Castles and Noodles

Well, another day in Germany is rolling quickly to an end. Truthfully, it is over. I have been doing 'work' in my room for over an hour, since I returned from a pub. Darn this time change - it's only 7 pm at home- 6 am will come mighty early 5 hours from now!

Have I mentioned I LOVE breakfast here? Despite waking up feeling slightly ill- I blame the 'pork knuckle' I had at dinner last night (back to that in a second) - I was happy to enjoy another breakfast of meat & cheese on a bun! Pork knuckles.. 'what are they?' you may wonder. Look at your knuckle, now think of a pig's knee and you have the idea, sort of. The outside, which was essentially skin, was tough and crispy, while the inside was fall-apart-pork. All in all, it was pretty good... until I woke up this morning with a sore tummy. Lunch today was pork again, so I opted for a second helping of the smoked salmon and salad app. We also had 'spatzel', which are a type of egg noodle.

Besides eating, today's agenda also included the city of Heidelberg. The city, the basis of the Romaticism period, was one of the only cities not destroyed in WWII by the Allies. As a result, the old city stands as it did hundreds of years ago after it was rebuilt, following the 30 year's war.

Not only a beautiful city, but it had several more Christmas markets, complete with a giant pyramid, or 'twirly-ma-bob' as I have taken to calling the traditional, German wood decorations. I have yet to decide if they are tacky or intriguing, but I do know they would be a pain to dust.

After another dinner of egg noodles, stuffed chicken and wonderful cream of potato & salmon soup, we were seranaded by a violin with keys that sounded like a bagpipe. According to the tale, it's an instrument from the 1100's, and in English, it's called a wirley-girley. Doesn't sound like a real name to me either, but it was entertaining to say the least!

I can not get over how tap water is not consumed here. In restaurants, and even in people's homes, they drink bottled water. Is the water really not that good? I was expecting the sparkling water, but not so much bottled. Perhaps not surprisingly, a bottle of water is twice as expensive as a chocolate bar and in some cases, more money than beer. Guess we know what that means.. chocolate and beer for all!

This last picture is at Heidelberg Castle. Funny enough, I think I took all the same pictures as the last time I visited, but with different strangers in them. The day was significantly more dull also - a very damp 7 or 8 degrees, with heavy fog for most of the day and rain in the evening. No snow here!