Day 2: Heidelberg

Our Space A stress was mitigated by some wonderful friends that allowed our family of 6 to crash at their house for the first two nights we were in country...whatever those nights happened to be.  Their flexibility and hospitality meant so much to us.  And I know seeing familiar faces right away helped our kids acclimate quickly.  Didn't hurt they had the newest Lego Hogwarts Castle on display in the kids room.  They also offered wonderful suggestions for day trips in the area.  Our first being Heidelberg.

Waiting for our first train

 We elected to not rent a van and use the public transportation readily available in Germany.  We have rented cars before for European trips, but kids travel for free on the trains in Germany.  We also didn't need to worry about directions or parking or $7/gallon gas.  And we loved it.  An added bonus is that on most of the trains, a functioning bathroom was available which meant we didn't need to find public restrooms as often as we would have otherwise #JohnProblems.  My friend recommended I download the Deutsche Bahn App and it made trip planning so easy.  We jumped right in on Wednesday morning.  The worst thing that happened was our credit card was momentarily stuck in the ticket kiosk machine.  The second worst thing that nearly happened was when I momentarily lost our day ticket when the conductor came through.  There is a bit of an honor system on the trains, but if you get checked and don't have a ticket, you will get a 60 Euro fine.  We avoided these scenarios for the rest of the trip by simply purchasing all tickets through the app.  Kein Problem on both accounts!

 Now there is a saying that goes: Good, Fast, Cheap: pick 2.  And train travel is good and cheap.  But, that gave us ample time to catch up on our German lessons.  Plus, we could overhear conversations people had on their phones.  Eric commented that most of my German ability was on par with a teenager having a conversation on their mobile devices.  #YKTR

 We got off the train in Heidelberg and walked to the historic city center (Altstadt).  It was lunch time, and I believe there is general agreement that one of the most stressful parts of travel is finding food.  We walked along looking at various menus and came across a sweet meal option: Salad, Main Dish, and Beer for 7.50 Euros.  Time to get the party started!  The kids enjoyed their pizza and schnitzel and bottled water and we were ready to see what else the day brought.

 I had told my friend that we really just enjoyed walking around towns and experiencing the different culture.  Heidleberg was perfect for this.  We went up into a church tower after a brief conversation with a friendly German lady.  As William said, the views were definitely worth the 4 Euros for the family.

 We even saw a Lego Martin Luther.  Warum Nicht?

 We only gave ourselves a few hours to walk around, and we elected to use that time to visit the castle grounds.  Which happened to be at the top of a steep climb.  Again, the views were amazing.  Even if John looks not as impressed.   Eric swears he and I lost weight the first week of our time in Germany from all of our walking...we made up for it the last few days in Bavaria, though.

 We made all of the walking worth their time with ice cream.  And it tasted so good.  The beer was pretty good, too.

We successfully completed our first trip on our own.  This crazy idea may just work after all!  Bis Morgen!