This is our last weekend in Marburg, so I decided to take advantage of our close proximity to southern Germany to visit a good friend yesterday from my HIA days in Berlin. With the special weekend train ticket special for 37€ that allows up to 5 people to travel on one ticket, I tried to recruit four others to come along.
In the end, I only ended up convincing my neighbor, Carissa, and my fellow Fulbrighter, Nick, to come along. Turns out, 10-15 other Fulbrighters decided to take advantage of the special weekend ticket to go to Cologne, so in some respects, it was harder to convince others to come with me.
In the end though, it turned out well, since I honestly had no clue what was in Mannheim other than what I’d heard from my friend, Margot. My main goal was to go see her, since we hadn’t seen each other since being in Berlin together in 2008 for HIA. As a result, I didn’t really do much research beforehand (plus our internet connection no longer exists, so I have to find other networks to mooch off of). I am very thankful that both Nick and Carissa were patient and kind enough to come along even without a very detailed plan.
The train trip to Mannheim lasted about 2:45 including about a 30-minute stop in Frankfurt. By the time we arrived in Mannheim, it was nearly 12:30 PM, so we headed to the tourist information office across from the main train station, since Margot had warned me ahead of time that the office closes at 1 PM. She had to meet us later in the day because of a practice exam for her law degree, so we decided to just walk around and see what cool-looking sites we could find.
Before then though, we stopped by a little Thai “fast food” restaurant called Yam Yam. It was pretty awesome. Since I had already spent 3€ on two cheeseburgers and a chickenburger from McDonald’s, I just got a bowl of wonton soup, which was surprisingly spicy as they had seemingly dumped a ton of black pepper into it. Still good though, and the place just seemed awesome.
Mannheim is in the state of Baden-Würtemmberg, one of the 16 in Germany. Counting yesterday’s visit, I have now been to 8 of the Bundesländer. Mannheim seemed to be a more modern city with newer buildings, but still had a nice share of older buildings/sites. Based on our map and the lone picture I remembered from Wikipedia, we headed toward the Water Tower, which seemed really nice on Mannheim’s Wikipedia page. Along the way, we saw some pretty neat buildings, such as the art gallery.
By the Water Tower, we saw several wedding parties. On a side note, the weather on this particular Saturday was especially nice as it’s been raining incessantly in Germany. We got lucky, I’d say.
The park was called Friedrichsplatz, and it was really quite nice. The cascading waterfalls and ever-flowing fountains in a luscious green park filled with vivid flowers made for a very relaxing atmosphere.
From there, we decided to walk around the “ring,” which is the really long circular street that surrounds the center of Mannheim. Along our walk, I found this elementary school named after Mozart. This was the first of several bits of Mozart’s legacy in Mannheim that we saw around the city. In terms of schools, I also saw a nice Gymnasium (grammar school) earlier by the art gallery.
Since we had already walked half the ring by this time, we decided to just cut through the middle of the circle to reach the Baroque palace. On our way, I got a call from Margot about meeting after her practice exam, so we decided to just meet up in front of the palace. It reminded me of a castle in Berlin.
Margot arrived shortly after we did. It was really great to see her again and actually speak in German with her this time. As she said, when we first met, I could barely speak German, but now I’ve been writing on Facebook in German, emailing in German, sending text messages in German, and talking on the phone in German. Bottom line: my German had vastly improved since we last met up.
As Margot explained, the palace was actually part museum and part library (and part classrooms/offices) for the University of Mannheim.
She gave us a little bit of a tour through the library and showed us all the cool spots, including the areas where she regularly studies. The library itself is rather new, so the architecture, design, and features were all very modern.
She also showed us Ludwigshafen, another city, from a window upstairs. The Rhein River runs through Mannheim (along with the Neckar on the other side) and effectively separates the state of Baden-Württemburg from the state of Rheinland-Pfalz, which you can see across the river in this picture.
As it turns out, another wing of the palace houses several newly renovated lecture halls, so we visited a few of them along one corridor. They are really very nice, and I was surprised that every seat had an electrical outlet if you had a laptop to plug in.
In another wing, we found copies of classical Greek sculptures. Very exciting, especially since I’ve seen most of the “real” versions (Roman copies really) in Italy. The Laocoön Group was one of my favorites—I saw the real one in the Vatican Museum. I also explained the story to Margot in German, which was a bit challenging, but I did it, and she understood. ☺
Next to the palace stood the palace’s Catholic church. It was quite nice inside. The ceiling was quite impressive.
So was the front of the church (check out the eye at the top…Illuminati anyone?)
And of course the giant organ.
Apparently, Mozart played here.
After the palace excursion, we headed to one of Mannheim’s oldest Baroque buildings for a short break. ‘Twas very fancy and actually surprisingly affordable.
All four of us got the same thing—hot chocolate. Yummm.
We honestly had no clue what was even in Mannheim, so we just followed Margot’s suggestions. Next stop on our walk was the largest mosque in Germany. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a mosque before, so I was excited about being able to go in.
We had to leave our shoes by the entrance and then walked upstairs. There was barely anyone there, but one gentleman who was there gave us a bit of history of the mosque (built in 1995 on the spot where a parking garage used to be). I asked if it’d be ok to take pictures, and he said of course. So here are a few photos:
From the mosque, we walked to the second river in Mannheim, the Neckar. Pretty neat that there’s a boat museum there.
The weather was really quite nice yesterday, and I’m very glad we could go visit Margot. Although I’m Facebook friends with nearly all my old HIA buddies, I had only seen two of them in person in the time since. So it was nice to see yet another HIA friend.
Today, we had our last Fulbright group excursion by taking a tour of the castle’s casemates. Honestly, even after the tour, I still have no clue what a casemate is. I think it's just a basement, but I could be wrong.
It was pretty cool, I guess. Certainly wouldn't have killed me to just stay home and work on stuff, but it was neat and interesting. Some impressions:
Things are coming to an end quickly, and I feel like I'm running out of time. Tomorrow, we have our final exam, which should be fine. Not worried. Then on Tuesday, my class is doing the radio program. Looking forward to speaking in German live on the radio. After the radio program, I am joining a few others to go near Frankfurt for a soccer game. Then we have our last day on Wednesday, which will include a buffet dinner downtown.
Brandon and I head to Berlin together on Thursday, where I will only stop for two days and then head to Oktoberfest on Saturday. Can't wait! It's going to be a busy week.
Until next time,
Sam
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