6/12/08 - Pretty Castles and TOO MUCH RAIN

Hallo...I have the time to post tonight! Yay!

Today was our last sightseeing day in the Bietigheim-Bissingen area. (And I´m spelling it right this time! YAY!) We went to the town of Heidelberg, which is about an hour and a half drive from B-B. Once we were dropped off, we started with a very extensive walking tour around the town. Our tour guide, Eva, was very nice, and her English was very good. She told us a lot of interesting things about the town´s history.

Heidelberg was besieged by several wars in the 1600´s between Protestants and Catholics. A group of Catholic princes tried to convert the mostly Protestant village, but weren´t successful. The citizens built a fountain with a statue of Hercules on it as a symbol of their resilience (they had already survived two wars in fifty years!) and their willingness to take down authority if necessary. Needless to say, the princes moved away after a while.

In World War II, Heidelberg was, by chance, one of very few cities which were not bombed by American forces. The area around the town was so overcast that the planes couldn´t find the city! However, the city was damaged when the German forces blew up the bridges to prevent American entry -- the glass windows on one side of the town cathedral were shattered.

The tour also took us up to the castle...Schlosshof, I think, was the name. The walk up the hill to the castle was not as long as the walk to Neuschwanstein, but the hill was so steep that it didn´t matter! We were glad to get to the top and see how the different princes that lived in Heidelberg affected the castle´s construction. We also got a chance to see a VERY BIG wine keg. It could supposedly hold about 58 thousand gallons of wine, but the pressure on the barrel was so great that they could only fill it three times before it started leaking!

We had an hour to wander around in groups afterward. I managed to get a gift for my dad for Father´s Day -- hi Dad! The shop where I bought my dad´s gift also had a dispenser with Pokemon toys in it, so I used the extra euro of change to get one. (I was originally going to get a wooden rapier from another shop, so I think the Pokemon was a slightly better choice.)

The soccer game this past evening was...interesting. I got very involved in the game, moreso than I expected. However, Germany lost to Croatia. We had a party afterwards, but had to move it into a banquet hall-type building. It was for a good reason...it was raining REALLY hard!

That´s all I can really say...oh, wait! Go watch the video at the end of Mr. Miller´s blog post. I was sitting a few seats from the people who were performing in that video...it was HILARIOUS. Mr. Williams had to come back and keep the kids from getting too rowdy!

Anyway...tomorrow we attend school with the German kids and have our final concert in Bietigheim! (Actually, the final concert is being held in Freudental, where I´m staying -- lucky!) Wish us luck at concert number 2!