adaptability

It is required for all university students here be able to open a beer bottle with any object on hand, so that they can keep on fighting the good fight. I was at a street festival and someone didn't have a bottle opener (drinking on the street is legal), so, he used the phone in a pay-phone booth to open it.

New photos -- HD fair and Castles

Added new photos, including a handful from a local Heidelberg Fall fair, and from having gone to sight-see some local castles. At Schwetzingen, the second castle, apparently both Mozart and Voltaire were frequent guests, the former from a very young age, as Carl-Theodore, the nobleman who built up the castle, had a lot of leisure time and was well educated in music.

Radler, Money

Radler, the German version of a shandy, is a big thing here. It's served everywhere. People can have a beer without getting drunk. Very refreshing.

Germany is totally cash driven. Credit cards are rarely taken. I don't have an ATM card yet so it's kinda an issue, although I do now have a bank account so I'm okay. Relatedly, I really need a change-purse -- forgot how annoying it is for coins to be worth up to 2 euros.

Here are the rest of the photos.

celery schnitzel

Dinner tonight at a restaurant down the street: celery schnitzel (with ratatouille and tomato-mashed potatoes -- delicious). File this with "my roommate is vegetarian" under "destroying American stereotypes of German diet."

beersign

The prove-you're-human text I wrote to create this blog was "beersign".