Time for yet another boating adventure! On Saturday the 16th, Manuel, Juri and I loaded up the camping car, drove a little ways up the Rhine, and then packed up... The Catamaran. Made by Waldorf kiddies, I believe. We fit a ridiculous amount of stuff in there, and then Juri and I paddled upstream, while Manu surfed. Paddling was all kinds of uncomfortable because we had to sit on the platform and then paddle out in front of us... Anyways, we eventually got to an island. We had planned to go where we went last week, but it was under water! Guess there’s been a lot of rain.
















So much stuff! The boat was literally 2 inches out of the water with Juri and I in it.
















Because we thought it was going to rain (and dear god, did it rain...) we put up a tarp which ended up being the size of a small house! Crazy. We had a good evening, grilling, eating, and playing Dutch Blitz for about 2 hours. I think I’m going to need a new set of cards, because mine are all kinds of beat up!

That evening, after getting back and getting a little less wet, we watched the final of the Women’s World Cup, USA v. Japan. It was a really good game, and SO close! Sort of disappointed that we lost, because we really played the better game, but it was pointed out that if anyone else should win, Japan deserved it.

On Tuesday, the first properly sunny and warm day since I’ve been here, I decided to have a ridiculously touristy day around Heidelberg.















The city from the castle.















Castle! You can't really see it here, but it's this funny pink color, because that's just the color of the local stone. Makes it look just a bit less intimidating, though.















Yay! I took a picture of myself and it doesn’t look awful! By the way, I’m on the castle, and that’s the Neckar.















Outer side of the castle, and I think the green part used to be the moat. Apparently, during WWII, the Americans refused to bomb Heidelberg, because so many of them had traveled or studeied there, and they thought it was too beautiful to destroy. The French, however, did not have the same reservations, and that’s why the castle is looking a little worse for wear. (I’ll admit, I don’t actually know if the second part is true, but I know the first is).















This is apparently the German concept of a royal garden.















Just kidding, it used to look like this!















Ich bin dein Gummibär....















So, apparently, Heidelberg has the largest number of Americans outside of America. Or, something like that, because there are a TON of army bases! This one is right around the corner from his mom’s house. Craziness.

Hehehehe. There's something so satisfying about taking pictures of things that say not to...

This is really random, but I’m really excited, because whenever I go somewhere, I always think “man, I wish I had the habit or buying a patch or pin in every country I went to, because then I’d have this awesome collection of memoribilia.” But then I always think “Well, I’ve already been to so many places, that it’s stupid to start now.” But then I always go to more places... So, I finally made up my mind. In Heidelberg, I bought two little lapel pins, one with the German colors and an eagle, the other saying Heidelberg. Finally, I have my tradition! And here’s the clever part—I found a website (zazzle.com or something) that sells many things, including pins. So, I went and bought a pin for everywhere I’ve been (flag and/or national symbol pins). I’m going to have such an awesome collection :) I don’t know why, but it’s really exciting, although I won’t get them until I’m home. Too bad

Other things during the week involved: painting Manu’s mother’s kitchen (he then replaced all the cabinets), going to see a really impressive youth circus from... Costa Rica, I think, which was organized by a few of his friends, and finally seeing Harry Potter! Very exciting. I might have changed a few things, but overall it was fun. Hell, even Manu liked it.

On Sunday the 10th, I moved into my dorm room from the language school (the language school which goes by the name... F+U. No, seriously. I don’t know how they thought that was a good idea). Not a bad room, although the lighting was a little iffy. The cool thing is that Manu’s father let me borrow a bike of his, so I can bike to and from school, which is about 20 minutes or so. It makes me totally feel like a resident, which is really nice.

My room. Nothing special, but pretty roomy. Tiny little bed, though. For the first week there were 2 boys living ext to me, maybe 14 years old. And... Let’s just say that I fantasized about killing them. Ok, maybe not, but they made an incredible amount of noise. Seriously, it was impressive. They moved out after a week, though, so that was good.

