The Klosterhof Bier

Adventures are nonstop.  I will try to get to all of it.

1.  Romanian Roommate.  When I first got to my room, everything was a mess.  Things in the kitchen were sticky.  Pots and pans everywhere. We have separate rooms, but we share a kitchen and bathroom. I have been cleaning one thing per day and now everything is almost clean.  My roommate also doesn't speak German, only English, which is a bummer, but I don't see her that much anyway.  She also made me tiramisu and so I'll keep her.

2. Klosterhof.  I found the best beer in the world, IN THE WORLD.  Sam, who is one of the girls from my group that I get along with really well (awkward because she might be reading this now....hey Sam...), and I went on an adventure day about a week ago.  We decided to try to find the Monk Brewery up in the hills surrounding Heidelberg.  First you have to climb up the steepest steps/walkway ever, called Philospher's Way, and then you turn right, and then you just keep going about 20 or 30 minutes until you get there.  At least that's what Adam said.  He's one of the Program Assistants and has been giving us tours every so often.  Well, Sam and I turned right, thinking it would just be a short walk along the hillside.  We stopped and drank a beer along the way, just philosophizing.  Then we kept walking. And we kept walking.  Through a forest type atmosphere.  It was beautiful, but we just started to wonder where the heck we were. We had been walking for over an hour by the time we finally found a rock that declared it the end of Philosopher's Way.  Then called Adam, who told us a vitally important detail that he had left out before, that we had to turn right somewhere. So we turned right and followed a stream and ended up with this view, of the farm.

And then we found the coolest Hofladen ever and I talked (in German, of course) to the owner who explained to me which products they actually make on their own, and I understood everything because I am now a farmer. I felt like I was at home there.  Then of course, we went into the restaraunt where they were serving the monk's brew on tap.  So we sat down, tired, confused, but happy we finally made it, and drank the best beer I've ever had in my life.  It had that amazingly smooth and buttery aftertaste and I wanted it to never end.  Which, of course, meant that it ended very quickly.  Luckily, we can buy six packs at the Hofladen, and I think that's the only place it's sold so far.  Except one of the student cafeterias.  Point, Germany.

Hofladen :)

Restaraunt

Best beer in the world award, also! It's organic!

Inside the restaurant

3. Schlossome!  We went up to the Heidelberger Schloss as a group on Wednesday.  Herr Dörr, who will be my teacher for the intensive german course (starting on MONDAY!), took us on a tour.  It was cool to listen to him explain how and when everything was built.  Definitely provided great views.  We also weren't there for very long, so I need to go back and do an unguided tour. Try and sneak into some roped off areas.

This is like 5 times as tall as a person in real life! Used to store wine. That would last me about a week.

E+H

Thought that was a great tree

4. Soccer Practice? So since I'm trying to get away from my American groupmates, I decided to look into finding a soccer team to play with while I'm here.  I found one online and sent them an email on Wednesday to see what they were all about.  I got an email back saying that practices were on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 7 pm if I wanted to come by and play with them.  I emailed back and said I'd come that Friday, and then got a response saying, "Ich bin ein Mann, nicht eine Frau."  Luckily it was followed by a smiley face.  I just assumed the person I was emailing was a girl, but it was a guy, the trainer of the women's team.  Whoooooops. That's embarassing.  Anyway, I showed up to practice on Friday evening having no idea what to expect as far as skill level or drills or me being completely out of shape.

Nobody really talked to me at first, and I think they didn't really know that I didn't speak German very well.  I talked to the trainer that I'd emailed and also the co-trainer, who was a younger girl, and they were just like, okay, join in.  So at first we were dribbling around and the co-trainer would call out a number or letter that corresponded with some kind of move, which I only remembered half of the time.  I was trying really hard to understand what she was saying, but the soccer vocab is new to me.  So we're still dribbling all together, maybe 20 of us, and then all of a sudden, some chick comes and steals my ball.  Well then I think, okay, maybe we're playing a game where one person goes around trying to take the others balls, but at the same time I wasn't really sure, so I awkwardly looked around and saw that I was the only one without a ball.  I half-heartedly tried to steal balls away, but also was afraid I wasn't supposed to be doing that and maybe they were just wondering what the heck I was doing, which resulted in me kind of chasing them all around for three full minutes, total awkwardness.  Turns out I was right about being a ball stealer, and finally some girl just let me have her ball and went to be the shark.  Off to a good start.

It took so much concentration to understand the drills, but I was definitely keeping up and not too terrible.  Some girls were pretty good, others were worse than me, only two asked me my name and offered theirs, which was to be expected.  There wasn't much time for talking.  I was happy when we scrimmaged at the end and I got a high five for scoring a goal.  I think I'll go back on Monday, and slowly but surely, they will start to love me.  Or just figure out that I can't understand them most of the time.  One girl was trying to make up rules all on her own for a drill and impose them on me and was just getting mad at me because I didn't understand.  I wanted to kick her.  Body language crosses cultures.

5. Klosterhof Refill.  Today (yes, we finally made it to present time), Sam and I needed to go back to the Klosterhof and stock up on our favorite beer.  I'm pretty positive it will become a weekly thing.  We met up with one of her friends that's studying abroad in Freiburg right now and some other girls and we took a bus to the Kloster.  We went into the Hofladen and Sam and I both hauled three liters each out of there in our back packs.  I also asked the woman at the cash register if they every needed help, and she said that they might need help in the restaraunt once the weather gets consistently nicer, so I may take her up on that.

Anyway, we wanted to hike up the whole mountain because we heard there was a Kneipe on top and some ruins to check out.  To make a long story short, we hiked up millions of miles and had the best adventure and finally found our destination, along with lots of great views along the way.  We stopped and had some food and drink at the Kneipe, and also explored the ruins of a monastery which were from year 1057, or somewhere around that.  Amazing.  It was absolutely insane to walk through the hallways and try to imagine what life could have possibly been like a thousand years ago.  There was also a huge amphitheater which was only built in the 1930's and specifically used for Nazi propaganda and ralleys.  Slightly depressing, but it was quite a cool place to explore.

Needless to say, we were tired after coming back down the mountain. My body hurts.  But it was an amazing day, gorgeous weather, and good picture taking opportunities.  We felt like pretty cool tour guides to be able to take the Freiburgers on such an adventure in what is now our beautiful city.

These pictures are allll out of order, but that's fine. Here's Heidelberg!

Am Neckar, as the sun was setting.

ME

Standing at the bottom of the amphitheater

Sammy Wammy

From the top of the monastery tower

1000 A.D. and still standing? 

Amazing

Top of the amphitheater

Lookout area, castle is to the left of our heads way out there

Exhausted and happy

Hiking millions of miles

So far those are the biggest events that have been happening.  On Monday, it is time to get down to business with school and hopefully the German learning kick back up again.  I am going to apply for an internship to work as an English Assistant at a high school here, so we'll see how that goes.  There is always something going on, always something to do.  And now the thing to do is sleep.