Heidelberg reminds me a lot of Florence.
Not only does it have a dominating cathedral in the middle of town, all the old buildings are in very short walking distance around a river, there’s a fort up on the hill, and the bridges are nice. Also Holger’s sister Hannah lives there, and it’s only an hour drive, so after more tasty German bread for breakfast we hit the road. For some reason I’d woken up at 6am and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I went downstairs and picked some pictures and did some writing for this very site. The car trip was the perfect opportunity for a nap to catch up the lost sleep.
First thing first in Heidelberg was climbing the 10 or so sets of stairs up to Hannah’s apartment, which is on the top floor of a fairly well aged building. From there we drove a short way to the historic part of town (although really we just needed to park the car somewhere), and then walked to the University, which is the oldest in Germany. On the way we detoured into an insane little candy shop, which was no more than a metre wide and 5 metres long, but full all the way up the walls with just about every kind of tasty chocolate bar, lolly, sweet, or confection that you can imagine. Also the owner is partially eccentric, and when you buy your candy you get to play dice with him for a couple of small freebies.
He rolls the three dice and hides them under a leather cup, and you guess if you can roll higher or lower than him; then you roll, and he asks your friends if they think you’ve won or lost; then he reveals what you’ve rolled, and the game goes on basically until you win something. I guessed higher but he rolled 11, then I rolled 10, but he let me go again and I rolled 12.
In the University they have a museum called the studentenkarzer, which is where they used to put the students who had misbehaved. Legally, at the time, students were under the jurisdiction of the University and not the state or the police. The crimes usually included such hijinks as general misbehaviour or public nuisance, typically while drunk, chasing pigs or piglets (and pulling their tails), or extinguishing streetlights. And so forth. However it wasn’t so much of a punishment, because the sentence of incarceration was usually between two and ten days, and after the first day or so they were allowed to have food bought in and there was a door to the lecture halls so they wouldn’t miss too much.
The karzer itself is a tall thin building, four flights of stairs and it had 5 iron beds in it, and the walls are covered in graffiti, pictures, silhouettes of the people who had stayed there, and dirty or mischievous poems, etc. Indeed, it was considered a dishonour to attend Heidelberg University and not spend at least a few days in the Karzer. After that we had a look at the 500 or so year-old original lecture theatre, which was been restored recently. Probably as good an incentive as a student could ever get not to miss too many classes.
Hannah is actually a psychologist by training as well, and was telling us about her work with autistic children and those with other illnesses, a part of which involves sending them out with cameras and instructing them to take pictures only of structures, not of people, animals, or things like that; she says it’s very relaxing for her clients. In the old theatre there are lines of old red chairs, which are more or less perfect for structure photos, so we showed her the basics of our camera and she started ducking around here and there taking photos of the chairs from various angles.
Up on the hill above Heidelberg there is an old castle (Schloss Heidelberg) which one reaches via a surprisingly steep laneway. Due to having left too late in the morning, and needing to get back to Karlsruhe at some point for a BBQ, we skipped the tour of the castle and mainly enjoyed the view back over town, which was glorious.
Heidelberg has along history of various amusing traditions – e.g. the Karzer – another of which is the student’s kiss. About 150 years ago a mischievous candy-shop owner decided to start making a small chocolate called the student’s kiss, which was then used by young men to make a statement of affection beyond the usual ‘show us yer ankles’ for certain young women; this they could get away with while there was a governer or governess watching. And I’m sure the chocolate maker did well out of it too. Today that tradition is still active, so Hannah bought two of the little boxed chocolates, and gave one to Holger and one to me (for our respective womenfolk).
Back at her apartment, her neighbours (and friends from the hospital) had just come back from several weeks in the USA and we all had coffee and cake and had a good laugh about this and that. At about 5.30 we packed up and drove back to Karlsruhe, taking Hannah with us that she could visit her family. After that (yes there’s more) we drove around the block for a BBQ with some of Lisa’s old friends from school; although about half of them spoke english (and of course we don’t speak any German) a good time was had by all hanging out in the basement ‘bar’, which actually has a wooden bar in it, and glasses on shelves, and a dartboard, and so forth.
Refreshingly people all over the world are more or less the same. They want to finish university eventually and don’t mind getting drunk on Saturday night. Knowing that we were getting up at 7.30 the next morning to go walking in the forest, we had to go home at midnight, and thankfully it was a very short drive home other wise we might never have left.
Greg
