drinks and dancing ahoy

tonight i'm going out clubbing in mannheim. apparently we are going to one of the biggest clubs in this region of germany. it should be fun and i am promised there is to be no gluhwein anywhere. it's funny how i've gone from loving that sweet sweet elixir to being completely wary of it. anyway, the night is starting with me cooking dinner. a chicken and creamy sauce with spinach and cheese ravioli. then a few beers. probably kronfels (i translated this page through google so i hope it works!), as it's very cheap and comes in half litre bottles. wash all that down with a few jagermeister shots and then off we go.

it will be interesting though, as we have to catch the train to mannheim from heidelberg and then a quick cab ride from the station. it reminds me of being at home - a few drinks followed by that train/tram ride where you hope that you've drunk enough to still be feeling it once you've gone from essendon to st kilda. if we time it just right it should take a little less time to get to mannheim than it would to get to st kilda, but german transport being what it is, we could end up in frankfurt or even strasbourg again. hope not, as the alcohol will not last that length of time. unless we somehow get the fancy fast train and sneak some jagermeister in for the journey.

anyhow, i hope all goes well, because this will be my first time out in mannheim that wasn't just to see a movie, do something fancy or just shop. i'm pretty excited, but not too much. i don't want to burn out early and these clubs look and sound awesome. jungle, house, crazy euro style dance and everything in between. i only hope that i can find good enough clothes to go out with. the washing machine is still being unhelpful and it's starting to get cold out. oh well, a few jagermeisters and i wont even realise what's going on. now, all that's left to do is eat some dinner, get drunk and avoid gluhwein like the plague.

i'll let you all know how it goes.

tchuss

random musings 2

as a couple of people have said that my last post was a little negative, or that i simply had a bad day, i'm going to take this opportunity to say some of the things i like about germany just so you know that i like it here. (i've also included the pronunciation of numbers so that i can help remember how to say them and to show people back home the difference between the numbers and how to say them)

number eins (i-nz) - the beer is fantastic and cheap. i picked up a six-pack of half litre beers for 1.99euro. that's right, 3 litres of beer for something like $3.50! and even the crap beer tastes good. it's nothing like at home where you pay way too much for beer that tastes like crap. unless of course you're willing to pay for something that's either imported or classed as a luxury fancy beer. and of course you can't go wrong with 3 litres of beer. 3 LITRES!?!

number swei (zvy) - the architecture is amazing. it's like walking around fairy tale village. (see my previous posts for examples of this)

number drei (dry) - the baked goods and fruit are something to really get excited over. i haven't had fruit this good since i lived in queensland. the bakery food is exquisite. they have these things called berliners which are basically a jam donut, but instead of having sugar or cinnamon over them they have this really fine version of icing sugar, that coupled with the great fruit, which lends itself to delicious jam, cannot be beat. unless of course you go to france and eat a proper eclair. i had a chocolate one in strasbourg and it was unbelievably tasty. i went halves with alexis, but i really didn't want to give him any, i just wanted to inhale the damn thing! (all this being said is wonderful, but as an australian, some of the food does scare me slightly - be wary of the dark wursts. i nearly ate something that was made of pig's blood. ech!?!)

number fur (fear) - the staring thing. even though i mention this in my last post, i think it's funny therefore good. i've learnt to stare back and it makes for great amusement on public transport. the only problem is i start smiling and laughing, which means i have to look away first and makes me lose the staring contest half the time.

number funf - the shopping. as most of you who know me in real life know, i love shopping when it's good shopping. i'm talking about clothes here, not grocery shopping (which i'll get to next). some of the clothes here are fantastic, some not so much, but most of it is wonderful. cecilia (one of my dearest friends) would die to buy some of these fashions. unfortunately mannheim has better shops than heidelberg, but there are still some shops here that are fantastic. as you can guess, strasbourg france has better clothes, but they are slightly more expensive, so i put forward that the shopping is better in germany. by the way, who knew that espirit had a fully-stocked male's section? at home it's all girly clothes, here they have wonderful guy's clothes. i even bought the jacket i love so dearly there. and it's fairly inexpensive. espirit also just clothed the european MTV awards, so you know they have cool funky stuff. i'll fully go into clothes shopping in another post. i have some pet peeves and some wonderful things to say about it. but again, anyone who knows me, knows that i have opinions about everything so this wont come as a shock.

