class regularly. It was an intense cardio workout as I felt my pulse in every part of my body. I am sure that after a couple of weeks I will thank the instructor as I begin to notice a difference on my body, but not so much right now. He would continuously yell at us to "push harder." I would just look up at him and grin. What do you think I am trying to do? Anywho-it kicked my butt!

Ich liebe dich!

Weinheim, Germany

Monday, Monday...lah, lah, lah, dah, dah. You know that song? Monday, Monday.. anywho. Monday was a pretty good day. I went to the clinic to get the second round of the skin test that I needed as part of the pre-employment packet. That packet is intense. The assistant in human resources said that my 7 year background check should come back sometime in the next two weeks. Great. I feel like I am living in this haze, where everything is gray. Nothing can be black and white. What happened to the land of certainty? Apparently I left that in America. Anyways, it could be another two weeks until my paperwork back, but he is not for sure. I can't start actually working at the CDC until all of the paperwork is returned, so I won't start working until mid March. It is a good thing that I applied for the job the second week I got here. Yeesh! After the clinic Lenea and I went to the USO to sign up for a day tour to Weinheim for Tuesday. It was only 10 euro. Yippee! After the USO we went by the gym to pick up a schedule of the classes they offer. There is a spinning class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Did I mention it is free? Oh yes. It is free. Can you believe that? The government is offering free classes. I know. Shocking. You can pick your jaw off of the floor now. We are going to start the spinning classes, especially since they are free!! We lucked out, because we had the car today to run these piddly errands. The weather here has been pretty gross, so having the car allows us to get out more frequently and en. A lot of drizzly rain, which is the worst kind of rain. It is not quite enough rain for you to pull out your umbrella, but then you get soaking wet and you have no idea how. If you pull out your umbrella for the drizzly rain, then you look like a pansy because it isn't really raining. Luckily I have succumbed to being a pansy and I now use my umbrella whenever I feel the slightest hint of rain. It is no fun walking around wet. No fun at all.

Tuesday- Weinheim! I ended up going alone because a Vodafone technician was going to come to our apartment and fix our internet and phone. I was kind of excited because this was one of the first opportunities I had to meet people on my own. I knew that most of the woman were going to be army wives and probably older than me, but I was okay with that. We were a small group of 6 women, but I liked it. It allowed for a more personal tour where I was able to talk to every person in the group. They were sweet women, and all married with children. It was a fun day, but I can't see myself calling any of the women to hang out. With that being said, this is what we saw:

Once we departed from the train we had to trek up the hill to get into the heart of the city.



We turned from the above road onto this cute little street.




That little street turned into the walking district, which you see below. It is a lot more charming than the walking districts in Mannheim and Heidelberg. Weinheim is a much smaller city, so it offers the ideal feel of a quaint German town.

This is a plaque for Jewish families who were torn from their homes in the Holocaust. The plaques are all over the walking district in front of stores. They have the name of the families who were pulled from the homes above the stores. The plaques represent the every day family. They weren't extremely wealthy or poor. These were just average families who were trying to survive in trying times.

There are ugly parts of Germany too, but just beyond the construction are the two old castles in Weinheim. If you look closely at the top of the mountain in between the two red construction poles, then you will see them.

Once you walk farther into the heart of Weinheim (pronounced vine-hime), you reach the MarktPlatz (market area). This area is where local farmers will bring their produce certain days of the week to sell to the community. Farmers will setup their stands in the large open area where the truck is parked. Along the storefronts you will find cafes, restaurants, and shops.

Another view of the MarktPlatz. We were told that cars are not supposed to park in those areas, but apparently they didn't feel like following the rules that day.

If you walk past MarktPlatz, then you will find this tower. This was a knight's tower. Almost everywhere you stood in Weinheim, you could look up and see the castles. This tower was in a pretty central location to allow knights to keep an eye on both the castle and the common folk. Notice the rectangular box next to the window towards the top of the tower. Do you see it? It kind of sticks out a bit. That is the toilet. There is no bottom of the box, so the excrement would simply fall down to the ground. Now use your eye to travel down the column. What do you see? The door. Why would you put the opening from the toilet right above the door? What a wonderful way to welcome your guests.

This is the entrance to the "new" castle. When referring to the castles of Weinheim this would not be one of them, because this castle was built much later than the original two castles of the city. This castle was built to house a princess who was not allowed to mingle in the city because she was unwilling to sleep with her husband. She was given an ultimatum by her husband: this castle or sex. Well...we know what she chose.

