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Published: August 7th 2007
After a week in Ireland with my parents and my aunt, I flew (along with my parents) to Switzerland. Switzerland was as beautiful as ever, and I had a great time exploring a new bit of it, as well as visiting with relatives and paragliding (which I have wanted to do since the last time I was there. By the way, it was totally worth it; absolutely amazing!). From there, we drove to Heidelberg where I will be calling my home for the next 7 weeks. The city is quite cute, especially the old part of town, and the view from the castle is incredible.
After a few days, of exploring the city, my parents left to fly back to Colorado, and I moved into my new apartment (which I have to admit is a little bit of a dump but I think I'll live---at least the water is fit for human consumption unlike the Crypto water in Galway (that was fun)). I ended up on the upper of the two apartment floors belonging to the school. The lower one is entirely made up of girls (6 of them), and where I am is entirely made up of boys, with the
Heidelberg
View from the castle
exception of my roommate Kendra and I (so there are 6 boys and us two girls, one bathroom for all of us, one shower, and a mini fridge---kind of ridiculous) which makes things very interesting to say the least (the guys are all very nice though).
Classes began on Monday, and about half way through the week, I decided that the class that I had pretty much begged to be put into was too hard for me and therefore had to ask to be put back into the beginners German class which I have named Kindergarten due to the fact that songs, as well as puppets are not an unusual occurrence (Yes, it is sad that my four years of German have basically taught me nothing).
Since then, my days have consisted of class, then a lot of free time in which I will sometimes walk the Hauptstrasse, and look at all the clothes that I can't afford to buy, other times I end up doing a whole lot of nothing. The weather has been extremely hot, which is bad enough, but on top of that there is humidity, which coming from a state that gets little to no humidity
Heidelberg
The old bridge makes it extremely miserable. Two weekends ago, close to where our apartment is located there was a sort of carnival, complete with cotton candy (and tons of other tempting treats), lots of beer, bumper cars, games, and boat swings (which are these little boats that you get into and have to make move forward and backwards---like a swing. The Germans were able to get them so high that they looked as if at any moment they would make a complete circle, however, they are not as easy as they look. The multitude of Americans who attempted them in fact, were barely able to get them half way up---it was a sad sight to watch----yet, despite the fact that we are apparently inept at boat swinging, it was still fun to try). Little to say, the majority of us spent the better part of the weekend at the carnival.
So far I have been having a great time in Heidelberg, meeting new people and seeing new things. Heidelberg is cute as can be, and I am optimistic that by the end, my German will have improved (even though it is hard when you are constantly surrounded by English speakers).
Heidelberg
Some sort of coliseum we hiked up to.
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