(Source: sunshineanderson, via stoneagegraffiti)
After years of watching Mum and even Cass cook it, I can finally say now that I can cook pak-choi with oyster sauce! Chicken with ginger and black bean sauce. I’d never cooked with black bean sauce before so this was experimentation. Mum would be proud.
The Double Double! At the Cheers American Sports Bar where I watched Bayern lose the Champions League Final in front of their home fans. There was such a dejected atmosphere in the pub after the final penalty from Drogba. Sad when anti-football wins out but also, Bayern didn’t take the many chances they created.
From this currywurst parlour in Cologne. They have a huge selection of different sausages, different sauces (and then you can even choose the spicyness of your desired sauce!), different types of chips (I chose dick, German for “fat”), different types of toppings for your chips; all their waitresses are really attractive; they have no shame in wanking up the place even though they know they just sell fast food… It’s right on Rudolfplatz.
I had heaps of potatoes left over growing things so I inaugurated steak and veg week!
The first photo is my favourite photo I took in Heidelberg. The second is quite similar. The third is more of the Altstadt.
The first time I came to Germany was when I was 15 and on a school exchange. I went to a small city near Baden-Baden in Baden-Württemburg in the Schwarzwald where I lived for 7 weeks. The second time I came to Germany was last year when I lived in Düssledorf for 6 weeks. I’m now living in Cologne, and everything here is basically the same as in Düsseldorf - they’re in the same state (Nordrhein-Westfalen) and only half an hour away with regional train, both are quite urban and the landscape is really flat, and you generally get the feeling that you’re in a central hub of activity.
I really enjoyed visiting Heidelberg because it really reminded me of my first exchange. I like this state, I like the mountainous landscape and the forest. It has this different feel to it… It makes you feel like you’re really in a different, secret place while still in civilisation. As a city, it’s probably been the highlight of all the German cities I’ve visited so far this trip because, on top of this personal affiliation I feel to this region of Germany, it’s a really nice city too. The Altstadt is really genuine, it’s also quite busy, but in a good way.
What also made the trip good was the company, chilling out and chatting with Marc was fun and really made me realise how much I’d grown up since we last saw each other 2 years ago and I didn’t know how to hold a conversation with someone 5 years older than me.
Full marks for Heidelberg, I recommend it.
Heidelberg: The Neckar from the Schloss with the Altstadt in the foreground.
Das Heidelberger Schloss.
It was quite a steep walk but we eventually made it, and I was not disappointed… The Heidelberg Thingstätte.
An amphitheatre that was built during the build-up to the Second World War, it was essentially designed for the dissemination of propaganda, a place where Hitler and his colleagues could assemble the masses and feed them information. I read on the information board that they had intended to build up to 400 all around Germany. The wikipedia page says only about 40 were built.
What really astounded me was how they’ve repatriated the space since then. For the First of May celebrations, they had a huge party up there with roughly 12,000 people! And what impressed me about that was that, less than two weeks later when I was there, the place was absolutely spotless! That would never happen in Australia… There’d be way too many people there to ruin it, people who’d hurt other people, leave their rubbish everywhere, generally being dickheads. The sense of social responsibility and the norm of social order is so much stronger here in Germany, it really does go by the stereotype haha.
Also really nice was finding the geocache that’s hidden right there at the amphitheatre. To think that 12,000 people partied there and didn’t find it makes me feel pretty cool about being part of this global society, not to mention the place’s Nazi past…
The view from the mountain where Thingstätte is southward to the Altstadt.
Me attempting to look comfortable in a posed tourist photo.
