Mannheim, Germany 2004

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These are my recollections of my time in Germany as I complete an internship during the summer of 2004. Read on as I recount stories of my travels, experiences and mistakes...

Visitied:

• Mannheim
  
• Ladenburg
  
• Heidelberg
  
• Heddesheim
  
• Stuttgart
  
• Aachen
  
• Cologne
  
• Hockenheim
  
• Hamburg

19/8/2004

In Deutschland

I made it to my house in Germany after a journey consisting of every mode of transport possible: Car, plane, train, tram and finally foot! I am now living in a town called Mannheim and working in the
nearby town of Ladenburg. So far, life here has been good, the transport system actually works as expected, and the people are really great, so friendly and happy to help. My German has also improved, I’ve picked up quite a lot of words in the few days that I have been here after successfully opening a bank account, registering myself for tax and paying my rent.
I’m sharing a house with about 10 other people (not actually met them all yet). It’s a really international house with people from all around Europe and the world (a few from France, a couple of Germans, a guy from Manchester and a girl from Taiwan) all of whom are students/employees with the company.
The language in the house switches rapidly between French and English!
It turns out that Mannheim is near Hockenheim, I saw it on the tram ticket machine! Unfortunately, I have missed the F1 as it was on during July, just a few weeks before I arrived!

23/8/2004

Germany Update: Weekend 1

I made a visit to the nearby tourist hotspot of Heidelberg, a town set in a steep valley on the banks of the river Necker. I took a trip up to the Schloss (castle) up on the hill to enjoy the views of the town and river below, sampled again some gorgeous and cheap German ice-cream and did the usual tourist walk around the town visiting all the “must-see” architecture including the Alte Brucke, the Altstadt and the “Best of British” shop which consisted almost solely of wooly jumpers! In the end, my feet ached from so much walking that I had to struggle to get back to the station ot catch the train home.
Sunday was spent taking it easy as in Germany, all shops are closed and the town centre is “dead”. A couple of my housemates did take me to the Badesee (swimming lake) in Heddesheim in the afternoon. Probably due to the lack of coastline here, the German’s have created a complex consisting of a lake complete with an artificial beach where they seem to go with their families to sunbathe, swim and do general beach activities. I do appreciate how lucky we are to live on an island! It was a fine day but not great day but despite the cold water, my housemates were brave enough to actually take a swim in the lake!
Well, despite all the weekend tourist activities, the novelty of being in Germany is starting to dip a little. I have now been here for 9 days, longer than the average holiday period and I am starting to miss a few things I have back home. Here, everytime people ask me where I am from (and this happens a lot) you see their faces light up when I say London. It’s as though it is the centre of the world.

28/8/2004

Party and Salsa???

Went to a party last night hosted by a student body called AISEC or something like that. They are made of of trainees from around the world. There are some German students who are “looking after them” and showing them around and organising activities for them. What was most interesting was the difference in drinking culture over here compared to in the UK, would we ever see people in the UK, after a night on the booze pick up all the empties and completely soberly take them to the bottle bank??? Even though the group were made up of people from all over the place; These are the ones I remember: Colombia, Germany, Russia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Taiwan, China, I suspect this is a continental European thing. The club afterwards was interesting too, salsa appears to be the trendy thing to get into here and people go to classes just to get good at it! It’s also at the salsa club (and not the hip-hop/r’n'b clubs) that we find all the Afro-Caribbean people. Mmmm, interesting…

4/9/2004

Partying + travelling = exhaustion

The weekend began with an evening of party at my house. It was house-mate’s 24th birthday so we spent our time drinking, meeting people and then collapsing in bed without having to travel home! How great is that!
Despite the tiredness due to the previous nights partying, today was another day of travelling and sightseeing. I had decided on Stuttgart just because the timetable I picked up from the local train station showed that it wasn’t that far away, less than an hour. Well, it would have been had the machine
not given me a ticket only useable on the “Regional-bahn” a.k.a. really slow trains that stop everywhere! That led me to board the wrong train and get stopped by the ticket inspector. But, of course, the trick of playing foreign and stupid always works and in this case I was at the time completely ignorant about my situation! Luckily, the ticket inspector allowed me to stay on the fast train if I paid part of the difference in ticket price, so I emptied my pockets!
At Stuttgart, I saw all the usual stuff mentioned on the Lonely Planet guide that I have been reading on the web whilst at work. The first place I visited was the Schlossplatz with The König Wilhelm Jubilee column in the centre and two fountains either side representing the eight rivers of Baden-Württemberg. All four sides of the square had something to see, the Art Nouveau Kunstverein, the Neues Schloss home of the state finance and culture ministries, Königsbau and the Dresner Bank. Then I continued my walk down Konigstrasse, the long pedestrianised shopping street before going to check out the market square where all the towns citizens seemed to have gone to spend their Saturday afternoons eating and drinking out at the stalls.
Then there was the Staatstheatre and Staatsgalarie, interesting works of architecture with the latter designed by Brit architect James Stirling.

