Day Trips, Germany Style Part 2

 Besides Heidelberg, we made day trips around the area, with one that just barely put us in Bavaria. I remember visiting some Roman ruins in Bad Durkheim, but that excursion was otherwise unremarkable. Other than Heidelberg, the best of these was Wurzburg, the city at the northern edge of Bavaria, mostly because it has the ornate Residenz palace. I don't think any of us had seen such a decorative building before. I do remember my German family puzzled as to why we went to Wurzburg(actually spelled with an umlaut above the u), but these days I do see it come up in guidebooks for the very reason we visited.

Locally, we spent some time poking around Mainz. We had a tour of the Dom, the Mainz Romanesque cathedral. Back in the states, our teacher Herr Begren gave us lessons about common architectural styles, so we could identify a gothic period building from a baroque era one. We had few enough opportunities to feel smart our first time in another country, so at least we could parse a few things about our surroundings. Mainz also has Marc Chagall windows in one of its churches, so we had a look at those, which is one site I'm planning to visit again. I missed the day our class went to the Gutenberg museum, but from what I read, it's not particularly well done. (more on WHY I missed later)

 At the moment, I am trying to figure out a workable itinerary for our trip this June. It sounds more likely than not that Lindy Anderson and her family will meet us in Mainz. I have a list of worthwhile activities in Berlin. Our other stops, I'm less certain about. I did find out that Anna rides free on German trains! (Actually, while pricing tickets, I found that she does NOT ride free - 4.20 edit)

Above photo: Dave, John, Ann, and Peter in Bad Durkheim, sitting in a Roman something or other. I'm guessing today, they probably don't permit you to climb in and sit on them.

Ann and I on the same daytrip. Looks like I was still trying to look like a tennis player, even though I stopped playing at school the year before. My hair is nearing the style of Bjorn Borg.

On one of the bus trips, perhaps on the above one, we sat down with several other students, German ones, and created two lists. One list, the English one, contained the obscene words we wished the Germans would translate into German. Naturally, some terms didn't translate well. All the naughty body parts did, of course, but some terms, like the German word Bocker, which Google Translate says means 'Bucks', the students said means "Fucker". One who fucks? Is this something you would use on someone in an attempt to be hurtful? In English it doesn't work so well. Naturally, we threw in some absurd terms for our own amusement. I think it was from Steve Martin that I heard the term "Golden Bozos", referring to breasts. All of us, the Germans included, got a big kick out of hearing them say that one. You could count on uproarious teenaged laughter when the Germans used this in the company of their parents.