The tower of the "new" castle.

Not too shabby eh?

Ginormous tree in the "front yard" of the castle. Look how small the person is standing next to the tree.

Memorial tombstones to the family who loaned the Weinheim people the money to build their castles. Did I mention this is in the front yard of the new castle? Creepy.

Just beyond the new castle is this tower.

What is missing? The door. What else is missing? The box that sticks out of the side for the toilet. Who would stay in this tower? Prisoners. Wouldn't that be the pits...no door and no toilet.

This is the park that extends from the new castle. The pond is completely frozen over!

View from the park looking up at the old castles.

This shrine is in the public park. The Weinheim government took care of this at one point, but now they ran out of money and it just sits in the public park.

This golden beauty is hidden under dome of the shrine. If this is on the outside, then can you imagine what the inside looks like? We couldn't go inside because it is now closed to the public.

Me :) I wanted to get a picture to show myself in these places, but I couldn't hold the camera far enough away to get a decent shot. This is what I got.

Another tower, but this one was for witches. If a young woman was supspected of being a witch, then she was held up here until her trial. The trial was brutal. Germans believed that waters was one of the most pure substances of our world, so they used it in witch trials to test the character of a young woman suspected of being a witch. They would take the woman and throw her in a lake or large body of water. If she sank, then the water accepted her and she was pure. The only downside is that meant she had to drown to prove her purity. If she floated, then water rejected her and she was a witch. Then they would take the "witch" and hang or burn her.

These rocks with red stripes are scratching posts. They lined the corners of buildings in the low income part of the city. Carriages were apparently very reckless and would often times run into the sides of buildings. If buildings had scratching posts, then the carriage would run into the posts and ruin the carriage wheels instead of scratching or ruining the sides of peoples' homes.

Pathway into the lower class of the Weinheim society. Weinheim is one of the only cities that still holds close to a leveled society. The higher up the mountain you live, the more money you have; the lower down the mountain you live, the less money you have. Most people who lived in this part of Weinheim were tanners.

Does this not scream Germany?



To the left of the doorway is a coat of arms. The family who lived in this house worked with swords, hence the crossed swords on the coat of arms. :)

I really like the way this blue door pops in the black and white. One of my favorites of the day!

The smallest house in the city. Yes...someone lives there.

Someone's awesome gate. Look at that face. Love it! Germans are crazy.

More crazy German architecture...

Monument from WWII...

Crazy ticket booth. This is where you buy your ticket to get on the train. Public transportation is outstanding here!

I really liked Weinheim, but then again I have liked everything so far!

Wednesday: Laundry. This may seem silly-to blog about doing laundry, but we don't have a washer/dryer in our apartment. There are 5 washing machines and 5 dryers in the basement. It is cold and smelly down there. It is not my favorite thing to do. Once the laundry got going, I had to walk to the clinic to get a physical as part of the pre-employment package. I passed, but I am still waiting to get my 7 year background check back. Yeesh!

Tomorrow I am going to walk Lenea through the city to show her all of the goodness of the city. Hopefully I can remember it all!

Rainy Weather

Thursday, February 18 I was June Cleaver. I made beds, cleaned house, and did laundry. Lenea was not feeling good, so I decided that I would take over household responsibilities for the day. So far everyone has taken turns with some kind of nasty cold. First it was Paul, then Lenea, and now Elizabeth. Somehow I have managed to go unscathed, but I have a feeling I have just jinxed myself. My next post will probably mention something about how crappy I feel. For the moment I am feeling fine. I will have to make sure I take all of my vitamins and thwart off any bad juju. Where was I? Ah yes...sorry for the rambling, but I was talking about my June Cleaver-ness. Paul had a training on our barracks where our apartment is located, so he got off of work early. He came and got me so that we could go check the mail which of course is on another barracks that is 20 minutes away. I love the army. Nothing is convenient. :) My mom sent Elizabeth and I a Valentine (I got a cute v-neck from old navy and my favorite mascara-that is the one piece of makeup I absolutely could not live without) in the cutest valentine package. It was a padded envelope that had hearts and flowers all over it. Precious I tell you. Precious. I love getting mail here! It is exhilerating to get mail overseas. I don't know why. It just is. I think mail is fun, as long as it is not attached to a bill of some sort. That kind of mail I just want to stamp "return to sender," because I certainly don't want it.

