Deutschland!

This week (starting Friday afternoon) I am traveling to Germany. I am attending a conference in Tubingen, where I will be giving a talk on some of the results from my thesis on Tuesday morning.

Hopefully there will be more than one installment of the Deutschland 2010 series, but after today the week will get pretty boring. (I mean, boring from the standpoint of the blogosphere. From a scientific point of view it will be interesting...) We'll see!

In the meantime, I present the highlights of the first two-ish days.

First off, let me just say that I have dreams of being a minimalist. My goal for this trip was to pack light enough that I didn't have to check bags. This is an experiment, to see if this is sufficient. When I told my (now former) roommate Amanda that I was only taking carry on, she didn't seem nearly as excited as I was. She said to me, "That tells me that you don't have enough outfits." Well...like I said, this is an experiment, so we'll see how it goes. This is all the luggage I brought.

The trip began Friday morning around 7:00. I got ready and drove to a friend's house, where I'll be leaving my car while I'm gone. She drove me to the train station where I took the train to DC, then transferred to the metro where I met up with Amanda, who drove me to the airport. I flew out of Washington-Dulles, had a layover in JFK, then on to Frankfurt. My flight to Frankfurt was delayed 2.5 hours. Mechanical problems, switching gates/planes, etc. But we made it. Upon arriving, I took the train (yay European trains! How I love them!) to Heidelberg. (Many thanks to my fellow post docs, Veronica and Davide, for the recommendations!) I left my luggage in a locker at the train station and went out to explore.

Heidelberg is beautiful!

First stop: LUNCH! I went to this place V&D recommended, especially because they had a special on schnitzel on Saturdays! Yum!

I then went to a pastry shop my friend Kevin recommended, but this is what I found.... :( Maybe if I could read German, I could tell that the flier said, "We've moved across the street!" I don't actually know what it said because, um, I don't know German.*

* This fact has become painfully obvious in the last 48 hours. (But don't worry. Many people know English. They are, unlike me, very useful.)

My first view of the castle! (It took awhile to see it.)

I then walked up to the castle. Although maybe I should say HIKED up. The ramp that goes up there is steep! And continued up for, roughly, forever.

First stop in the castle is a balcony that gives you a lovely view of the city and the river. Here is it, in two parts, view to the left and to the right.


This girl walked up that hill in these shoes. I hope the boy she was trying to impress was impressed.

Random pictures from the castle.

(Cool sundial thing!)



Um, don't mess with this deer. (Creepy!)

Or this guy, who apparently had lions on his kneecaps.

And, of course, not to be missed in the castle: the largest wine barrel in the world. That's right, they're pretty proud of it too. One of my friends at work told me about this a few days before I left. Another friend said something like, "But if the barrel is that big, wouldn't the wine be kind of vinegary?" The response, "Yeah...why do you think Germans are known for their beer?" Ha!

Me and the top (/side) of the biggest wine barrel in the world.

Another cool thing you can observe at the castle. The stones have holes in them. They would put tools in those holes, and that's how they carried them.

Also, I learned by overhearing some guy on my tour talking to someone else, that the masons that shaped each stone would leave their mark on it, like a signature. Because they got paid by the stone, you would know who cut which one. Here's an example.

After running around Heidelberg all afternoon, I hopped on a train (did I mention how much I love Europe for their trains?) to Tubingen. It took about an hour and 45 minutes. Although I didn't mean to, I fell asleep, but fortunately didn't miss my connection or my stop.

The hotel was about a 20 minute walk from the train station. It was 20 minutes of this:

Pretty!

I remembered where I was supposed to turn because this street/path was named after my sister. Okay, a little misspelled, but close enough!

Then I was suddenly at my hotel. Yay!

They even left a chocolate on my pillow. (Mint? No way, this is Europe!)

And soon I managed to find dinner.

At first I thought this venue was just a sports venue/gym or something, not a restaurant. Well, it's both, and this was my view during dinner.

I decided to pass on the after-dinner rock climbing.

Sunday morning I woke up, ate breakfast, and headed out to find the church. It was about 2 km from my hotel, and I had to walk along a major highway to get there. On the way back I found the sidewalk.

The entire meeting was in German, which I don't speak, as we've already covered. I arrived during the opening hymn. (Love singing the hymns in other languages! There's something so familiar, yet so foreign about it.) Someone else coming in the same time as me shook my hand upon entering, and found out I was American and only spoke English. During the first speaker, he asked me if I wanted a translator. I said sure, and so he had Dennis, this German guy, come sit by me and translate. He apologized for his bad English, but he was actually pretty good. Then halfway during the second talk, I guess there were a few others who needed translation, so I was handed a headset, and one of the missionaries translated. (Great set up...you wear the headphones that have a wireless transmitter from someone speaking into a microphone; so the missionary sat in the back with the microphone, and you get the translation in real time. I think they use those for the Spanish branch back in my stake in Austin. But this was the first time I've used it personally, so it was novel!)

I didn't think I'd stay longer than Sacrament meeting, but ended up staying all three hours. An elder from Colorado came and talked with me for a bit, then offered to translate Sunday School for me. He has only been out for a year or so, so he's still working on his translation skills. Mostly what he did was give me a general idea of what was being said. I didn't mind, I wouldn't have had a clue, otherwise.

And I also went to Relief Society, but late, because after Sunday School I was talking to Dennis. Anyway, no translator in RS, but they did give me a partial copy of the lesson in English. Cool. People here are great.

Back to the hotel! On my way in, I ran into a bunch of people from the Texas group, who were just arriving. (And all super jet lagged.) We ended up getting lunch together.

I spent some time online, then took a nap. I woke up just in time to get to the opening reception only 45 minutes late. (Ha!) I saw lots of people I know. This particular conference is like a reunion, especially as it's held every 2 years and you see the same people there every time.

And now...sleep!