Doing as the Germans do

This past weekend I visited my friend Heather from Villanova in HEIDELBERG, GERMANY!!
The highlight of the town was most definitely the ENORMOUS castle there that is legitimately ANCIENT. But so beautiful. Every town in Germany has a castle. EVERY LAST ONE! Even the tiny, seemingly unimportant towns have castles! I noticed this as my train wound through the rhineland of Germany (which is very beautiful and very, well German). Along the route you can see all the smaller towns, the vineyards, the German forests, and a river that the train follows from Cologne to Heidelberg. While I spoke zero words of German at the beginning of my visit (I now know a few phrases thanks to Heather), they spoke both English and German on the train, making my trip much less stressful.
But back to the Heidelberg caste- it is situated on a hill overlooking the city. While you can take a bus to the top, Heather and I voted for the cheaper route and hiked our way up to the top. Besides some major icy patches and having to take our coats off because we were overheating so much, the walk up the hill was nice! And of course once you get to the castle, the whole area is amazing. The gardens all around the castle are very peaceful. It feels very close to nature with birds tweeting and lots of gigantic trees and a park area surrounded by a forest. Not to mention the amazing views of Heidelberg from all the overlooks. Apparently Mark Twain visited Heidelberg for three months on a visit to Europe and during his stay wrote the book "Huckleberry Finn" (or at lease part of it). Rumor has it that Twain also knew that "Heidelberg" was derived from the word "Heidelbeerenberg", meaning "Huckleberry Mountain". Maybe this had some relation to the name of his protagonist?
Another highlight of Heidelberg was the "whomping willows"-- not they're real name, but after someone in Heather's abroad group compared them to the infamous Harry Potter tree the name stuck (at least for all of us study abroads). The trees are really odd looking because they have very knobby branches, but they are EVERYWHERE!
Possibly the best thing I tried in Heidelberg (besides bratwurst) was spaghetti-eis. It's icecream that looks like spaghetti!! I has whipped cream at the bottom, and then icecream that's shaped like noodles topped with cherry syrup. Despite the fact that it was COLD outside Heather and I bought some spaghetti-eis and devoured it anyway (and then were REALLY cold...but trying the icecream was totally worth it).
Overall I was so excited to visit Heidelberg. A bit off the beaten track, the city provides much more of a German cultural experience than say Berlin or Munich (although I would still love to see those cities too).
Imagine, only a 4 hour train ride away and I am immersed in a completely different culture and language. That's Europe for you.