Death by German grammar. UGH. I copied out all 200-something irregular vrebs in present, präteritum and perfekt, which took roughly forever.

Anyways, classes were alright. The first few days were hard. I had trouble understanding the professor (turns out, she’s Hungarian, and had an accent that threw me off at first), and was definitely behind the rest of the class. It was weird, though, because the grammar was nothing new, I mostly just had trouble following the directions. After the first few days, though, we split into two groups, and that was a lot better. It was only 9 of us, and we went a little slower. By the second week, I had a good grasp of it all, which was nice. Not the best classes I’ve ever taken, but if nothing else, it was really good to have German spoken at me for 3 hours every day.
Also, it was really cool who was in the class—an American, 2 Turkish, 1 Spanish, 1 Chinese, 1 Italian, 1 Ukranian, 1 Czech, 1 French. It was just so neat to be in a tiny little classroom with 9 countries represented (plus the Prof), with all of us trying to learn a language, and all working together. I guess that shouldn’t be so cool after MHC, but I think it was just so much more obvious here.

The view from my window, Viktoriastraße. It was about 6 minutes by 6 from Manuel’s mom’s house which was great, and I went over there quite a bit.

We decided to cook a German dinner one night (ironically, I did most of the cooking)—Saurkraut, Kartoffeln, Wurst (it was beef, promise!), and of course Bier. It’s Radler, though, which is half beer and half limonade... Which is like Sprite, I think? Anyways, it’s yummy, and sweet enough that even I can drink it.

My lovely bike which is about a century old :)

One of the great things about Heidelberg (and probably most German cities) is that they have bike lanes throughout the city. What’s not so awesome is that some of the streets have cobblestones which make for seriously awkward bike riding. I think it must really suck to drive a car in the city, though—Not only are there bikes everywhere and astronomical gas prices, but the trams (you can see the tracks in the photo) run right in the street, so cars have to stop all the time. Oof. Glad I have a bike!

Also, random fun fact—the name Heidelberg comes from “Heidelbeeren” which means blueberries. Apparently they used to grow on the hillside.

So, this might be a few weeks behind schedule, but it’s once more blogging time! “American in Montpellier” doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense right now, but... Deal with it. I’m not feeling clever enough to come up with another blog title right now.

Anyways, so, summer trip to Germany to improve my German and see Manuel! AKA, Emily wants to avoid the real world for a while longer... Either version works pretty well :)
So, I left for Germany on July 5th. Gotta say, Aer Lingus is wonderfully cheap, but not really the best airline ever. But, I got to Ireland without incident (Finally! Ireland!), and then off to Frankfurt. It totally felt like cheating to break the trip into 5 and 3-hour flights, instead of 9 hours straight. Much easier that way. Manuel met me at the airport which was exciting and a little terrifying, and we headed home to Heidelberg.

Our first few days were very lazy, with some walking around the city and spending time with his family. On Friday the 8th, we went to Mannheim to borrow a boat from his father (which he had made), and went boating on the Rhine!

But first I had to play on the trampoline with Juri. God, I love those things.

The Rhine goes right by Mannheim, so all we had to do was put the boat on a little cart-thing, and walk it down to the river! We definitely got some weird looks, though.

Heading up river with a motor! He taught me how to control the boat which was cool, although kinda scary. Although it makes your hand go numb rather soon. Also, what’s with the coal plant? I thought Germany was all for clean energy? Or, does that only count for nuclear

Manu driving :)

It was apparently all too easy, so the boat decided to start leaking. A lot. So, we had to try and sop some of it up with a towel and wring it out. But, we didn’t sink so it worked out all right.

Pretty..... We went to an island, and camped for the night :)

We got back on Saturday afternoon, went to dinner with his Aunt, Uncle and brother that evening. It was cool, because, although I couldn’t really participate in their conversation, I could follow it (mostly) which was a nice improvement :)

p.s. My apologies if the photos aren't great - I don't have a fast connection, so I had to reduce the size of the pictures so it wouldn't take all day to load