Germany 2

To start, when I arrived back at the Guesthouse from my last shift I was asleep for twenty minutes when suddenly the people renovating the house I'm staying in decided to start using the loudest equipment (chainsaws? machine guns?) they had opposite the wall my bed is on. I screamed "Some of us work the night shift and have to sleep! Bitte, Raus!" They stopped for another twenty minutes and as soon as I started dozing off again, they turned the machines back on. "Halt! Raus! Raus!" I screamed. Silence, but another twenty minutes later they were at it again. This went on till about 10:00 when I was so fed up that I brought my bed into the bathroom and slept there since it's the furthest room from mine. It was pretty silly when my roommate arrived from his shift at 1:00 and had to use the bathroom; I shouted "Wait! I can explain!"

Anyway, I thought I'd start with some more observations.
Observation 6.
The snails and slugs here are hilariously large. Like, the snail's shell must be a good three inches in diameter, and the slugs are six-inch-long bright orange (when they're alive) or dull brown-ish (when they're dead) monsters. They are only this large to make you feel painfully guilty and disgusted when you step on them, which you will inevitably do since it is always wet here.

Observation 7.
All of the old people walk with these strange canes that look exactly like ski poles except they're rubber on the bottom. It's as if some ski manufacturer had to liquidate their supply so they just convinced all of the old people that they needed these ridiculous canes.

Observation 8.
The only people with German accents are scientists and old people. Most Germans go to classical high schools where they are required to learn two other languages, and usually pick English and Latin, so their accents are flawless. The scientists don't go to classical high schools (they go to science ones, dummy), and so their English has had far less time to develop.

Observation 9.
I am the only person who pays for the bus. I don't understand why- every other person just walks on and walks off; maybe they'll look at the bus driver and smile. I'm assuming they've paid for some monthly card or something but if they have, I haven't seen one. Also, the same driver drives the same bus every day, so I'm hoping by my last day the driver will just let me go. The guy even asked me how I was doing today and said "cheers" when I got off.

Observation 10.
This one goes hand in hand with Observation 9. There is a single raised seat diagonally behind the bus driver, and a different little old lady sits in it every time. She proceeds to make loud conversation with the driver, and sometimes she'll even hand him a fistful of sucking candies.

That's what I've noticed today. Also, I've taken pictures to confirm some of my observations, and counted another two people missing hands/arms.

As for my day, basically yesterday I walked through the entire town of Heidelberg to get to the castle, so today I used the tour book I got yesterday to see all of the stuff I missed. Heidelberg is completely centered around its university, and every building in Aldstadt, the old part of the town, that isn't a house, store or restaurant seems to be associated with the university in some way. The university is one of the oldest ones in Europe and dates back to the 14th century, but most of the buildings, except for the Castle and an old prison for witches (some would say it's bewitched heh heh), are from the 18th century as the whole city was razed during the religious conflicts.

I started my day looking for a power adapter for my laptop and found it after a twenty minute walk, tried explaining to the woman behind the counter (in broken German!) that I needed it for my job and that she should give it to me cheaper, and ultimately she didn't speak German or English well herself and couldn't be convinced (she didn't know what a Physiker or a Universität was). I walked all the way to the end of the town where there is an arch (Karlstor) and then doubled back to look at the architecture and major landmarks- most of the university buildings were built in the Baroque style, while most of the other buildings were built in the Neogothic and Neorenaissance styles. It's pretty.

I think my favorite part of the day was seeing the Church of the Holy Spirit in the Marketplatz. It's alright on the outside, but I loved the stained glass windows- on the right, all but one of the windows are old and patterned, while on the left they're really modern and abstract. The first window on the right side was amazing- it was in commemoration of Hiroshima, had a picture of the world cracked in half with an "E=mc^2" and a verse which I could only guess was from Revelations (I could be wrong but it would make sense, right?)

After all that walking (I basically traversed the entire length of the city three times in two hours) I stopped at a cafe. Basically, I sat down, pointed to the menu and said "that." One of the words looked like it could have been something sausage related so I was a little disappointed when I received nothing but a hard boiled egg and a basket of bread and jam, so I just ordered a tall pilsner on top of my mediocre feast and was happy anyway. There were a few students from the university chuckling at my obvious American-ness so I shrugged, smiled at them and raised my glass.

How to be a good tourist:
1. Accept that you are a tourist and will probably never fit in with the rest of the town
2. Buy a guide book, put it in your back pocket and make sure the name of the town you're in is visible (plus-people will look at your butt!)
3. Find a crowd of locals, take a picture of something they take for granted in front of them
4. Take a picture of something they didn't even know was important (Frommers told you)
5. Shrug and smile at everyone who laughs at you
6. Buy something really traditional and flaunt it (like two biersteins)
7. Order your food by pointing and without asking what you're ordering
8. Smile at everyone and everything
9. Chuckle at yourself- you look ridiculous
10. Realize that you're here to see this town and you have the right to do what you want