Friday I wore my new shirt :) I am a girl. I am surprised I didn't put it on immediately when I got it. Lenea and I had errands to run which were a lot easier with the car. We currently only have one car which Paul drives to work everyday. It is a '94 BMW staionwagon. It is fantastic. the right rear passenger door does not open from the inside. If you accidentally take this seat, then someone must open the door from the outside to let you out. We didn't find out about this little gem until the Howards came to pick me up from the airport. One more bonus... it doesn't have a radio. This might sound miserable at first, but it is actually quite nice. No radio means that we must actually talk. GASP. Unheard of eh? Anywho...we had the car today because Paul still had his class in our barracks. We went to the commisary to get groceries, housing to get lightbulbs for the bathroom, Bauhaus (which is like Home Depot) to get some green plants for the apartment, and a couple of other places to get out of the apartment. It was a pretty nice day minus the rain. It was the drizzly rain that you convince yourself isn't that bad because it doesn't seem like you are getting very wet until you look down and you are completely soaked. Grrr. I was having a good hair day too until the rain. I have been in search for a small compact umbrella. Something little enough to carry around with me, but kind of cute. I am in Europe. These kids are trendy. I can't seem to find an umbrella for less than 20 euro. My last umbrella was free from Home Interiors. It would shield myself and a small army from the rain. It was huge. That night we ate a family dinner and then Elizabeth and I went to the movie theater to see Dear John. The movie theater on the barracks only offers one movie a day during the week, while on Saturday and Sunday they offer two. Instead of showing previews for upcoming movies they play the National Anthem. Everyone stands and salutes our country. It is pretty cool. Reminds us of why we are here and able to have the freedom we have in the States. Putting all political mumbo jumbo aside, there are a lot of people who willingly serve our country and put up with a lot of crap to do it. These men and women deserve a littl more recognition for what they sacrifice in order to serve our country. Okay. I am off of my platform and back to the movie. Dear John was good. Typical girly romance. Love, pain, anger, and reconciliation.

Saturday it was gorgeous outside. We decided not to waste such a beautiful day since they are so few and far between. We showered, hopped on the train and headed to Heidelberg. Of course once we arrived in Heidelberg it started to rain. Whomp. Whomp. We ducked out of the rain for the first time and found a delicious Chinese restaurant. Oh my goodness it was fantastic! We knew it would be good when we looked behind the counter and saw only oriental friends working. It was legit Chinese food. Mmmm. After lunch we had to walk off the mounds of fried rice, low mein noodles, and sweet and sour chicken we ate. Of course we walked through that nasty drizzly rain again. Boo! At this point we started going in more stores simply to find shelter from the rain. We ended finding our second oasis at The Dubliner, which is an Irish Pub. I know. I am sorry. You could have figured that one out on your own :) Luckily for us there were a few soccer/football games to be seen on TV, so we had a good time. I enjoyed a nice glass of german beer and a lot of people watching. I like soccer, but sometimes people watching is a lot better. Pubs over here are a lot different. 1. Children are welcome. In America we call that redneck. In Europe this is common practice. Children run around and play while mom and dad drink. Sitting across from our table was a man holding a baby. At one point he was holding the baby's hands as the baby walked across the bar. I tried not to stare, but I think I gave myself away. 2. People bring their pets to pubs. Let me rephrase that. People bring their pets everywhere. Let me list some of the places I have seen pets where I have thought, "Hmm. That is kind of strange."
-the mall
-grocery stores
-restaurants
Those would be my top three where I could have thought of several better places to take your dog rather than bringing them there. After a little time at the pub we decided to venture out into Heidelberg some more. Then we got really cold and realized that we needed something to warm us up and keep us a little drier from the rainy drizzle. That is when we found these.

All of them are very unique, not your everyday hats. Elizabeth's hat is a pig. The shop also had monkeys, mice, and pretty much any other animal with ears. Mine is Dr. Seusical. It has a brim, which I love, but it also is very large on the back of my head. Lenea's is just Lenea. It is very simple in the style of the hat and the color, but it is very intricately woven to create some crazy designs. Paul decided he didn't need one.

