Hei times in Heidelberg

Tina is in Germany!

More specifically, she's visiting her old university town of Heidelberg, where she spends a couple weeks each year catching up with old friends (and random acquaintances on the street). And by "catching up with," I mean "bombarded by": breakfast with this person, lunch with another, then coffee with someone else, all before meeting up with these or those people for dinner. Haha, by the time she goes back, the girl probably looks forward to the new school year as an opportunity to relax!

Thus Nigel and I decided that this would be an ideal time to pop by and smother her with even more whirlwind socialization. Yesterday, the two of us met up at the Heidelberg Hauptbahnhof around 1 o'clock, and then took off to find our Bavarian girl in the Hauptstraße (a lovely street that penetrates the expansive and beautiful pedestrian Altstadt).

We had all these plans to explore the city -- visit this museum, see that sight, you know, do stuff -- but in the end, we just found ourselves not really wanting to do anything except eat, drink, and chat, chat, chat. In addition, Nigel lives in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, where he gets more than his share of baguettes and cheese on a regular basis. Therefore, part of our mission was also to fill him up with as much good, hearty, rustic German food as we possibly could before packing him back into his train.

So first thing's first, we went in search of lunch. We found it in a cafe with a garden, where Nigel was ceremoniously stuffed with Jägerschnitzel, Pommes, salad, and beer. (I, on the other hand, have had access to plenty of hearty Essen over the last nine months, so I wimped out with a simple soup and espresso.)

It was well over two hours later before we finally hauled ourselves out of our comfy seats and trundled, belching, to the Studentenkarzer: a nineteenth-century detention center for students at the University of Heidelberg, who had disturbed the peace with such shocking offenses as playing in the city fountains, singing loudly in the streets as a consequence of too much drink, or publicly jeering at local authorities. The Karzer is an unremarkable, three-story stone house in the middle of the scenic Old City, whose various rooms had been transformed into dormlike cells for the rowdy students to cool their heels for anywhere from two days to up to a month. Over the years, it took on a sort of romantic appeal: students began to view a stay at the Karzer as somewhat of a University of Heidelberg tradition. The walls are absolutely covered with clever poems written in candlesoot (and gorgeous, tidy, 19th-century educated handwriting); silhouettes of the inmates; murals; laments for missed girlfriends; funny anecdotes detailing "offenses"; and all kind of interesting bits of art. The Karzer was turned into a museum in 1914, and its elegantly entertaining graffiti has been carefully preserved for almost a century.

After taking pictures of ourselves behind bars, we then moseyed around various other university buildings before deciding it was time for more beer. The sunlight started to take on a golden tone as we found another outdoor cafe in the Marktplatz; and we then spent another couple hours talking each other's ears off over a cold, sparkly Radler.

Every now and then, someone would halfheartedly suggest that maybe we should be, like, walking around and seeing the city and stuff? At which point, the conversation would go something like this:

Person Two: "Oh yeah. Uh... well, we've all seen the castle about a dozen times."

Three: "And it's at least a ten-minute walk from here."

Universal sigh. Person Two: "How about the Brückentor (Bridge Gate)?"

Person One: "How far is it?"

Vague hand wave. "Oh, I dunno. Fifty feet that way?"

Significant consideration of this daunting odyssey. Finally: "...All right. Let's take a picture of the Brückentor, and then go find some dinner."

We drag ourselves once again from our umbrella'ed table, and spend about fifteen minutes hanging over the edge of the bridge to admire the swans and the view of beautiful Heidelberg, before walking one street over to a cozy brewery for more rustic teutonic deliciousness.

If you ever find yourself in Heidelberg, whether for the first time or as a returning wanderer, I highly recommend the Vetter Brauhaus. Located in the Steingasse right across from the Brückentor, it's the coziest, most Germanic pub ever. We sat ourselves down at a long bench pushed right up against one of the tall, enormous windows, the sill of which makes up the table's end-bench. The result is that you feel like you're dining half-outside, half-inside, and able to watch all the summery foot traffic wander by as you sip THE WORLD'S STRONGEST BEER. No kidding, they have an entry in the Guiness Book of World Records! All of the beer at this brewery was good -- especially the pale stuff, which was practically sweet -- but their most famous one is the "Vetter 33": a beer whose alcohol content nudges the 33% mark. They serve it in 1/4 liter glasses, and we all carefully sipped one of these between the three of us. It's surprisingly drinkable. Dark, of course; very malty and syrupy, of course; but has a pleasant smoky finish, and forces you to enjoy it slowly. The food was also absolutely terrific: ever on task, Tina and I fed Nigel a plate piled with a delicious giant Bratwurst on top of a mound of steaming Sauerkraut and perfectly-fried potato slices, and I got a tender, yellow baked potato covered in herbed Quark, washed down with a bubbly refreshing Radler. For dessert, Tina and Nigel ordered the thickest, most layered Apfelstrudel this side of paradise. (It was so good, in fact, I even risked a bite myself, knowing full well that doing so could mean inciting the wrath of the Gods of Fructose Intolerance. Fortunately, they seemed not to have noticed my sin, yet...!)

Nigel is daunted, but determined.
(By the way, that glass is a Maß -- a full liter of beer!)

We must have sat there for hours. The candle burned all the way down in its clay bottle as we talked about old times and new, caught up on what's been going on in the past and what we hope for the future. I gotta say, it was exactly what I'd been needing. Not that I don't enjoy the company of my new friends and all the wonderful people I've met here; but, well, sometimes I just miss my old buddies. Hanging out with Tina and Nigel was like making a little visit home.

Which is exactly what it was, actually. Looking around the cozy brewery, watching the streets get dimmer outside as murmuring pedestrians wandered by with their ice cream and we ordered more beer, I realized that, to me, home isn't a geographical location.