My time has gone by too fast here in Europe. I kept telling myself I'd take a weekend break and go visit another country, and in March I finally did. My first stop...Heidelberg, Germany. I chose Heidelberg because my long lost friend Debbie Dittman was working there for none other than the US ARMY! Debbie was great and set me up with a shuttle to take from Frankfurt to Heidelberg. All by myself in the shuttle I had to make convesation with the driver. Same old converation, he asked me, where are you from?
Me: Chicago Driver: Why are you going to Heidelberg? Me: To visit a friend" Driver: What does your friend do? Me: (excited) She works for the US Army! I'm so proud of her! Driver: I see... Me: (being polite) Where are you from? Driver: Afghanistan Me:....Silence.... After my driver dropped me off at DD's, we reminissed about everything/everyone in high school I had forgotton about. It's strange, when you are young
you can name everyone in your class, but 12 years later, there are names that don't even sound familiar anymore.I told DD I wanted to do Heidelberg German style. Beer, saurkraut, (no sausage), and more beer. She took me to a little restaurant called Vetters, where I enjoyed the Guiness book of world records STRONGEST BEER (in 1994 that is). Flat stanley enjoyed it along side of me. DD translated the German menu for me, and I decided to go with something very German. Meat, potatoes (or something potato like, still not sure what it was and of course)...Saurkraut! Well HELLO MEAT...was that a big piece. Holy Carne! 
To my surprise it was an entire cow, or pig, or animal of some sort, I really don't know what it was. We spent the evening with DD's great group of friends from the Army. They are all very easy to identify since they are all fit, super short hair, no facial hair. They stand out for sure Day 2: We spent the gorgeous afternoon having a picnic on the river with 10-15 of DD's friends. What do you do when you have a picnic in the US? You grab a cooler, fill with ice, pop, foods that need to be cold, meat..etc. We wheeled our cooler from the car through past the groups of people on their picnic blankets when DD and I realized....none the german groups have gi-nourmous coolers like we do! You know the kind, blue cooler, white handle that extends up like a suitcase, and even on wheels! All the real germans had a small little thermal "lunch bag" and that was it! Its true about us Americans, we have to do everything bigger. Anyway, this group of friends we were meeting of hers, I hadn't yet met, so I didn't know who to look for...
until I saw a the only other group of people with a BIG BLUE COOLER! I laughed and said...um debbie is that them? Debbie says, "my eyes are so bad...I can't see that far....oh wait, yeah, I recognize my friends A$$ bending over, thats her!" Her group of friends were very kind. Everyone brough some great food, beer, and we sat in the sun and relaxed. I think the entire town was sitting along the river that afternoon. No cornhole or throwing a baseball...a couple of "footballs" and some weird croquet/bocce ball type games, but that was about it. That night, we went to hear her friend Jon play at a local bar. John was great. We were really into his music, having a great time....UNTIL IT HAPPENED!!! Why lord o lord did I look down.....there was this random man, sitting on a bar stool with some type of metal contraption on his leg, and a pin going through his leg bone, or flesh, or SOMETHING like that. Not only could you see it going through his leg but it was bloody! Ugh!
Day 3: DD took to eat my first German Pretzel, I swe
ar a real german pretzel is way better than the pretzels you get in bulk from sams as a kid, you know, the one you microwave, make them a little wet, let put salt on them? HA. It was delicious. We at our German Pretzels as we walked up a big hill to see Heidelberg Castle This castle was burned by the french army in 1689 then struck my lightenting 100 years later! We saw a GIANT barrel for wine in the wine Cellar in teh caslte. I hear it is the biggest in the world, 
holding 55,345 gallons of wine! Another interesting fact about the caslte is that Mark Twain visited it while on a boat trip, and inspired him to write a chapter of Huck Finn! .This was my last day, so DD and I walked through the city, at icecream, and stood on the bridge over the river looking at the city. I heard this gorgeous music coming from the bridge and we wandered over that way.
This man ( he looked more like a romanian gypsy than a german) was playing a xylophone/harpischord instrument that was just INCREDIBLE!
I've never heard such perfect music for the environment I was in. I grabbed a quick video of it to share. Finally, at the end of the afternoon DD and I stopped in a bar, took a few shots of something or other with our favorite German bartender, and then I took the train back to Amsterdam. I'm so glad I got to have the chance to meet up with my friend. I don't think we ever stopped laughing the whole trip, to the point where everyone said we laughed the same and took breaths at the same time. She and I are too similar its scary. It's a good thing we don't live in the same town or else we would get ourselves into trouble for sure.
Day 3: DD took to eat my first German Pretzel, I swe
ar a real german pretzel is way better than the pretzels you get in bulk from sams as a kid, you know, the one you microwave, make them a little wet, let put salt on them? HA. It was delicious. We at our German Pretzels as we walked up a big hill to see Heidelberg Castle This castle was burned by the french army in 1689 then struck my lightenting 100 years later! We saw a GIANT barrel for wine in the wine Cellar in teh caslte. I hear it is the biggest in the world, 
holding 55,345 gallons of wine! Another interesting fact about the caslte is that Mark Twain visited it while on a boat trip, and inspired him to write a chapter of Huck Finn! .This was my last day, so DD and I walked through the city, at icecream, and stood on the bridge over the river looking at the city. I heard this gorgeous music coming from the bridge and we wandered over that way.This man ( he looked more like a romanian gypsy than a german) was playing a xylophone/harpischord instrument that was just INCREDIBLE!
I've never heard such perfect music for the environment I was in. I grabbed a quick video of it to share. Finally, at the end of the afternoon DD and I stopped in a bar, took a few shots of something or other with our favorite German bartender, and then I took the train back to Amsterdam. I'm so glad I got to have the chance to meet up with my friend. I don't think we ever stopped laughing the whole trip, to the point where everyone said we laughed the same and took breaths at the same time. She and I are too similar its scary. It's a good thing we don't live in the same town or else we would get ourselves into trouble for sure.
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