Day Five: Everything Has Stopped Running Together

Yesterday was the longest day I have ever experienced. It started at 5am Monday, and ended last night at 9pm. 40 hours is a long time to be awake. I know that one day I will be doing this on a regular basis, but for what we were doing, it was a horrible introduction to this. I only had two cups of coffee if that puts it in perspective. However, last night I got some good old fashioned REM sleep and all was well. However, for whatever reason, my Oma thought interrupting it at midnight would be a fantastic idea. Read: heavy sarcasm. She woke up hearing people coming home from the club (yes these people's lives revolve around their partying make no mistake about that) and thought it was people going to work. Of course, since everyone is up and going to work we should get up and get dressed when the sun isn't even up yet. This fact did indeed turn out to be true (we got up at 7) but we lost an hour of sleep to it, which wasn't appreciated.

Moving right along, today we spent almost the entire day in Mannheim. Before we left, we stopped by to see my great-grandmother again. My mom and I were washing the lunch dishes and I voiced my observation that everything in Germany is miniature sized. This, of course, does not apply to the people, the architecture, or even the water bottles. Yes, you can buy 1.5 liter water bottles, and in the grocery stores this is generally all you can find to buy in packs greater than one.

But, I mean look at this kitchen. Everything in it is smaller than it is in the states.

But, my mom made the most valid point I've ever heard. There are 81.89 million people in a country approximately the size of Ohio. Everything has to be smaller. Anyway, we had lunch there and then went off to get on the bus to Mannheim. My mom won a bet about the bus schedule so it was bound to be a good day. 

And we were off! The bus took a different route than it did the last time we were here, so we got to see a whole new side of Schwetzingen and Mannheim which was pretty cool. When we got there, we decided to go by the Mannheim Baunhoff to see about a trip to Nuremberg. As luck would have it, we managed to get a trip there. We take a train to Mannheim then an ICE (acronym, not actually ice) bus to Nuremberg. We would have liked to take a train but that was way less cost effective. So, bus it is. Then after Christmas we are going to take the train to Worms. After we finished purchasing our tickets (the lady was super nice and even spoke English to us at points) we made our way to the Weinachtsmarkt.

These markets come once a year to some of the German towns. You can find some pretty awesome stuff, from handmade ornaments, to gluhwein, to cookies so big they need a string to hand around your neck. After visiting this one, I'm finally feeling in the Christmas spirit. Anyway, then we went off to go and find some dinner. We ended up having Kase Kuchen and apfelscholen. It was delicious. We also found some Roman things while we were exploring. 

After wandering around another market in the city, we made our way back to the Baunhoff and went back to Schwetzingen. Now, we're relaxing and getting ready for bed. It's been a long day, but in a good way.

Cheers!