This is Heidelberg's flag. Which is not unlike this flag:
Pittsburgh's flag.
While the stripes might be different and Pittsburgh doesn't have some crown-wearing lion on its flag, the color scheme is enough for me to like it. Black and Yellow! Which brings me to my next point/short story.
As I mentioned in my last post, Thursday was St. Patrick's Day and of course we had to go to the Irish bar at the very least to just see the craziness. Sure enough it was packed with people wearing green hats and green shirts drinking green beer with green shamrocks etc. I look around and I notice some familiar memorabilia. A Terrible Towel. A "Steeler's Nation" street sign replica. A Steelers helmet. I realized that this bar was in fact a Steeler's bar! Black and yellow stuff everywhere. It made me so happy. I ended up only staying for a little while, but it was still pretty fun and I got to experience the German take on an Irish holiday.
Last point about the whole Pittsburgh thing, I promise. Anyone from Pittsburgh, when asked to explain the geography, will tell you that it is a medium sized city placed on three rivers with a mountain to the south of the rivers. Heidelberg is a German medium sized city with a river running through it and has a mountain on the southern side of the river. CRAZY!!!
Anyways! This weekend was fun. Friday we all took it easy. Played some German Monopoly and had a beer or two. In addition to being German, it was also a "classic" version so it was double awesome. I was destroying but then paid way too much for a property and ended up losing to Mike. Pics below of board:
Huge pics.
Someone pointed out that I seem to never post any pictures with me in them (or anyone else for that matter). So heres the thing. I have a camera but it requires some outdated USB cord to connect to my laptop and it don't work. Fortunately, Mike has the exact same camera cord that I need and so I will soon be uploading the pictures I done taken. So for all the haters who be saying PICS OR GTFO!!! I will have them soon.
John F. Kennedy once said "Ich bin ein Berliner." The common myth is that this means I am a jelly doughnut. Indeed there is a common German breakfast pastry called a Berliner. And it is delicious. You can get 3 of them for about a Euro and a half and they're everywhere. I had one Saturday and it was pretty tubular. Also on the list of delicious German breads is something I had today called an "Amerikaner". This is what it looks like
It looks and tastes better in real life. I promise.
If you think the name is unusually similar to "American", it is because it actually means American. I don't think I've seen this type of pastry in many coffee shops in America and it tastes nothing like an American so I have no idea why it is called that. So today I ate an American. This adds to the list of other German food/drink items with random countries name. For example when you mix wine with sparkling water, it is called a Korean. Or adding beer with certain types of soda is called a Russian. It all seems arbitrary but I'm sure there is some kind of reason (racist? probably not) for all of this.
Lastly, last night we had a new homestay guest move in. Her name is Yuka and she comes from Tokyo. She is extremely polite and will almost always respond to anything you say by smiling and/or giggling. She speaks about 3 words of German which is probably why she is here learning it. Although she says she understands some English, I am fairly certain she doesn't but thats okay because I speak probably just as much Japanese.
This weekend is Mike's last one here so we're probably going to take a day trip to one of the nearby small-town-with-picturesque-scenery-and-gigantic-castle places.
Hope all is well in the states!!!
-Smabs
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