number sechts (zex) - grocery shopping. i love grocery shopping here for the pure fact that i have no idea what i'm buying half the time. the other half, i've either taken my dictionary with me, or i've guessed by the picture on the box. the main reason i love it, is because it always feels like an adventure and things are very cheap to buy here, which means i can get a giggle and some food at a very low cost to my wallet and my self-esteem.

number sieben (zee-bin) - i know i've mentioned architecture, but this is different. THE CASTLE!!! i freakin' love the castle. i could look at it all day long and never tire of it. i know i still haven't posted about it, or strasbourg for that matter, but i have the weekend to myself (alexis went to nice to visit a friend) and i plan on blogging up a storm, so be patient damn you!

number acht (oct) - the language and language education. as far as i can remember i have liked three languages more than the others, russian, japanese and german. granted german isn't a hot language, but the sounds made while talking it intrigue me. you should hear little kids speak, they sound so cute. here people know several languages, as is the case throughout western europe i assume, it makes you think that we should be taught more in school in australia. i know of some little kids about 5-6 who can speak german, a little french, a little spanish and a little english, which is way more than i can. so pull your finger out australia and don't follow the path of america and england, where you think that english is the only thing worth learning because you're too bloody arrogant to look outside your own country and it's immediate neighbours.

that's all for now, there's heaps more, but i'll leave that for another post.
tschuss

main street (hauptstrasse)

(for some unknown reason blogger wont let me spell check or add images. i'll try do this later so keep your snooty comments about this to yo'self for now, fool!!!)

to follow on from what i was writing yesterday, my companions and i walked the philosopher's walk (philosophenweg) and down across the river neckar via the old bridge. this bridge leads us through the keep and into the old town. (to note i have no idea if this construction is a keep, a ford or what have you. if any medieval nerds reading this know what it is technically called then please let me know. i am nowhere near nerdy enough to know of these matters.) this was my first visit to the old town and to the main streets of heidelberg. it seems strange to me that this most touristy of places is actually a thriving shopping district and used regularly by the residents of the city. if it was in australia, or anywhere in the more westernised and recently-built places, it would be heritage listed and everything that lay inside would be untouched and companies such as mcdonald's and starbucks would be denied permits to sell their sub-par wares. however, in germany it seems the corporate and comercial spirit is alive and well. that being said, unlike frankfurt, these corporations seem to have gotten into the spirit of the old town and given that the main street is exactly that, a main street, they don't seem that out of place. in frankfurt the starbucks and subway 'restaurant' in the old town stick out like sore thumb and ruin the atmosphere and view, blighting any picture taken.

i digress, so we walked into the old town and into the small alleyways (steingasse). the first thing i notice is the market feel of the place. everything looks and feels like you've gone back in time. as if at any moment a guy in a suit of armour and riding a horse will canter past claiming the french have begun their attack on the western front. incidentally the french did attack heidelberg and burnt the place to the ground. (reading the history of heidelberg it turns out that nearly every race has had a go at trying to claim heidelberg. the french, the bavarians, the americans and even the swedish have had a go. i've been waiting to hear if the dutch or the italians tried, i'm sure somewhere around here i'll adventually hear something about them.) having a guy ride past on a horse is actually not so stupid a concept, it turns out that there is a hotel/pub here on the haupstrasse that was initially used by knights to sleep after quests and such. just a place for them to hang out, get drunk and shag a local barmaid, proclaiming stories of past deeds and galantness of all sorts. (the picture here is of the knights' hangout)

one of the first things you see after walking into this area is a strange monkey cat thing with a space in it's head for you to put your head in for a photo. i seriously doubt this was here back in the day, but makes for a very amusing photo op and continues the german tradition of strange and random things getting immortalised in statue form. no one i was with could tell me why it was here and no one could even guess. it just was. i made alexis put his head in it for shits and giggles, and yes i did giggle, but no shitting cause that's for berlin or frankfurt. this is a classy city, not one of 'those' german cities (link nwf). apart from the weird mokey cat thing statue, everything else here is like i said, straight out of the past. our first stop along this trail was a small pub (brauhaus - i think that's how you spell it - means brew house) which makes its own beer in either light or heavy. (note that in germany light and heavy means light or dark in colour, not the amount of alcoholic content) and me not being a fan of guinessy drinks or dark ales, chose the light. it was fantastic and had i have not been suffering still from jetlag and not being with companions that included kids, i would have insisted on staying for more. but then again, on reflection, i think i had consumed enough alcohol to stop a hoard of rhinos in the past couple of days so it was a good thing that we continued on our way after one. the beers are freakin' huge here, so after two i'd probably be pissed. looks like all the pint drinking in preparations for this trip with kiwi ben (my old work colleague) and irish pete did nothing to prepare me. at least i have the australian drinking culture down, we may get tipsy a little quicker, but by god can we keep going and outdrink nearly everyone. (ask my canadian friends about their trips to australia and what they can remember for evidence of this) but then again what else would you expect from the second biggest beer drinking nation after germany. in this particular pub there are wooden seats that run parrallel to the wooden tables that are setout cafeteria side along one wall and run around the corners, while on the other side of the building from the tables and chairs there is the bar and next to that, two huge metal vats for the beer making. sitting down and enjoying our beers you can't help but notice all the stuff over the walls. i personally liked the dodgy painting of the drunk monk holding some kind of drinking flagon. turns out that monks used to originally make the beer here and i can see why, it's heavenly. (haha... sorry couldn't resist the crappy one liner) there's german sayings written over the walls (all of which i obviously can't understand) and over the doors and above the bar are fake grape vines, which i assume to mean they make their own wine too. don't ask me where, cause i don't know and don't care, i'm here for beer! if i wanted wine i would have stayed in australia or maybe gone to france or italy.

