Skibosh here! Hope everyone had a great weekend. So our trip is slowly coming to an end. We only have two days left in Germany and one long, long travel day.
After the long and exhausting day we had yesterday, we decided to take it a little easier today. In the morning 8 people got ready, ate breakfast and caught a train to Heidelberg. It was pretty astonishing, but we had the help of Oli, our drill sergeant, to keep us on schedule. He did an awesome job.
We did lose Yi today. She had to fly back home to the states. Her parents are visiting from China, so she has another whole adventure waiting for her as soon as she gets off the plane. We will miss you, Yi!
Let’s see, where to begin. Why not with some beer. Last night at dinner we realized that I was on beer number 41 and Spaulding was on beer number 36.
Spaulding and I decided to make sure our beer count ended on round numbers so she will try and drink at least 4 more beers to get her to 40 and I will try and drink 9 more beers to get me to the big 5-0. So in order for me to hit that number I needed to start drinking right away. So that morning before the first train, and while I was waiting for the second, I had beer number 42 and 43.
If you take a good look at the clocks behind me you will realize I started to drink before 10 am and had my second beer by noon. First time in my life I drank before 2:00 in the afternoon. It didn’t matter. I knew I could handle it. After all, I am in Germany and that is what I have been doing for the past 10 plus days. It did not affect me one bit…
Okay, so maybe I took a nap after the second beer but…who wouldn’t! When I awoke from my little beer slumber we were in Heidelberg. One of the only major cities in Germany that was not bombed during World War II. Great Britain and Germany made a deal that if Germany did not bomb Cambridge, then they would not bomb Heidelberg. The deal stuck and now we were now able to enjoy Heidelberg and all of its original German architecture today!
Our main goal in Heidelberg was to visit the Heidelberg Castle. Once we arrived in town we headed up the hill to the castle. Damn rich people always wanting the best view in town. Once we made it up to the castle the view was pretty amazing, like they all are.
See…right there in the lower left corner it’s a pretty cool view, the amazing part is on the right side of the picture…yes I am talking about Spaulding and I. We rock!
Just kidding…here is a better picture of the view from the castle. You could pretty much see all of Heidelberg and even all the way to Mannheim which is where Becca and Oli are currently living…right across from Club Hans, but we’ll get to that later.
The tour of the castle was nice. The most interesting thing about this castle is that a lot of different German royalty had lived here and they all had different tastes so the castle is a collage of different architecture styles.
The best part of the entire castle was its wine cellar, which holds the largest wine barrel in the world.
Pretty big huh!? Funny thing is, that’s not it. I’m serious, that is super puny to the real one. Check it out!
I couldn’t even fit it all into frame. It is crazy huge!
After the tour we headed back in town to grab some food and continue the beer count. We ate at a nice little cafe in the middle of one of the markets and worked on our beer count, along with some fine bakery.
Once we finished we all headed to Mannheim to meet up with Oli and Jani who drove all of our luggage there separately. Really, those two are saints!
Once we all got to Becca and Oli’s apartment the most unbelievable thing happened, eight people showered, changed, and got themselves done up in only 45 minutes with only one bathroom. Seriously, ONE bathroom.
The reason for the rush was because we had dinner reservations at a nice restaurant in Mannheim which was right on the river. We met up with some of Oli’s colleagues, Alexandra, Heiko and Harald. We enjoyed hearing and telling Oli and Becca stories to one another and I tried to convince Heiko and Harald to make a trip out to L.A. and more importantly Vegas! We’ll have to wait and see how enticing I was.
It was also a farewell dinner because this evening would be the last night that Karl, Ed and Darlene would be with us. They were off to Italy to start a new adventure themselves. To send them off in style we ordered an ice cream sundae and called it a night…
almost…you see, on way back to the apartment there was no way we could pass Club Hans without taking a picture. Make sure to read the headline under the club’s name. Awesome…if that doesn’t draw a crowd, I don’t know what would.
Unfortunately, that is our best attempt at being “sexy” clubbers. I don’t think we would be let in. Oh well, I guess I should just have another beer before calling it a night.
So should Spaulding!
Yes, that is the big 4-0 for Spaulding. She beat me to our goals. Oh well, leave it to her to always come in first. Alright, enough drinking and eating for one day.
Skibosh Out!
P.S. I really don’t understand Spaulding’s obsession with me sleeping. I mean you take one lousy photo of a super hero on a plane and you can never live it down.
Marty, has anyone ever told you that you look a lot like baby Jesus, in swaddling clothes at least.
Hey, put that picture back!