8/9/2004

Playing Tarot

Drinking and playing cards in the house. I was introduced to a game called Tarot tonight, a card game in the traditional sense and nothing to do with predicting the future. It's played with four people and a set of cards with five suits...the first four are the usual clubs, spades etc. only there is an additional suit consisting of I think 20 cards numbered from 1 upwards. I still don't completely understand the rules but it was fun nonetheless.

10/9/2004

Irish Pub

Last night was the second night of drinking in a row with my house-mates. We went to the Irish Pub again, played pool, drank and made stupid movie clips with my camera. Pubs don’t have to close here at 11pm so I ended up going to bed late, am really tired at work today, cannot concentrate at all. Lucky, I don’t have that much to do…

11/9/2004

Oh no

Oh dear, it’s the third night of drinking in a row. It was Caroline’s last night in Mannheim so we went into town. We went to the Brokers’ Inn, a bar in the centre of town, the drink prices run like the stock market and drinkers have to watch the board for the price fluctuations and be ready to pounce on the waiters when there is a crash (yes, here in the pubs and bars, the bar staff bring the drinks to the punters!)
I managed to pay Euro 5,50 and Euro 3,60 for the same drink in one night!
Got to bed at about 2am. Rene is driving Caroline up to Dortmond and George is going along too to help with the move. They have leave at 6/6:30 in the morning to get the room keys.

21/9/2004

Hockenheim Ring

Well, I found out that I was living only 20 mins drive from the Hockenheim Ring, I missed the F1 by 2 weeks though. But the next best thing to watching the F1 is rollerblading around the track. Did 2x 5km laps around the track after work with some colleagues. They allow this on selected Tuesdays during the summer months where there isn't a race on.
Rene went to the F1 though and took his really cool camera capturing Button’s 2nd place with it!

22/9/2004

Last night for Sebastian

Seb returns to France tomorrow, so we are heading off to the Irish pub in Kaefertal for a drink again…Irish pub is a tradition for them and it’s sad to see it finish…

24/9/2004

Last night in Germany

Spent the night pub crawling around Heidelberg then going to a club just so that we wouldn’t have to wait outside in the rain for the first tram back to Mannheim. Finally got on a tram at about 4:45am and managed to get home by 6am, couldn’t sleep for some reason and only dropped off at 8am managing only 3 hours sleep because I had to get up and clean my room ready for my landlord’s inspection.
Then it was on to watch the beginnings of the F1 qualifying before heading off to Frankfurt to get my plane back to England.

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Photos

Necker valley in Heidelberg
View of the Necker valley and town from the castle

Fussgaengerzone in Heidelberg
The pedestrianised shopping area in the centre of Heidelberg

Brueke, Heidelberg
Bridge across the River Necker in Heidelberg

Castle in Heidelberg
View up to the Heidelberg castle

Fountain in Schlossplatz, Stuttgart
One of the two fountains on either side of The König Wilhelm Jubilee column representing the eight rivers of Baden-Württemberg (the Bundesland in which Stuttgart lies).

Schlossplatz, Stuttgart
One of the main squares in Stuttgart

Staatsgalarie in Schlossplatz, Stuttgart
The State Art Gallery

Badesee in Heddesheim
Perhaps due to the lack of coastline in Germany, there are outdoor lakes with an artificial beach area. Families brought their children here along with the full beach kit including buckets and spades! A pleasant place but the lack of tide means it doesn't really feel like the sea-side, I much preferred the lakes and surrounding trees.

Dom in Cologne
The cathedral is so hugh that it is impossible to get the whole thing into one shot even when you back away all the way to the end of the square!

Hockenheim Ring
The Hockenheim Ring!