A trip to Hogwarts

Okay, well it wasn't to Hogwarts, but we did take a day trip to Heidelburg on a train to a castle. Hannah's constant mention of Harry Potter since we've been here made me correlate the coincidence of taking a train to a castle to the life of witchcraft and wizardry in the Harry Potter series. And plus, Heidelburg/Hogwarts.. same thing right?
Hannah and I were hoping for a platform 9 and 3/4 at the train station, but it turned out we didn't make it to the station together at all. While I arrived 30 minutes before meeting time, she, Chris and Christina showed up ten minutes past the leaving of the train. I took the original train to Heidelburg with Marlies (an employee at the Johannes Gutenburg journalism department) and Dr. Arant (my professor here and in Memphis.) They were suppose to take the one an hour later, but after about 4 hours of train hopping and 5 trains later they FINALLY made it to Heidelburg after we had seen all the sites.

I, however, got the full experience of the beautiful town of Heidelburg.

We first went to the Universitaet Heidelberg, which was founded in 1386. It is the oldest University in Germany. We got to see the University's Student Prison.

From 1823 to 1914 students were incarcerated for such transgressions as night-time carousing or other offences against the public order. The university enjoyed autonomous jurisdiction over students for its first five hundred years. ......

Depending on the seriousness of student's offense, imprisonment could last from two days to four weeks. Students were, in theory, still permitted to attend lectures during confinement. Yet life in the prison was considered fairly comfortable, with students making use of their jail time --if at all-- to cut classes, or immortalize themselves on the walls and celings via paintings or poems.

 --The Universitaet Heidelberg brochure, 2010. -Kommunikation und Marketing

 

Then we went to the big bridge. We were going to ride a river boat but it was full at both times we checked.

 

 On to the castle. The walk up was STEEP. I seriously got dizzy, though I'm incredibly out of shape so that probably doesn't say much to the steepness.

  

    

Finally, I went shopping. I got all my nieces and nephews something except for Daniel. I haven't found what I want to get him from Germany yet. I bought Drake and Zach some knives and Zoe a porcelain doll :)