Heidelberg and the world's most expensive laundry

This past weekend we went to Heidelberg, which is a very adorable and old city not too far from Darmstadt. We took a train there and it was roughly an hour journey. The view out the train window was very pretty with hills and small towns. They build their farms into hills which looks really cool when passing by railway. We arrived at the main train station and walked down one very long brick road flanked with all kinds of shops, cafes, and assorted vendors. We walked super fast and did not have time to really stop anywhere along the way to the cathedral. The church was very beautiful with vaulted ceilings and a tower you could walk up into. I did not walk up to the tower but instead decided to use my 0.50 on ice cream instead of climbing up to the top of the tower...and stayed on the street to take some photographs and check out all the dogs walking around. The dogs are amazingly obedient here...the other day there was a wine fest in Darmstadt and the dogs were running around with no leashes playing with each other without any hesitation of cars hitting them or them attacking people. It reminded me of Lady and the Tramp with the free spirited dogs that all seem to be friends with each other. Anywho, the dogs in Heidelberg were all mingling on the street and hanging out which was fun to watch them interact. (Everyone knows how much I love pups!)

After the cathedral in Heidelberg we continued to walk to the "schloss" aka the castle! It was only a 2.2 mile journey from the main train station to the castle, but it takes about 45 minutes to walk due to the cobblestone/brick road and the steep incline up to the castle. It was a very old castle and was under reconstruction to repair parts of it. It was really beautiful and the weather on Saturday could not have been more perfect! Just the right temperature and sunny with a brilliant blue sky and big puffy clouds! A perfect day to lounge around a castle, I thought! We spent time exploring the castle and lounging on the castle grounds. It was very relaxing and interesting and was by far the most beautiful part of Germany I have encountered. It made me very excited to see more of the old, historic, picturesque towns in Germany.

After spending much of the afternoon in the castle we walked back and got to stop in a few shops and stuff before heading back to Darmstadt. After a much needed nap and some dinner, I watched the USC game on the internet with Mary, Jackie, and Jenae. It was pretty devastating to watch the bucks lose, and to have been awake from 2am-6am to watch it live. 

Sunday was kind of a lazy recovery day. We went to breakfast at a famous Darmstadt cafe which was way overpriced and served waffles with no syrup. They had all kids of creepy vending machines with all sorts of weird things in them from dolls to condoms to shampoo, very weird. Then I went to play basketball with a group of the Spanish erasmus students which was pretty amusing, I represented America well in bball in  case anyone was concerned...ha! 

That brings us up to today, Monday...after going to class and stopping at the supermarket for some food to cook for the next couple days, Jenaeand I decided we absolutely had to do our laundry. We purchased some detergent at the market and headed out to find a laundromat or "waschsalon" because we were convinced it would be cheaper than the laundry in our dorm complex...We went to said "waschsalon" and were confronted with the price of 4 euro 80ct per load...which is approx $7.00 just to wash the clothes! But we couldn't really leave because we had no clean clothes and no student cards to wash them back at the dorms...so we proceed to load the washers which surprisingly fit most of the clothes I have worn in the past two weeks. Then the women working informed us that we had not, in fact, purchased detergent but merely something to make our clothes smell good...sort of like fabric softener? So off we went to the drug store to purchase detergent (which was much more expensive than the "cheap detergent" aka fabric softener we had originally purchased!) Luckily we fit all our clothes into one dryer so we got to split the dryer price, which was way less than the washer price so not very helpful. Needless to say, I paid about $8 to do one load of laundry today...I suppose that is why there is an interesting smell to some of the folks around here...

A more positive note about today is that we found tortilla chips at a specialty market and were able to make some banging nachos out of tortilla chips, leftover meatballs, and swiss cheese? (they were good even though they sound weird, I swear!)

That's about it, we have German class all this week, and a few sessions of "living in Germany" this week which I think is a mix of history, culture, customs, and differences in living here as opposed to our home companies which should be interesting and helpful. We travel to Mainzon Saturday which I am looking forward to as well.

Hope all is well in the USA! I'll keep representing on the basketball court...keep me updated on any fun news in your lives!

Cheers!

Meg