Downtown Wurzburg

Here are pictures from my first venture into Downtown Wurzburg. I met up with Gudrun for breakfast at a cafe. That required me figuring out the buses, which was pretty easy, because Gudrun showed me how the schedule works, and there's a bus stop right outside of my apartment building. However, I didn't know that you have to stamp your ticket inside the bus, not give the ticket to the bus driver or anything... the bus driver I think thought I was a little crazy.
The breakfast we had was huge. I also learned that 'tasse kaffee' is not as big as 'pot kaffee'. Also, people are allowed to smoke in the outside eating areas, which was kind of shocking. Also, the word for pineapple is 'anana', which was confusing because I thought was going to be bananas... oh well. Pineapple is still very good.

Then we started to walk around the city. Here is the view of the old Fortress, or Castle, (Marienberg) from the Old Bridge (Alte Mainbrücke). It kind of looks like something out of Lord of the Rings. They offer English-speaking tours, so some Saturday I'm going to go. I think they also have a museum inside it.

And here is where Gudrun started taking pictures of me in front of everything.
This is me on the Alte Mainbrücke, facing the main city. In the background, you can see the "Dom" - the Cathedral. It's the cathedral for St. Killian, who is the patron saint of the city. Funny story: When I was taking the tram in to the city, it stopped all of a sudden. The bus driver explained what happened in German, but I didn't understand, so I was waiting for it to start again. Then Gudrun walked up to the tram to find me - apparently the whole downtown transit had closed down because there was a huge crowd in front of the Dom for the holiday, which I later found out was Corpus Christi.

Now this is me in front of a statue on the Alte Mainbrücke. There are like 10 of these statues on the Bridge, all of different saints.

Now, me on the bridge with the fortress in the background. Notice the statue - that's St. Killian. Holding a sword. Oh - I didn't get a picture of it this time but I will later - another one of the statues has an outstretched hand, and people keep leaving stuff in the hand apparently. When I was there, he was holding two paintbrushes. I hear a lot of the time he is holding a beer bottle or a wine glass.

And then we met up with Verena (on the right) and her sister. Verena works in the lab, and her sister just finished high school.

We went into the Dom to look around, and it's huge. There is a crypt in the basement. Of interest was this extremely creepy scultpure:

Then we went to the tomb of a medieval minstrel. The custom is for a couple to place a rose on the tomb to make them be in love forever. That's why there are so many flowers on his tomb. There's also a really pretty little patio area around the tomb.

Then we walked to the Residenz, which is a UNESCO world heritage site. It's really huge, and I hear it's beautiful on the inside. I'm going to take an English tour of it in a week or so, and I'll put more details about it then. But, yesterday, we did walk around the public gardens a bit, and here are some nice flowers:

And here is me in front of a statue. You can see a part of the Residenz in the background. It's really really huge.

Then, many people in the lab went out to a pub for dinner. There was a soccer game on (Germany 3, Bosnia 1), which we watched as we ate. I had my first schnitzel, which was huge. Also, everyone drank a huge amount of beer. Like people had 3 half-liters like it was nothing. I had one .3L glass...

This weekend, I am going to Verena's village, because there is a Wine-fest there. Still not quite sure what a winefest is, but I think it's kind of like a state fair, but all about wine. I'll report back once I find out. And she invited me to spend the night at her family's house so that on Sunday morning we can have a traditional German breakfast. I'm excited.