Today we ate Greek. We were going to introduce some of our neighbors to Greek, but they bailed on us so we went alone. Totally okay with us because we ate Greek anyways. We are regulars now. Not a week has passed that we haven't had Greek. The restaurant is run by a woman who serves as hostess/waitress, her husband the chef, and her brother who is a waiter/bartender. We love it because it feels like they are inviting us into their home. They know what we want to drink. They know what sides we choose to go with our meal, and they always come to talk to us after our meal is over. They are great people who serve AMAZING food!

Fasching Parade!

Well folks, we did not go to Frankfurt on Friday. Whomp Whomp! Paul came home Thursday sick as a dog. He slept almost the entire day Friday and Saturday, only waking to take more Dayquil. He is totally okay now, but it seems that his illness is spreading through the apartment. Elizabeth is now feeling a little under the weather. Must love living in small quarters. :) Needless to say our four day weekend was a little underwhelming, but restful. Friday Elizabeth and I ventured downtown to check out the Fasching festivities. I am not really quite sure I totally understand Fasching, but I do know that it is a mix of Mardi Gras/Carnival/Halloween-ness. Thursday they setup some random booths and games in front of the water tower downtown that stayed up until yesterday. We just explored, but not for too long because we were cold! Not so much our bodies as much as our noses. It is the type of cold where your nose looses all sensation and you have no idea that your nose is running until it is dripping. I know. Grody! We were able to catch a few movies. We saw Everybody's Fine with Robert Deniro, Drew Barrymore.... good, but sad. The movie ended and I was still crying. Surprisingly enough, that was the first time that I have cried since I have been in Germany. I think all of my bottled emotion came out in that movie, but man it was a good cry.

Walking district...must love the lights!

Tuesday Lenea and I rode the train to Heidelberg. It is an adorable city! It has a small town feel to it, but it is a pretty good-sized city. We took scenic route on the train, so it took us about 1 1/2 hours to get there. If you take the direct route on the train it cuts the time down to 45 minutes.

This is Heidelberg. I don't know what those trees are, but I seem to find them in every city in Germany.

A random little cove off of the walking district in Heidelberg.

While we were waiting for the parade to start at 2:11 (I kid you not. This was the time the paper said that it was going to start. 2:11. Random. Why not 2:10?), Lenea and I explored the city. This is what we found...

People were starting to get ready for the parade. Apparently Fasching is a regional thing. Not all parts of Germany celebrate it. The cities that partake in the festivities essentially close down. All businesses closed in the city and people were everywhere!

The parade begins... Yes. These are men.

Not only do parade members dress up for this, but several audience members as well. I don't really know what some people were dressed up as. It seems to me like anything goes. If it was bazaar, then people were wearing it. Men in dresses? Of course.

Who doesn't love Elvis?

What was crazy about the parade was that it had such a small town feel to it. Local Bands played like this one below, and local organizations were displayed on the floats. The floats were not handing out beads, but they were handing out candy. Little kids carried bags as if it were Halloween, and people who live in the apartments above hung umbrellas from their windows to catch candy that was thrown from the floats.

Yes this bike is awesome, but not nearly as awesome as the guy in the upper righthand corner of the picture. Do you see him in his creepy white mask? Yeah. Creepy.

This gentleman was shooting confetti at people in the crowd. His little shooting contraption could be lowered just above someones head and explode massive amounts of confetti. It was fantastic.

More local bands.

Random people walking.

This kids costume was AWESOME! I had to creepily sneak his picture, but I really wanted to find a headdress of my own that looked exactly like his.

After the parade, people filled the streets and just followed the floats along the cobblestone street.

While following the crowd we ran into this guy. Is that not fantastic? Too bad the closer we got the smellier it got. He was not so clean.

From here we found a local pub to warm up. We were freezing cold! Nothing like a little heat and alcohol to warm you up. I had my first German beer yesterday! I chose one that was local to the Heidelberg region. It was pretty yummy, but very strong. I would say that German beer makes Bud Light look like water. It didn't take much for me to warm up quickly. The reason for the delay in beer exposure is due to the fact that we are in the wine region of Germany. Go figure. At the pub we talked to some locals. They had no idea why they celebrate Fasching, but they love it. They said it was a time for all Germans to celebrate together. All walks of life come together for one night of....well, drinking really. It was fun to be able to mingle with Germans and be able to communicate. It wasn't that my German is so great, but almost all Germans know English. It was fun. A good time indeed.

Last but not least... I have internet! No. Vodafone has not fixed our internet/phone, but our downstairs neighbor is letting us use their internet until ours works. I can skype! Yipppeeeeee!!!!!