Mannheim

...Guide and I went into Mannheim for breakfast. Guide sat down whilst I went up to the buffet bar, picked out 2 scrumptious looking Croissants, some jam, some Nutella, some fruit salad, and a slightly below scrumptious Grapefruit Juice, which I thought was a slightly above scrumptious Strawberry drink. I then walked nonchalantly back to our table, Guide took her turn to get breakfast and mentioned on her return how they’d charged her individually for ...
...all sorts of museums in Mannheim and Heidelberg who kindly stay open until 3am to give you the opportunity to get round them all. Even then I guarantee you’d struggle to do them all. Properly.
We managed to get round the Kunsthalle (Art Hall), where we watched a funk-improvisation by a very hip, very cool, very toe-tapping brass and percussion 6 piece, followed by “Modern-Ballet” (think Fatboy Slim’s ‘Praise you’ Music Video, and you’re about ... more

Every so often in my life I decide to do something new.
Sometimes this can be achieved with a very basic action. Changing my pants, for example.
Sometimes it can involve a whole load more upheaval. I’m moving to Spain in just over 2 weeks from today. But that’s OK, because I speak Spanish, I know their culture, and how to ask where the nearest toilets are.
Sometimes however, my desires for new and exciting things take me to strange, new worlds. Like a real life Captain Kirk.
For those of you who actually believe Captain Kirk really is real, watch “Galaxy Quest” with Alan Rickman, then Join the Queue behind my Mum at the ‘Broken Fantasies’ refund desk. (Star Trek is before the Pixies and Fairies office, next to the American Democracy Desk. If you get lost, ask Al Gore. But keep your words shorter than 3 syllables each please. And proof of true faith is necessary. Klingon hats are not.)
This time, my quest for new and exciting things took me out of Terminal One at Manchester Airport, onto a Lufthansa Airbus, leather seats et al, An hour and 35 minutes later and I’m plonked into the sprawling structure that is Frankfurt Airport.
Allow me to point out at this point that when I landed for my 6 day visit, I spoke no German. Not a jot. I do English. I do Spanish. I even do Profanities. I don’t do German.
This is not a problem in the airport. Everything is easy to follow with lovely pictures and smatterings of English under the German signs. I knew where I wanted to be, and I got there with the efficiency of, well, a German.

Following the one hour transfer on the Lufthansa shuttle bus, €35 lighter for the privilege of a return ticket, and I have arrived. I’m In Heidelberg, en-route to Mannheim, South-ish Germany.
Within seconds of arriving, my Germainian speaking guide spots the lost looking English boy disembarking the bright yellow bus, and we greet in a wonderfully friendly manner, we then set off to get on a tram. (Then straight on a bus, from the very same stop that we got off the tram. Its very confusing is this Germany place.) I didn’t pay for either of these trips. That’s wrong I know, but I didn’t. The Transport system is wonderful in Germany for all things except knowing how to pay.

Not paying appears to be developing into a new hobby of mine. I’m not a criminal; I’m a confused foreigner.
One morning Guide and I went into Mannheim for breakfast. Guide sat down whilst I went up to the buffet bar, picked out 2 scrumptious looking Croissants, some jam, some Nutella, some fruit salad, and a slightly below scrumptious Grapefruit Juice, which I thought was a slightly above scrumptious Strawberry drink. I then walked nonchalantly back to our table, Guide took her turn to get breakfast and mentioned on her return how they’d charged her individually for the items on her plate, when it was supposed to be a one-price-for-all-you-can-manage buffet.
How odd. How odd that she’d managed to spot the cash till (I still don’t know where it was) and how odd that I wasn’t arrested and charged with theft of a healthy start to the day. It was a nice breakfast, made nicer because it was free.

Back in the land of the Legal, and we have tourism to do. This involved a trip to the Cinema to see an English film. In this Cinema, I learned the hard (although thankfully not the painful punch-in-the-face) way that a “D” on a door means Damen, “Women’s Toilets”. And the “H” is quite clearly Herren, “Men’s Toilets”.
How stupid of me. How scary for the lady emerging from the D door too.
This little episode just served to maintain my theme of new-hobbies discovered while in Germany. My other new talent I hear at least one person at the back ask?
I have a talent for scaring the German Frau.

On my first morning in Mannheim, I set off on a Mission to infiltrate the local supermarket.
However, I was foolishly allowed to wander the streets armed only with 2 detailed maps of the local area, the address of where I was staying, some Keys, some money, a Lidl Carrier bag, and my sunglasses.
Not nearly enough to stop someone like me getting hopelessly lost. After an hours aimless wandering, I asked the friendly looking albeit heavily armed American army officer if he knew where I might find aforementioned grocery store. He instructed me to “ask the peace protesters, as they’re local” and pointed over the street to an intimidating rabble. I chose to thank him for his super-polite, tax-funded time and continued on my way. Giving the shouting peace people a wide berth, for fear of being attacked.

