Half the fun of the travel is the esthetic of lostness.

~Ray Bradbury

Ah, I stumbled across this quote and decided that it is now my life quote.... or at least, it was this weekend! Our friend, Lise, came to visit on Thursday and just left this morning. While she was here, we decided to travel some. She wanted to go visit Heidelberg so Friday we decided to go. Being the smart people we are, we wrote down all the connecting trains and what times they left at. Yep, this is where the trouble began. We got talking Friday morning, lost track of time, and realized that we only had 10 minutes to get to the train station. So, she told me, "We have to run or we're going to miss it." Simple enough. Yeah, I am never running in the freezing cold again. Within about 5 minutes of running I started having asthma like problems. I remember at one point thinking I was going to have a heart attack. I'm a bit young for that I think but still, that was how much pain I was in. Breathing was not happening easily and I felt like a fat person was sitting on my chest. So needless to say, we missed the first train. I can't remember all the other trains we were suppose to be on, all I know is that we only made it on 1 train out of like 6 or 7. All the rest we missed. Yes, we missed almost every train to Heidelberg. At one point, we realized we had completely gone past the Heidelberg train station and ended up at this sketchy so called train stop. It was a murderer's paradise. I swear I thought we were going to be raped, killed, and tied down to the tracks. That's how sketchy it was. Anyways, we hopped on yet another train and went all the way back to where we needed to be. We were originally suppose to arrive in Heidelberg around 1 something but instead didn't get there until 3 something. By the time we got to Heidelberg, we only had maybe an hour to spend there until we had to catch a train back to Pforzheim. Fun, I know. Oh, did I mention that while all this was happening it just so happened to be raining and only 40 something outside. I was absolutely freezing. Heck, I've gone to Serbia before in the dead of winter and was never that cold there!




Saturday was much better in terms of making the right trains. Lise wanted to go visit a relative in Stuttgart and Steven and I wanted to go shopping so decided to go visit for the day. Thankfully, this time we didn't miss any trains. We got to ride the fast train there so we only had to get on one train instead of like 2 or 3. It rained off and on but we had so much fun walking around Stuttgart. Lise ended up going over to her cousin's house and Steven and I had a "date day". We went and got coffee and ice cream and I even convinced him to let me get some cake too :-). Stuttgart is amazing... I want to live there! It's like a shopper's paradise!!!! Ah, I was so happy!




Today, they both left for the train station around 7:45. Lise left to go home and wanted to do some traveling on the way back. Steven had to be at the train station around 8 to meet all the design students so that they could leave for their trip. I can't remember the town they are going to.... all I know is that Steven says that it's an "old person resort town" and that it's in the Black Forest. The mayor there invited them to his town so they could get ideas for their project involving this town. And, the mayor is paying for their hotel rooms... how sweet of him :-)




Well, that's all for now... I'm off to watch yet another movie!