Häh-Hopp! Häh-Hopp!

This past weekend, I visited my Turkish roommate from my Dresden program in Darmstadt, where she is studying for the semester. Darmstadt is not too far from Frankfurt, where I was supposed to be going to a Fulbright conference. (Didn't end up going, and glad I didn't--got to go to Heidelberg instead!) Darmstadt is not quite the most vibrant city (I overheard quite a few Americans, and later found out there is a base nearby; it's an industrial town--the book I was reading on the train on the way mentioned it as the location of Merck), but nonetheless, I had a fabulous time. Our Japanese friend from Dresden also came, so it was a mini-reunion.

I got there Thursday night and went to a birthday party for an Erasmus student (Erasmus is a program for European exchange students), where of course no one spoke a word of German. It was all English, all the time. Anyway, on Friday Yumi (Japanese) came, and she, Nes (my Turkish friend), and I went to Frankfurt for the (half-)day. Frankfurt is pretty much just as boring as they say. I was expecting a lot more skyscrapers since it is the financial capital of Germany, but there were only a handful. But there were strong signs that it is a financial hotspot:

Yumi and I below a Euro sign (darn that Euro!) Notice my amazingly warm new coat, which makes me look like a marshmallow, but a toasty one at that, so I don't care! Realized after one day that white is not the best color for dealing with the elements . . .














There is also a cute little old part of Frankfurt called Roemerberg. After repeated asking of various Chinese tourists, we finally got a semi-decent picture in the old town square:

Why can't people realize that tops of buildings are better than feet? I hate it when people take pictures from the feet up!











And here's a picture of the Rathaus with a flag with the German Schwarz-Rot-Gold. (sorry about all the photos being aligned to the left--I tried to stagger them, but apparently my efforts were, as usual, very futile)









After Frankfurt we came back and relaxed a bit, then Nes and her Turkish friend prepared Turkish tortellini, joghurt, and tomato sauce for a special girls' dinner. About 10 or so people came, including two male intruders, and I really enjoyed the great conversation. It was quite the mix of people: three Turks, two French, a Spaniard, a Uruguayan, an Italian, and Yumi (and possibly people I have forgotten). We only talked in English, of course, since most of them speak really bad German, if any at all. I felt bad about that because Yumi doesn't speak English and couldn't participate. Also, two girls didn't know German or English, so they just sat there and waited for Spanish and Italian translations every now and then. I still had a good time, but I just think it's bad that they come to Germany and then don't even bother to speak German! But I suppose they're still practicing their English, and that makes them happy. But Nes and I were careful to speak German always around Yumi, even though Nes' university is English-speaking only (how much better the rest of the world is at languages than America!).

After dinner we eventually went a club (after a loooong walk in the rain) and I actually had quite a good time there with a Singaporean and two more Turks (there are quite a few Turks, as you can tell! by the way, Turks isn't derogatory, is it???), and of course Nes and Yumi. The club was really empty, and there were mostly men, but European men do not need to rely on freaking women like the men in America do, so no one seemed to have a problem. We finally got back and went to bed at about 4, but then we had to get up relatively early to go to . . . .

HEIDELBERG! I am so glad I decided not to go to my conference, because Heidelberg was definitely worth it! Rick Steves doesn't recommend it because there are so many tourists (Americans in particular), and I figured that there's a reason there are so many tourists--there must be something to see! And in fact I did hear a lot of Americans while we were there. The weather was at times terrible, even hailing pretty hard at one point. We all took cover under the Rathaus entrance, and here is a picture of the Universitaetsplatz as we were all waiting out the downpour:

You can see the rain in the picture and the castle in the background












After eating delicious Turkish Doener (seriously, this might as well be considered German food now), we set out for the Schloss (castle), which had beautiful grounds and gave us gorgeous views of Heidelberg:

Nes and I with trees in the background--they all had such beautiful fall colors!













A view of Heidelberg













A castle courtyard, taken with some funky setting on my camera













We walked around Heidelberg more and when we got back to Darmstadt I got to play poker! The boys are obsessed and play on a regular basis. Some are even quite frequent online players. I did not like the way they played--they don't seem to care about playing slowly and chatting, they just sorta want to get as much money as possible. Right off the bat everyone was raising left and right, but I managed to win a few, making certain boys really angry when I beat them. I stayed in until I went all-in on pocket aces and lost to a two pair. Yes, I am sure you all care to know that! Was just happy to play poker again!

Sunday we were going to go to Mainz to celebrate the beginning of Karneval (11/11 at 11:11 AM)--who knew it started so early??? But because of the weather and us being tired, we just went sightseeing in Darmstadt:

A cool apartment building designed by Hundertwasser, the famous (Austrian?) architect

















A church and the grounds of some sort of historical building











The local Darmstadt St. Martin festivals celebrating the beginning of Karneval. This is sorta the closest thing they have to Halloween--the kids dress up and march around, throwing candy at bystanders. We definitely followed them around to rack up more candy. :-p They yell Häh-Hopp! as they march and if you take a picture at the wrong time it looks like they are hailing Hitler!





After my lovely weekend mixed with sightseeing and relaxation, I had to head back to reality, and now I am again looking forward to another weekend!

Oh yeah, I went ice-skating last week (the same ill-fated night that I stepped in Hundekacke, which is omnipresent on the streets of Berlin), and here is a picture that is very reminiscent of my ice-skating adventure in Budapest in January (same gloves and scarf and coat, and my pants are the same except for the color):


And one last picture, which I will have to explain later. In short, it's my Tuesday-night German-language church group. One of three (and starting next week, four!) that meet during the week, and then there are four more meetings across Berlin on Sunday. Will have to detail that more soon! But awesome people: