The Wanderer: Heidelberg Shopping District

Most everyone that have read my last blog has commented I shouldn’t sit around calculating the seconds until I leave Germany and go back to the States and that I should find another hobby. I have to admit that it sounds like an interesting and great way to pass the time, if I had the time to spare. It would also be impossible due to the fact that the seconds keep passing by, so to calculate the seconds to the time I leave; I first would have to calculate the amount of time it would take me to calculate the seconds and then subtract the amount of seconds it would take for me to type it into the blog and post it, even then I would be a couple of hundred of seconds off.

Although it is quite possible and it could be done (not by me, I don’t want to do it) I have to be honest with you, it just took me a click of the mouse to calculate the seconds. I downloaded a gadget (a countdown program) onto my computer that calculates the time I have left in days, hours, minutes and seconds. I discovered that if I click on the gadget I get the amount of time in seconds. So now you know that I don’t spend time trying to figure out the millions of seconds I have left until I leave. Yes, I do keep track of the time I have left, but I don’t dwell on it. The countdown program lets me know how many days I have left to enjoy Germany and the surrounding countries, to get up and do something and not how many days I have left before I have to go home.

Just to let you know that I do other things and have places to go, I ventured into Heidelberg on Monday. A couple of intern friends rented a car on Friday and drove through Germany, Switzerland, France and back. The car needed to be returned Monday morning so four of us took it back to the dealership and hitched a ride to a diner where we had breakfast, after which we boarded the train to downtown Heidelberg.

The tourist’s shopping area is a street that has shops on both sides, not as narrow as the marketplace in Cairo, but still narrow enough in some places to allow only one car (if they were allowed, only vender's are allowed) to drive down. The road is about 1 to 2 kilometers long with side alleys. The shops are roughly 10 to 20 feet wide and 10 to 60 feet long, that is unless it is a store like Macy’s then it is about a quarter the size or less of an American Macy’s but two stories. Most of the shops have knick knacks like the stuff tourists would buy, a few chocolate shops, and bakeries, but mostly little shops.

Entrance from the bus/train stop to the shopping district

All the beer glasses are filled with golden gummy bears topped with white ones

I went into a couple of cathedrals that did not look very appealing on the outside due to the shops being built right next to them and little stands set up around the entrance, but ,you could tell that the cathedrals were older then the shops because the cathedrals were made of brick instead of stucco and shop windows. The insides were beautifully done with stain glass, pillars and tile.

We walked to the end of the street and halfway across an old bridge where I took a few pictures of the old castle. We didn’t go to the castle (saving for another time and another blog), but it was very interesting just looking at it from the bridge. I hope that my pictures do it justice.

Heidelberg castle

Entrance to Heidelberg from the bridge

One of the statues to the right of the entrance to Heidelberg

After the bridge we went to one of the many sidewalk cafés that were along one of the alley ways. I have to tell you that eating in one of those places is an experience in itself. Unlike the U.S. (where it seems like you are rushed to get in and out so that the waitress can get as many people through as possible in one day and if you are there longer than 15 minutes after you’re served you don’t see your waitress again), once you sit down you more or less own that table area for as long as you would like or until the café closes. You wave your hand and the waitress comes over and takes your order for drinks (by the way a bottle of none bubble water is more expensive than bubbled water), after about a half hour you wave your hand again and order another drink or your meal. The meal will come when it gets there; it will be a half hour to forty-five minutes after you order (it is still hot), kick back and relax, you’re going to be there awhile, I would guess the average lunch is between 1 to 3 hours long, it depends on you. If you’re in a hurry, stop and get a wrap to go, there are plenty of sandwich shops scattered throughout the plaza.

You do have to watch out for the pigeons though, they are almost twice the size of American pigeons and more dangerous (and I don’t mean the droppings). As I was leaving one of the shops I was the victim of a “fly by”! I just left one of the shops and as I entered the street, I stopped to snap a picture (the one with my finger in the way), when two low flying pigeons came flying by. One was so close that it smacked me in side of my head with its wing tip while its buddy mussed up my hair with its jet stream as it dive bombed inches above my head. If I had been looking in the opposite direction I would have gotten a wing tip in the eye or the camera pushed into my face.