Heidelberg....a blast from the past

Today I made the sojourn to Heidelberg along with the rest of the international gang. It was really interesting for me, as I (somewhat) described in this blog title, because this was the first city I have revisited in Germany from when I came here as a freshman in high school.... it was cool to see what I remembered and how my feelings changed. I remember coming to Heidelberg as a Freshman and deciding that I really really wanted to study there, being one of the best schools in Germany.... 7 years later, here I am, maybe not in Heidelberg, but I would say Bonn has exceeded all of my expectations. 

Here is the Schloss Heidelberg. The different parts of the castle were all built in different time periods, so one can really see the influence of Baroque and Gothic all throughout. This part (above) there are many different people carved into the castle. It was built by the same family that built castle Neuschwanstein (the Cinderella-looking castle that is super famous). Our tour guild pointed out that one of the people that was depicted was Kaiser Karl, who wasnt related to this family at all, but since there were no libraries or "Ask Jeeves" during the time, rulers could just make up the history. 

Here is me March 2006 in front of the same castle.

  

One thing that Schloss Heidelberg is known for is the huge wine barrel. It was seen as a since of wealth for being able to have such a huge wine barrel, it has only been completely filled twice, and the wine wasnt very good since it had to come from something like 12 different vineyards, but it was a way to boost to the other prices how grand life was. 

 I tried to take a picture here exactly where I took one in 2006 as well, here is a view from the castle overlooking old Heidelberg... its funny how the days seem to be similar cloud coverage as well

We visited the Heidelberg campus, and one of the more legendary things we got to visit was the old students prison. The university was founded in the 1300s, so before Heidelberg really had its own police system, they had their own jail. Now it is filled with centuries old graffiti, political or otherwise. It stopped being used during WWI when people decided to enlist and drop out of school

 It was a short day, but all in all it was a really interesting one for me because I felt like I was going to a place that I remember wishing I would. Its really crazy how I am halfway around the world, but still finding familiar places.