16 Mai - Das Castle

Since Skylar and I stayed up late last night reading and watching goofy movies, we slept in this morning.  We had a plan to go to the climbing gym in Heidelberg, but weren't in any hurray about it.  I finally found a site through the Heidelberg train station that is in English and was able to plan our route.  I figured we wouldn't be climbing all day, so thought it might be nice to stop at the castle first.  So at about the 13th hour, we were on our way. I wasn't sure how to use my semester ticket to purchase my train ticket, so I tried asking the people that worked there... by the third person, we finally got someone that spoke English and helped us buy our tickets.  Turns out Skylar rides for free with me if I buy a ticket, but not on the semester ticket... lot of help that will do me then. When we arrived in Heidelberg, a nice woman helped us figure out which bus to take us to the castle.  She said that there are many more people that speak English in Heidelberg and it is much more city like.  She was right; we had no problem communicating with anyone for the rest of the day.  I can see why all the other students thus far on this scholarship have gone to Heidelberg.  Heilbronn is like a suburb compared to Hedelberg and not even a close one like Edina, but one way far away like Cottage Grove. If Heidelberg were in Georgia, it would be Atlanta and Heilbronn would be Statesboro. If it were in NY, it would be like Bellport compared to Manhatten. I'll make the best of it though.
Once we arrived in University Square, we happened upon an international festival of some sort and decided to check it out.  There was food and music and dancing (3 of my favorite things).  Then we continued up the hill and up the hundreds of stairs to the castle. It was beautiful.
	The ruins and architecture was beautiful.
The view was beautiful.
	Skylar was thrilled!  He was so enthralled with the place; he took pictures of everything and kept saying thank you to me for taking him there.
We walked through the courtyard and checked out the old pharmacy.  We got delicious ice cream and wandered into the park over looking the city.
	We walked along and viewed more of the castle. Then we laid in the sun for awhile while Skylar read his book and I knitted.
We had spent hours wandering the castle, so we decided to head back to town and stopped in Market Square for some food.  We ate at what I think was a French cafe and had something like pizza and tortellini. It was tasty, whatever it was. Being nearly 9pm, we headed back to the train station.
We caught the train back to Heilbronn and biked home in the dark. Skylar was good and kept close. Completely tuckered out, we promptly fell asleep with plans to back tomorrow to actually go climbing.