Took the bus (without paying!) to the Kongresshaus stop, which turned out to be the perfect stop to be nearest Mike’s crib. Too bad it took me all week to figure that one out. He was waiting for me with a pear. It was absolutely gorgeous out, sunny and with blue skies.
We went back to the funicular and took it all the way to the top again. This time we had a British girl as a companion. At the top, while we waited to come back down, we took some pictures, then had a wurst, and I had a coffee while Mike had beer. The weather was much clearer, so we got some better pictures of the view.
We took the funicular down to the castle stop. This time we wanted to find the mysterious footprint on the terrace. Local myth is that a knight was caught in the room of one of a nobleman’s wife, and to escape he jumped to the terrace below, leaving his footprint. It is red sandstone, and it truly looks like a bootprint. I also noticed an inscription on a fountain/horse trough - what intrigued me what that it was in Hebrew and in old German, and dated back to the 1700s. The inscription looks like it's Psalm CX:VIII, which should be Psalm 110, Verse 8, only there is no Verse 8 in Psalm 110! I tried variations (CXV:III) but the results didn't make sense. The only thing that made sense was Psalm 110, Verse 7, "He shall drink of the brook in the way: therefore shall he lift up the head." So maybe it's from a bible version I don't know about, or the Germans count differently.
We then walked around the castle gardens, which are in the English garden style, and as it was a beautiful day, it was quite lovely. We got some very nice pictures of the gardens, and of the view from the gardens, which are quite high up. In other pictures in these entries you can see something that looks like a series of arches, like a Roman viaduct (there is a picture above of it). That is part of the garden, and should give you an idea of how high up the gardens are.
We returned to the town on the funicular and had lunch in a Persian fast food restaurant (Persepolis), where I dropped a bookcrossing book. We shared a lunch of saffron chicken and rice. Next we headed to an internet café for a few minutes. I finished first so I ran out to do a little shopping - I wanted to pick up a pretty tablecloth for my worker bee Barbara, had my eye on a scarf for Mutti, and I had been trying to find a Heidelberg charm for myself. I stepped into a jewelry store I'd passed every day Schmuck Paradies) and a very nice woman showed me their array of charms. I selected a beautiful charm of the Heidelberg castle ruins - it was the perfect size for my charm bracelet. We had a lovely conversation, too. I left very happy.
Jane met us and we drove over to the other side of town (near the large modern campus of the Heidelberg University) to see if we couldn’t find some books which had been released. Not only did we not find books, but we had one hell of a time finding the place at all! The place we found was a large modern cafe full of students watching a footie game. No books anywhere.
We came back to a restaurant called the Merlin Cafebar, where I had met Jane last week, and sat in the Biergarten enjoying the weather. We all had great salads. They were having a summer special, sort of an "early bird" special, any salad 6e. As it became dark, they lit heaters under the umbrellas. It is so nice to be able to sit outside even though it's chilly out.
We walked back to town and on the way we saw a homeless woman laying motionless in the window of a Laundromat. I got a picture, of course. We also so a sign for parking, which was misspelled "Barking," and another cool sign which had monkey baby faces on it.
We stopped at the Penny Markt and Jane picked up a ten-pack of fig liquor miniatures for $2.99. We met an American student outside and while we toasted each other with our little fig liquors, he informed us that if you don’t look at each other when you toast , you’ll have bad sex for 7 years. Fortunately, we have perfected the “evil monkey toast,” which means you point AND look in the other’s eyes, and we expect to see it in general use in about 3 years when we return. By the way, Jane and I continued to knock back those fig liqueurs the rest of the time I was there - they were really yummy. We started calling them "Figgy Puddings."
We went over to the Dubliner and sat in the pub, and while everyone else was completely engrossed in a rugby game, and later a footie (soccer) game between Ireland and Russia, we three nerds played the word game quiddler, and I had a great cider blackcurrent beer thingy. There were lots of Irish and Brits in the pub, and next to us was a group of young Russian men. It was easy to tell who was winning.
Jane and I finally left, and on the way back we discovered that the homeless woman is a homeless man. It's so odd - he looks as if he will be losing his feet at any moment, they looked positively gangrenous. Here he is in a country where the medical care is free for everyone. It just goes to show you that you can't help everyone. It's very sad.
We drove back to the ghetto and watched the rest of City Slickers before retiring.
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