heidelberg.

Heidelberg, Germany is about a 6 hour drive from Amsterdam, and I slept for 90% of it! I think the jet lag is cured, but we’re all just so exhausted from traveling around so much! There are 35 kids on this pre-semester program right now, and I think only 10 of them are boys! I thought since this was a business thing there would be more, but I guess that was stereotypical of me.

Everyone is nice, and we have a lot of free time and generally stick together when we explore. Our hotel in Amsterdam was kind of a dump, but was in a nice, safe location. Heidelberg is so small that everything is pretty much safe, and our hotel is MUCH nicer!

After arriving here last night, we went on a walking tour where Paul (our professor) showed us all the good places to eat. There’s a university here so there are a lot of students and people our age. After dinner we went to a club/bar where there were a lot of German students. They were all really nice and spoke decent English, which was good because none of us know any German! (Although I did say Gesundheit to some guy at breakfast this morning!) The music was pretty funny – a mix of Europop and old American music. They played some Backstreet Boys which was a fun throwback to 9 years ago! Then some of the German students showed us the spot along the river looking up at the mountains with gorgeous mansions built on them where there’s a castle behind us. Not kidding – it was like a storybook.

Castle in Heidelberg

A square in the town and some traditional style buildings

Overlooking the river and mountain at sunset

Today we toured the Mercedes plant where they make the huge semi trucks. It was interesting but it went on for wayyyy too long. We spent 2 hours touring the production line and learning about their new paint process. We had the rest of the afternoon free, and hiked up to the Heidelberg Schloss, a huge castle that is on top of a mountain. You can see it from nearly all parts of the city but I didn’t expect it to be so pretty! I took lots of pictures and video which I will add as soon as we get to Madrid and I get my laptop back.

On the hike up the castle...

Overlooking Heidelberg from inside the castle grounds

Inside the castle grounds - making the parents proud with my Diet Coke

I definitely didn’t give Germany enough credit before getting here. It’s absolutely gorgeous and I haven’t encountered any saurkraut yet. We’re having an authentic German dinner in our hotel tonight though, so perhaps that will be included (and I will be avoiding it like the plague). Our hotel is actually a microbrewery also, which is kind of a nice contrast after touring the massive Heineken plant the other day. The smell of brewing and fermenting beer is not pleasant though…

Tomorrow we head to France and will be spending the weekend in Paris I know, I know – such a hard life I have! But for now, I MUST get out of this internet cafe because the owners two small children are SHRIEKING and I can’t deal anymore. Also, this keyboard is messed up – the z and the y are switched and it takes me too long to find any of the punctuation keys. Cheap internet is just not worth difficult keyboards and small children poking me.