Day Three/Four - Freeberg!

Waking up at 6 is fun. 

Especially after going to bed at 1, as your sister has decided that she must painstakingly extract a tiny splinter from her foot before she can lay her head down. 

Needless to say, my bed was particularly cozy that morning. But I launched out of it anyway upon the waking of my German mom, and got ready for the 6 hour car ride that was soon to follow.
And then the 6 hour car ride followed. 5 of us crammed into a dinky Prius towards our first stop: Heidelberg.
Just got out of my sentence, and now I'm in transport. Good stuff. Thankfully my sister and I passed the time with an odd collection of tunes, mixed by yours truly, and a pillow, which we traded off using placed on the other for sleeping purposes. This worked like a charm, leaving me stumbling out of the car at one particular rest stop while the rest of my car mates took bathroom breaks, aside from my sister, who had taken the opportunity to stretch out lackadaisically across our empty seats and demand chocolate from my German father. Then my German mother passed me two two Euro coins (four Euros in total), and told me to get a German pretzel for both my sister and myself. This prompted my first (and so far only) purely German exchange, which consisted of four words and some mild confusion.
"Zwei Laugenbretzel, Bitte"(woo, learning stuff!)
"Hmm?"
*holding up two fingers* "Laugenbretzel...?"
...
"Ah, ja"
I got two cents as change. I'm basically full German by this point.

We arrived in Heidelberg after a brief continuation of the sleeping/driving/musicing (I am so copyrighting that), and the city was pretty incredible. It was a tad touristy, but there were many Germans, and shops, and we found a Falafel place at the request of my sister, with delicious platters and (according to my sister) an adorable Greek chef at the counter.

We continued by walking out on the bridge over the something-or-other river (Neckar), where we looked over the water and spoke whimsically about odd Indian men while the parents snapped our photos. Then we returned for some (actually logical) ice cream, and walked about a little before returning to our car, herding in like cattle, and taking off for the next three hours heading into Freiberg ('cause it's free and all).
Passing through the city on our way to the "Pension" (pronounced Pan-see-ohn), there wasn't much to see until we skirted Au (pronounced Oh, I guess?), and saw the stark green of the rolling hills near the Black Forest.
So it turns out the grass is actually greener. Weird.
Anyways, it was an adorable house, with farmer landlords and running spring water, but after that car ride I would have been content with a Hoovertown shack. We then drove down to the city to get dinner at this co-op restaurant, meeting up with a friend of my German mother's and then I had the most gourmet mac and cheese ever. Like for serious. Went back after, read a bit, went to bed.

Next day I got up late, tried Nutella on German rolls, and headed out for Freiberg with a spring in my misstep and a smirk on my face. We ended up in this super old-style city, where the buildings each had their own century and story to go with them. In the midst of this history, there was this little homegrown farmers market, with wooden stalls and buckets full of olives and carrots and white asparagus (apparently it's really good, but I have not selected this delectable treat as of yet). We got olives and herb cheese in oil.

So we browsed for a bit, and the German grandfather attending our trip regaled me with some interesting WWII/Nazi/Hitler fun facts. The germans, as it seems, view him pretty similarly to what we see, only with the addition of they consider him an actual person. How strange.

My sister also wanted to check out this university, but didn't have an appointment. However, when we entered, they were setting up for a presentation so there were plenty of staff willing to answer her questions. Then, in the midst of discussing this tiny german/international Liberal-Arts program, they ask us to come out into the hall, because there's a television camera crew filming the place, and they want some people there. So, if any of you watch German TV, be on the lookout for my cameo appearance.

We ate at the same restaurant as the night before, after stopping off at the Pension and knitting/ reading aloud under blankets. Tehn we were off to bed, and another day awaited us.