Two and a half hours into my shopping adventure.
I have now passed over a wide motorway type street, marvelled at some well maintained allotments, learned that the pavements in Germany have parts specifically for bicycles and under no circumstances should English people walk on them, and on the horizon I can see a BP petrol station.
Surely the lady in there will know where I can buy sustenance for my now epic trek? German lady speak no English, English boy speak no German.
Me asking for directions sees me leaving the petrol station with a newly bought drink in hand, and having to refuse several offers of a carrier bag in exchange for 5 cents, as the answer to my Question “where might I find Lidl?” was met with “Have a carrier bag” and my polite refusal of a carrier bag was countered with a bottle of coke from the Fridge. I left before I ended up finding myself in a pre-nuptial agreement.

Crossroads ahoy, the red traffic lights stopped the lady on the bicycle who gracefully informed me in perfect English that I was approximately 5 kilometres away from where I wanted to be. Which was by now, back in the safety of the flat, Operation Lidl long abandoned.
This was on day one. By day five, I was still pointing out places where I’d walked past whilst we were on the trams or buses, much to the amusement of Miss Guide.

My visit wasn’t all a wandering debacle. Guide had arranged for me to get some of the culture I so very much crave at times of Carrier bag duels.
One such Über-culture was known to the locals as the “Lang Nacht der Museen” or to me, the “Long night at the Museums”, for a mere €10 you can visit all sorts of museums in Mannheim and Heidelberg who kindly stay open until 3am to give you the opportunity to get round them all. Even then I guarantee you’d struggle to do them all. Properly.
We managed to get round the Kunsthalle (Art Hall), where we watched a funk-improvisation by a very hip, very cool, very toe-tapping brass and percussion 6 piece, followed by “Modern-Ballet” (think Fatboy Slim’s ‘Praise you’ Music Video, and you’re about half-way as modern as this lot were) before wandering around to look at works by Van Gogh, Monet, Pissaro, and also some photographs of naked ladies. I liked the naked ladies the best.

We then hopped onto a Tram, and off to the Palatial University to look at the Catacombs.
Traditionally, Catacombs are either Labyrinths and tunnels, or a sort of underground Cemetery. Not the sort of place you would expect to find German students chilling out to Trance and House Music lounging on big sofa’s and smoking in the dimmed disco lighting. This is exactly what we did find in these particular Catacombs, so we didn’t stay too long. I was however, impressed by the outer buildings.
Imagine if Buckingham Palace didn’t have the iron gates and the freeloaders living inside it, and it was a university in the middle of town. Then put a catacombs or two in there, and that’s what we were looking at, and losing bouncy-balls in the grounds of. I can be mature, cultured and still buy €1 balls you know.

Next day, we rose and commuted to Heidelberg. In Heidelberg, there is an almighty hill. It’s not quite a mountain, but with the efforts of some tall trees grown in poo, I’m sure it can achieve the inches to pass the minimum height.
To ascend to the top of the Hill-tain, (Hill/Mountain y’see?) you ride the wonderful invention that is the Funicular Railway. Better than Virgin Rail. Better than Connex. And made apparently entirely of rotten looking wood. Construction began in 1888, but not completed until 1907. That’s even before * Insert name of old relative over age of 40 under age of 95 here * was born.
Halfway up the mountain is a Castle, and contained within, for an entry fee of €2, you can see, aside the historic architecture of the castle itself, the worlds largest Beer Barrel. It’s enormous. You could live in it quite easily. With space for the cars, neighbours, pets… . I’m sure there are one or two Japanese Tourists already in there too.
I think it was originally a Trojan Beer Barrel. A secret mission to get hilariously drunk and hold themselves under siege until their demands to stop the room spinning were met.
Am I making it sound large enough? I don’t have the dimensions, but there were about 40 steps up to the top of it. Holy drinking party batman.
Had the students tried to enter the castle disguised as a giant Beer barrel, chances are the authorities would have noticed that it was out of the ordinary, and arrested them.
Naughty Students in Heidelberg were locked up in the worlds only Student Prison, and they were an arty bunch too. Managing to decorate the walls with self-portraits and poems, dating from the 1880’s through to the early 1900’s. And you thought the cane was severe?

6 days in Germany isn’t enough. A year in Germany probably isn’t enough either. I’m scarred mentally by my lack of knowledge of their language, and am much happier to be heading off to sunny Ibiza.

When I’m fluent in Deutsch, I’ll go back and pay my breakfast bill.
For the time being, I recommend if you’re going to visit, be sensible, and enlist the brains of the locals. They’re lovely.
 

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