Heidelberg

The first time I noticed it was on the metro, at the Charles de Gaulle – Etoile stop on line 1. As the doors of the train open, a warning plays in five languages. In French, it says something to the extent of  “Pay attention when getting off of the train,” while the English version says “Please watch the gap between the train and the platform.” I noticed it to a much greater extent when we went to see Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close at the movies this week (it was not dubbed over but the subtitles were in French). It is often difficult to translate a particular expression between to languages while keeping the intended sentiment, but sometimes a phrase is translated incompletely or completely differently and I don’t understand why.

We are currently on our way back to Paris, stopped at a station just over the border into France, and a few moments ago an announcement was made in German, French, and English telling us that we will be waiting here for 20 minutes or so. The English announcement informed us that due to a technical error, we must wait for the train heading in our direction to pass before we can depart. The French announcement, made immediately afterward, said that something had fallen on the track. Not quite the same thing. They also just made another announcement that I could not completely understand between the speed of the French and the rough sound of the intercom but which said something about a woman coming to car 25, which we are sitting in. The announcement was only made in French though, so I guess they figure that all of the other passengers can figure it out themselves.

Heidelberg was completely amazing. It is exactly how I’ve always pictured a German or Austrian city. Unscathed by World War II, even while nearby Mannheim was bombed, the city is old and beautiful.
After I was disappointed when realizing no one was going to check and stamp my passport, on Friday, we went out to eat at an Asian restaurant called MoshMosh in Heidelberg. Afterward, we headed to Mannheim for a party for two of Kristin’s (our friend from Fairfield whom we stayed with) friends. They had jointly rented out a bar, located in a school-owned building (Kristin wasn’t sure if it was apartments or if it had another function), so it was small but atmospheric and fun. And most people were speaking English, because there were so many international students.

Yesterday, we stayed in Heidelberg. Heidelberg is split in half with an “old” and a “new” Heidelberg. We wandered around the old Heidelberg, with historic buildings and lots of shops and eateries. For lunch, I had schnitzel (not with noodles like I was expecting from the song), which as I found out is fried meat, usually veal but I had pork and even though I’m not a huge fan of pork, it was very good. Kristin got ___ and I tried a bite and it was delicious as well; a little like a German version of baked lasagna. We went to a little chocolate shop where they make small chocolate hearts – nothing extraordinary until you know the tradition of them. Apparently, years ago, it was difficult and not always appropriate for boys to express interest in a girl because her governess was always present. So, to signify that they liked a girl they would give her one of these chocolate hearts. And naturally, since no boy was there to do such a thing for me, I bought one for myself.

I’m trying to collect street signs everywhere I go in Europe. Just to be clear, I mean street signs from a gift shop, not ones that I steal. I wasn’t able to find one in Heidelberg, but I am also collecting newspapers and flags, easier finds. If you’re curious as to why I’m collecting newspapers when I can only read in French, I’m going to laminate the front pages when I get back to the U.S. and use them to decorate my walls, also serving as a kind of timeline of my semester abroad.

I love Heidelberg. Put simply, it is the epitome of European charm.

Kristin lives in the suburb section of Heidelberg. She actually lives on a recently converted U.S. military base. The barracks are now used as university housing, and even as U.S. troops are finally pulling out of Germany, there are actually still bases nearby. It was also interesting because as Kirstin pointed out, all the flagpoles in Heidelberg are bare. Flags are generally only displayed on holidays, because it’s a nationalistic display, and the whole nationalism thing didn’t work out so well for Germany last time, so Germans avoid certain demonstrations of it now.

When we were in Kristin’s kitchen on Friday afternoon, out of the window we saw sitting in a tree these bright green birds that. One of Kirstin’s roommates, Maria, who is from another part of Germany said that the first time she saw them, she thought they had escaped from the zoo. Particular to the Heidelberg region, the birds stay there in the winter because it has a warmer climate than others.

To get back to our day, we also climbed up to the medieval castle that is built on the mountain overlooking the city. It was a short but steep climb, and the view from the castle was spectacular, especially because we were there as the sun was setting. On one of the courtyard floors, there is a footprint imbedded in the stone. The story goes something like there was a princess of the castle, and a knight who loved her. One night, the knight visited the princess in her room, but the king was approaching so he promised to return and leapt out the window, leaving his footprint in the courtyard below. To add to the mythology, it is said if you put your own foot in the footprint, you will one day return to Heidelberg. For a similar fate, there is a statue of a monkey with a coin by the arch of the bridge over the Neckar River; if you put your hand in his mouth, you will also one day return to Heidelberg, although the more popular practice seems to be to stick your entire head in the monkey.

This sense of romance I felt throughout Heidelberg. Everything seemed a little storybookish. As we walked down the cobblestone slope from the castle into town, we passed small, colorful cottages whose shutters honestly looked like they were painted on the face of the house.

The German people were extremely kind, and even as Kristin spoke in German for us most of the time, in the few cases I spoke English, it wasn’t a problem. The Germans’ responses in English were great. I noticed that any time they didn’t know how to express themselves or couldn’t think of a word in English, they would just stop talking, shrug a little, and smile and laugh. There was something so friendly about this. And on my part, I leave Germany knowing only how to say danke – “thank you” – and bitte warten  - “please wait.” I know that when you bump into someone and want to say “sorry,” you just say “sorry” in English because certain English words are incorporated into their daily vocabulary, particularly when it is simpler to express something that way.

The train manager just made another announcement – in French, we thought she said she was going to give us champagne before we go to Paris because of the technical difficulty, but in English she said we have to transfer in Champagne before we go to Paris because of the technical difficulty. I forgot Champagne was a place. A little disappointing.