A trip to the church and an afternoon in France

Before I begin, a follow up from my "Roommate Tag?" post. It's been over a week, and I STILL have not even SEEN this roommate who is here. I'm starting to get worried because she must be realllllly antisocial if she is trying this hard to avoid me. I know that she's here because stuff in kitchen and bathrooms gets moved around, and one time I was in the kitchen and heard her walk in the apartment, but she went into her room and shut the door and then I had to head out anyways. The more time that passes by, the more awkward it's gonna get, and hopefully my other two roommates will show up soon and then I can start living with people AND seeing them! This has been like living with a freakin' ghost!

I guess I last posted Wednesday afternoon, and on Wednesday evening I went to Ash Wednesday mass with Katherine and Will. We went to the big Jesuit church in the city, which is very nice inside, but the acoustics are TERRIBLE. Everything echoes for so long, it's kind of eery and annoying at the same time. Of course the whole service was in German-- I understood some of the readings only because service runs the same way in every language, and then I understood a bit of the homily, but it seemed to be very generic. That's one thing I've gotten spoiled about because I attend Jesuit school are the homilies I think. Our priests are all brilliant professors, so when we go to mass on Sundays, they deliver these great homilies with such depth and meaning, and all while walking around without notes, as if we are in class. But when I attend regular mass, the homilies are so much more generic and not as applicable to the life of a college student, and the priest usually stands at the podium reading from some notes.

But continuing... the most awkward part was definitely giving peace to everyone, because we didn't know what to say, so we just smiled and shook the hands of the people around us. Also, I have learned since being here that Germans hate waiting in lines and hate waiting period. They'll get out of their seats super early on buses and trains, and when you are waiting in line, they stand RIGHT behind you, like practically treading on your heels and they definitely do not practice the same personal space rules as Americans (which is odd really, because Germans almost never hug, but only shake hands...) But we were standing in line to receive communion, and everyone in the back just got up and rushed to the altar pouring out both sides of the pews, creating a giant mob at the front of the church, and the priest had to basically walk around everyone to give them the bread. We felt so awkward and just didn't really know what to do. We have since looked up how to say 'peace be with you' ('friede sei mit euch') so next time, we'll be prepared!

Just heard the roommate leave her room and walk into the bathroom. I should totally jump out and surprise her, but I feel that might make things worse...

The other thing worthy of blogging about from this weekend was our spontaneous trip to France yesterday! Our student passes cover train travel throughout a fairly large region of SW Germany-- from Wurzburg in Bavaria, all the way West to the French border, therefore a group of us decided to hop on the train yesterday and pop over to a little town in France called Wissembourg for the afternoon. After a little mishap on our parts at the Hauptbahnhof, we got to France around 3:30 and found our way to the center of town. It was very quaint and picturesque, kind of a gray day but still pleasant and not too cold.



We ate at a charming little cafe/restaurant. What I thought was very cool was the fact that we were in France and honestly felt really lost because we don't speak any French, so when we walked in the restaurant, we talked to all the wait staff in German (since the town is on the border, everything/everyone is bilingual), and we ordered our food in German, etc. I ordered a chicken entree mixed with a Riesling sauce which was delicious, as well as a glass of Bordeaux-- very, very good as it's been quite a while since I've had some nice wine (we've been living on our 2 Euro bottles from Pennymarkt.)

Afterwards, we visited the cathedral and then walked the streets of town a bit, but since it was approaching 6 on a Saturday, nearly everything was closed, so we made our way back to the train station and arrived back in Heidelberg around 8:30. I think I'll definitely head over to that town again when it gets warmer and go earlier when things are actually open, because it was really quite charming. People hate on France a lot, but I've always loved it, especially the food! (Can't say the same for German food...) Definitely cannot wait until I visit Mollie in Lyon because she said it's considered the food capital of France!