"Schmuck" Does Not Mean What You Think It Means

After narrowly escaping death by gas explosion, having one last American meal with the Forshey-Stewarts, and shooting loads of photos in the departures terminal, we finally shoved off. We flew from Dulles to London to Frankfurt. In Heathrow, I faked my way through 30 seconds with Alice Cooper, desperately attempting to remember one of his songs (major awkward turtle).
Then we spent the week strolling down the cobblestone streets of Kiima's memory lane in Mannheim and Heidelberg. We're staying at Pension Arabella in Mannheim (Simple, great location B+).

On Monday, we met up with friend Dirk and Kiima's mom in Mannheim. We had a Döner dinner in "Little Ankara" and then some beers and good times listening to jazz at the Alte Feuerwache.

Tuesday, we took the train on over to Heidelberg. We checked out a few old churches, ate fries with mayo, did some people watching, and hiked up to the castle for great views of the city. That night we shared dinner at an "exclusive spanish restaurant" with friends from the Hülsemann clan (Ingrid, Robert, Marco, Melanie, and her boyfriend Christoph).

The next day we trained back to Heidleberg to hang with Stefi Wolff, a friend of Kiima's, before heading off to the watery paradise known as Miramar. We spent 4 glorious hours luxuriating in outside hottubs, riding innertubes slides (nearly losing our pants in the process), floundering in the wavepool, and giving the FKK world its first sight of our pink bums.

On Thursday, we gave Mannheim a good kick in the tourist pants. We explored more cool old churches, toured a castle, ate several forms of pretzel, walked around Luisenpark, and took in some political comedy (think Capitol Steps with sound effects).

All in all, Germany's no Honey Brook, but there are a few interesting offerings.

There's Beer

horse meat for sale

a place for unwanted packages

and graffiti that would make Strunk and White cry.