I'm in Heidelberg at the moment. It's a very pretty town, but I can't help but be reminded of the various FPS games set in WWII Germany. Walking around Heidelberg castle, I keep expecting brutal looking germans wearing long grey coats to be talking about inconsequential things, only to shout "Mein Leiben" when a pesky American sprays them with his latest and greatest alien/supernatural armour peircing chain-gun.
Speaking of Americans, there are a lot of Americans here. Sitting in this internet cafe, which incidentally is a great deal cheaper than the last one that I visited, I have just witnessed the mass exodus of a bunch of Americans who were stopping here in the midst of a shopping trip. I think the large number of Americans has a lot to do with the American base which is, er, based in Heidelberg. Apart from that, I've seen a whole bunch of Japanese tourists (at least I'm pretty sure they're Japanese), and a few random Australians about the place. It feels sort of like being back in Australia..
My talk at the German Cancer Research Centre (DKFZ) went really well I think, and it looks quite hopeful that I will be able to start work on a PhD here sometime during this year. This means that I probably didn't need to do the stacks of sightseeing that I've done around Heidelberg, but I can feel happy to say now that I've climbed the 315 steps of Castle Wolfenstein - er Heidelberg, and seen the Bridge of the Monkey with Hemorroids. Willi had taken me around Heidelberg after I recovered from my train trip from Paris on Sunday (arriving at 5:30 am), and based on my memory of that excursion, I figured out how to see the sights without spending too much cash :). It's not too cold here today, but the clouds are quite grey, and it keeps threatening to rain.
I'd made an expedition earlier today to pick up a cable so that I could recharge my camera batteries. The one I picked up in New York officially sucks, as it loses it's charge within a few hours. I'll need to try and recover that battery somehow. Anyone reading this know how to fix a battery like that? It was a good experience walking around Heidelberg - the new part - looking for a place to find the cable.
I'm back on the travelling bandwagon again tomorrow, so I'll be stopping in to Tübingen (which is a completely distinct town to Bingen, be careful when asking for a train ticket "to Tübingen") to see Frau Jo, and that evening, I will be arriving in Zurich to see Herr Schulz.