Day 20-21 - Darmstadt

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So I have two days worth of blogging to catch up on. Yesterday it was Markus and Nora's wedding day, so we didn't do much in the morning until we went to the wedding at 3pm. Technically Markus and Nora got married on Friday (legally) but yesterday was their ceremony and reception. The ceremony was done in German so we didn't understand too much, but we knew what was going on. It differs slightly from the New Zealand weddings as the groom meets the bride at the back of the church and they walk up the isle together, and they sit facing the priest rather than standing up facing each other. We attempted to sing some hymns in German (which was a challenge) and then we went outside where we were given balloons and postcards where we wrote a message and let the balloon fly away...... Except almost all the balloons got stuck in the tree haha. After the ceremony we got a taxi to the reception which was so cool! They had hired out an old hall with glass windows everywhere with beautiful big chandeliers inside and was next to the railway. They had a person doing caricature pictures for the guests and when we sat down they had chocolate pebbles with Markus and Nora's name and pictures on them, while another chocolate piece had our names on it so we knew where to sit. The food was amazing, we had four courses of food so were so full afterwards. Throughout the courses family and friends did their speeches and then after dinner there was lots of dancing. Some of us got given tasks we had to do throughout the night. Eg. mine was to get the bride and groom to kiss (which was an easy one) so we found out that when you tap your glass with a fork, it's to make the bride and groom kiss, so we went up to them and got them to do that in front of everyone. Blair and I didn't leave until 3am but the bride and groom and friends and family were still going! It was a beautiful wedding and was so much fun!

Today we travelled to Heidelberg where we navigated our way to the famous castle. We got lost a few times but one of the members of the public showed us where to go and even went out of her way to walk us to the tram to get to the castle.Tonight we are having an easy night and going to a German restaurant for dinner.

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