so anyway we left after a beer and continued on down the steingasse and around a corner, which then opened up into the fischmarkt and the marktplatz (for those not getting the german lingo - fish market and marketplace). here you can see the marvelous church of the holy spirit and the city hall. (church pictured) the church dates back to 1693 and for awhile was the largest gothic building in the former palatinate, an earlier name for the heidelberg area when it was under rule by one of the surrounding kingdoms. just as a side-note of star wars related stupidity, everytime the name palatinate comes up, i want to say palpatine. it makes me giggle thinking that the area was once under rule by the evil leader of the sith. hehehe... ahem... in the middle of the marktplatz is a statue, i don't know what of, but it's not that impressive compared to other statues i've seen. and nowhere near as amusing as the monkey cat thing or the random giger alien made from spare car parts in a chandelier shop front that i saw much later.

from here we start our way down the hauptstrasse and walk for what seems like an enternity. the hauptstrasse in heidelberg is apparently one the longest in germany, perhaps europe. it goes on forever. to compare, if you took the main CBD of melbourne including QV, melbourne central and the 'paris' end of collins street and layed them in one long row you'd get something similar but probably still not as long. this is pretty impressive considering the population of melbourne is something like 3.2 million and heidelberg is about 150,000. i personally would have been in shopping heaven, if it weren't for the picturesque buildings and absolutely gob-smacking scenery. i think you can all guess by now that i am in love with the way heidelberg looks. the people and culture i don't know about yet as i've only just got here and only know one german person who lives here. but if the looks are anything to go by, this place is definately on the list of world's prettiest places. montreal and madrid can kiss my arse. not that i've been there, but they'll have to try pretty bloody hard to beat this. having said that, alexis has shown me pictures of oporto in portugal and it might just do it.

the shops that lie along the hauptstrasse are of varied sorts. everything from vodafone (dear god, my old work is everywhere!) and thai restaurants, to winter clothing stores and traditional german souviners. there is also a christmas store along here, which my mother would have died to get her hands on some the items inside. i took some pictures of it to taunt her with, cause there is no way in hell i'm wasting room in my return luggage for christmas nonsense. considering it's still october i can't wait to see what comes out for december. from what i hear there's also a huge christmas market that gets set up in the marktplatz and you can get everything there from gifts to christmas hams. just something else to make my mother jealous.

to finish up, the walk along the hauptstrasse ends at the main public transport junction. not as exciting as the start of the walk, alot more functional. hehehe... here you can see the diversity of the inhabitants of heidelberg. students, corporate suits, funky hipster types and your basic heidelbergers. i'm a little dissapointed at the serious lack of gothic and hardcore germans, but i think they live in the of the country. but then again i haven't been out that much and i'm sure they're somewhere here, after all this is germany. i did see an emo in mannheim, but that journey's for the next entry. so we made our way back to the car, crossing the neckar river once again, this time via a modern bridge and down bruckenstrasse. two of the most amusing things are along this street - an eyeglasses shop with red fake cows on the roof (i haven't figured out why) and a big grey building which has written on it 'heidelberg klinik fur plastische und kosmetische chirurgie' which means, you guessed it - heidelberg clinic for plastic and cosmetic surgery. until next time, when i talk about mannheim, buying my jacket (which i am not-so-secretly in love with), enter a church that still stands after i leave and other random events. auf wiedersehen.