Sunday Drivers

Kayla rocking the puppy purse

Oh, autobahn, how I dearly love thee.

Once the crew was bundled and ready to go (of course Kayla looked like she was dipped in a paint can or 10 according to Enrico) we headed to the Schloss Schwetzingen. Essentially it was like a mini-Versailles, situated in a pristine plaza with surrounding cafes, some equipped with beach chairs and blankets. Oxymoron? You betcha.

Greek culture at it's best

We wandered out into the immense garden and took a stroll on the lovely gravel which Kayla was absolutely fascinated with. Lavish could be one word to describe the grounds, borderline grandiose would be a better term. We passed a roman-style mini-parthenon with a greek god-style statue. Of course, I hopped up on a neighboring pedastal and did my very own greek interpretation. Eh, I'm a tourist, what can I say.

We continued down the seemingly endless path to an even larger garden area filled with cherry trees threatening to bloom. And to the right of this... a mosque. Not just any mosque, a pink mosque. Dotted around the sides of this unique bulding were true, but nonetheless depressing sayings. A rough translation of one of them is "when the rose is watered, so are the thorns". A much perkier saying was "gather all the gold you need and as much wisdom as you can". The interior of this mosque/palace was beautifully decorated as well. It reminded me of something from Aladdin.. but in the middle of Germany. Unique is one way to put it.

BAM. Where'd that come from?!

At least it added to the lake scenery

Kayla was completely oblivious to the fact that this mosque was incredibly out of place for she thought the carp was far more fascinating. Better yet, she was intrigued even more by the brown, crinkly leaves. We spent a good deal of time staring at the fattest goose I had ever seen in my life and some show-off swans. Wandering around a courtyard or two, we stumbled upon something even more interesting and unexpected: a peacock. I still think the mosque was the craziest thing.

SPEYER. It's huge.

Slightly confused and itching to look up what we just saw on the internet, we headed back to the car, heading to Speyer. Oh, Speyer. It was very cute. Slightly mismatched though. The main theme of the town was quite an old but "cutesie" set-up but with a very, very large technology museum with enormous planes mounted above the buildings. Our interest, however, was in the Speyer cathedral. Grandiose doesn't even begin to describe this place. It was absolutely enormous. It had a stunning rose window with Jesus's face in the center. It was obvious that this building was very old, and had undergone quite a few renovations back in its day. There was a plethora of different brick sizes anywhere from teeny-weeny child's play size to massive modern day stone. You could even see where the old archways used to be on the sides of the building. Outside the weather was rather pleasant, even for a cold-blood like me. However, when we opened the heavy doors (the handles were metal: one a dolphin and the other a lizard), we entered the arctic. Uncomfortable is one word that could be used,  downright freezing is the best. The inside of the cathedral itself made the largest visitor feel minute. The sides of the nave were adorned with larger than life sized paintings depicting Mary's life. On the sides leading down to the crypt, the oldest part of the building, there was an alter bearing a multitude of lit candles and decorated with sculptures of frogs, insects and ravens. Pleasant, eh? Despite how ugly the creatures were, it was nice next to the candle altar- I could actually feel my fingers.

Creepy McCreeperson.

Stepping outside, we headed towards our restaurant of choice, Hausbrauerei Domhof. It was a hotel restaurant which pursued the fantastic right of brewing their own beer. There I got the chance to try their authentic german noodles. Being the gnocchi addict that I am, I naturally ordered gnocchi stuffed with cheese and wild garlic. Apparently bärlauch (bear's garlic) is about to come into season and when it does... oh boy. Everything is made with this herb: pesto, sauce, soups, you name it, they make it. Nothing gets left out. The gnocchi themselves were huge, as is the theme in Speyer. They were also absolutely delicious...

Thoroughly stuffed, we all headed home. Since the train workers are expected to strike (at least locally) we decided to move my trip to Munich ahead, and extend it a day. We battled with the Bahn website for at least an hour before we got tickets from here to Fussen. What a riot! It was so difficult. First we got the BahnCard, then the reservations, and then after figuring out that we can't buy bus tickets from them (duh- but they don't tell us it's a bus..) we FINALLY got train tickets... that leave Heidelberg at 6:15am. Sleep is overrated anyways.