Friday was an exciting day - I signed the contract for my new job! I am going to work at the Community Bank on base as a bank teller. The hours are good, Chris and I will be done around the same time every day. The money and benefits are great, and after 6 months they will pay for my masters! Ongoing is my search for a decent online college.
Friday evening Chris and I met several friends at the movie theater in Landstuhl to see the new Batman. Going to the movies in Germany is fun! We already had tickets, so we jumped in the concessions line along with everyone else to buy a nice, cold beer to enjoy during the movie. How fun is that, buying a beer at the movie theater to drink during the movie. Chris was happy about it! The movie was very good, of course Chris helped me hide my eyes during the more violent bits.
After the movie we went to Chili's (yes, ironically enough there is a Chili's on base) with some friends to eat dinner, it was fun.
Saturday morning (our 3 month anniversary as a married couple) Chris and I woke up bright and early to catch a train. We went to the train station in our town expecting to find a machine at which to purchase the ticket, yet there was no such machine in sight. We drove to the next town to that train station and luckily there were locals waiting for a train, so I spoke to them in German and figured out that the machine for buying the tickets is in the train. So we got on the train and bought our tickets to Kaiserslautern!
At Kaiserslautern we checked the departures and bought tickets for the next train to Heidelberg, and Chris got some coffee to perk up. Of course, when we arrived in Heidelberg we were afraid of getting off at the wrong stop and decided to get off the train, which happened to not be the stop we wanted. It was on the outskirts of Heidelberg, so we gave ourselves a lovely walking tour of the university and more recent parts of town.
Making our way to the Aldstadt (old town) was a pleasant walk. We could have hopped on a bus, but the weather was great and we were enjoying ourselves (I'm paying for it today, the back of my knee hurts. How does the back of my knee hurt?) Alas, we made it to the Aldstadt and I convinced Chris to walk through the Kathe Wolfart with me! It's a huge Christmas store, there's a way bigger one in Rothenburg and we have a tiny one on base. Walking around more we started reading the menus posted outside, and decided on an Irish pub for lunch. It was quite good!
After lunch we walked up to the Neckar river. We saw boats with tourists cruising around, and had a great view of the Alte Brucke (old bridge). We walked along the bank a bit and found some neat buildings, and the remains of a synagogue. Next we went into the beautiful Heiliggeistkirche which I remember going in last summer. The organ in it is a good size (I'm a huge fan of the organs in German churches, that's where they were first created!). I was sad we couldn't stay for that evening's concert in the church, they were doing a 4 hour Bach concert with an organ recital, a choir, and so much more.
Our next adventure was the Heidelberg Castle. To get to the castle, one must climb up a very, very steep road. The picture I took does not do the steepness justice. Of course, after that picture my batteries died and I was unable to capture the rest of the day on film. We made it up to the castle, and decided to explore the gardens. There were cute little white sheep grazing in the garden! We walked along paths and had a beautiful view of the city. Climbing down the hill was easier, but still difficult.
The next exploration led us across the Alte Brucke to the Schlangenweg and the Philosophenweg. The Schlangenweg (snake path) was a really neat, but steeply uphill, stone windy curvy path up to the Philosophenweg. It wound around here and there, and went back and forth between steep inclines and steps. It was quite cool though, for most of it there were stone walls along the sides with an open top. After resting at a few benches, we made it to the top! At the top was the Philosophenweg (Philosopher's path) that gave us a beautiful view of the castle, town, and river with gardens all along it. After resting some more we walked a little along the path, and then made the treacherous trip back down the Schlangenweg.
After all those hills, we decided it was time for some ice cream. We ate gelato, my favorite!, at a lovely little Roman cafe. It was late afternoon and we were exhausted from all that walking, so we decided to head home. It took a while to find the right train station, but after asking a nice local German we made it to the station and right on home.
We're proud of ourselves for having a successful trip! We tried things, and sometimes it took a few tries to do what we were trying to do but we learned a lot from our experience. We're excited to travel again soon! Traveling by train is quite handy, and it's pretty peaceful too.
While we were gone interesting things happened in our flower bed. The daylilies bloomed, and they're beautiful! But we either had really hard wind or a really hard rain, because the rest of my poor little flowers are very droopy and their stems are weakened from some sort of force :-( I trimmed a few flowers, I suppose it wasn't exactly dead-heading but getting there, and I hope it will help them flower back stronger.
Now we've reached the end of our lazy Sunday, and we're going to bed to get more rest before our busy Monday!
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