Sick, but out and about

Alex started the weekend pretty sniffly and coughed quite a bit, but we were out and about anyway. The apartment is just too small to keep us contained for much more than a few hours at a time, even in freezing temperatures. We're becoming quite hardy - trying to keep up with the Germans, who seem unflappable in this weather.

On Saturday, we pretty much just ran some errands in town, but had fun meeting an American family on the bus as our two boys were fighting for the coveted spot in any bus (if you're 4 years old),  the last row. It's seats are slightly elevated and afford an excellent vantage point to see what's going on inside the bus and outside. Well, the "dispute" was settled, room was made for both boys and we got to talking. It turns out it's the family of an ethnologist and I was thrilled to meet someone who was not an astrophysicists or other natural scientist. (No offense, scientist friends!) I hope we can connect again in the future. Anyway. We mostly ran errands and then stopped into the Hauptbahnhof (central railway station) which was the site of a wonderful little traveling science exhibit on water. They had all sorts of displays (kind of like the water things at Wonderlab). The docent explained that it was a grant to bring science out into society (hence the somewhat weird location) where lots of different people would see it without an admission fee. And there were certainly a lot of people there. Alex and I had a good time trying to understand the physics behind the various experiments. Here are some shots of him enjoying the fun.

We spent the rest of the day at home, reading books and snuggling, as Alex was getting increasingly crabby and tired i.e. sick. I put him down on the early side, but he woke up 6 times before midnight and was pretty feverish. I had - stupidly - left our thermometer at home, but not the Children's Advil, which he took at some point in the night and which seemed to have restored him to almost normal. I had a chance to talk to my friend here today on the phone and mentioned this to her and she told me that these kinds of medications are only dispensed with a prescription here, so I was doubly glad I had brought some.

After a long night (Alex woke up at 7:15 instead of 6:30 am!), we had a leisurely morning and then headed out for more adventures. We got off the bus around mid-day at Bismarckplatz - note the Bismarck statue in the background - which is kind of a central starting point for most Old Town adventures (and can be reached by a direct bus from our apartment).

Much to our delight, we saw a bunch of firetrucks and firefighters. We even got close enough to see what had happened. Apparently a city bus had leaked some gas into the street, which was being contained and remediated by the firefighters. This was particularly exciting, since we had just read a library book this morning about exactly such an occurrence. To see it play out in real time was cool. (I'm not trying to make light of the emergency, but no people or even the bus were in danger.)

After all this excitement we found a bakery for lunch.

I realize that Alex's selection does not represent the best nutritional balance, but we had zucchini and spinach for dinner. When you see his enjoyment of the chocolate croissant, you'll understand.

We then headed out and - to our delight - found a guy selling hot roasted chestnuts. We'd been looking for this stand for a while, because Alex loves collecting chestnuts and when he found out there were also ones that we could eat, he got very excited. Also, look at how picturesque the stall is...

In the end, he liked the idea of eating chestnuts better than their actual taste (though they were perfectly delicious and hot), or maybe his belly was still full of chocolate croissant.

Our final stop of the day was the local history museum, the Kurpfälzisches Museum. The Föhrs had recommended it to us, and they did not oversell it. Wow. We had a blast! For the (somewhat silly) entry fee of EUR 1,80, we got several buildings and stories worth of local stuff ranging from (and I'm not exaggerating here, if anything, I'm leaving things out) archeological findings of Homo Heidelbergensis (somewhere between Homo Erectus and Homo Sapiens) to dioramas of Bronze and Stone Age folks, to huge dioramas as well as archeological artifacts, statues etc. from Roman times (including a separate exhibit on Roman funeral practices) to the Francs (Merowingians to be exact) to the Middle Ages, etc. Then there were vast collections of furniture, china, glass, silver, coins, jewelry, costumes etc. from the 17th to the 19th century Palatinate Electors who lived in Heidelberg at times. This was a great follow-up to our castle trip last weekend and Alex saw knights and princes everywhere. And I haven't even mentioned a large collection of paintings (which we skipped) and a lapidarium (which was closed) and a special exhibit on Japanese art (which we also skipped).

It was sort of difficult to explain at times that the Roman knights and the early modern princes were not exactly the same thing. Moreover, he kept insisting that all the 'olden times' lined up with when Abraham Lincoln was President. Hmmm. I need to do some more work here. I had to laugh, however, when were in a lavishly appointed Rococo dining room and he pointed to the crystal chandelier and said: "That's just like the lamp we have in Greencastle." Not quite.

In any event, it was EUR 1,80 well spent! We'll come back here for sure. Any of you want to join us?