RISE meeting in Heidelberg

This past weekend (Thurs. to Sat.) was the meeting of RISE interns in Heidelberg–so much fun!! After arriving at the Youth Hostel (Jugendherberge) on Thursday, we visited the Universität Heidelberg, where we listened to several welcome speeches from the directors of the RISE program and attended discussions about graduate programs in Germany. The next day were the company visits, during which we were divided into groups visiting different scientific companies nearby, depending on our area of research. On the last day, there was a brief concluding speech and a guided tour of the city, ending around midday. Some people (including myself) opted to stay an extra night while others headed off to other places like Munich, Switzerland or Austria.

Heidelberg is a very old city with much historical significance, embodied most prominently in its castle and university. The university was in operation several hundred years before the U.S. came into being and is one of the oldest universities in Europe. It was quite exciting to visit the university because Heidelberg was mentioned numerous times in my Freshman Orgo class, which spent a sizeable amount of time studying the history and evolution of organic chemistry in the hands of many German chemists like Liebig, Wohler, and lots of others whose names are slipping my mind right now.

The castle is built up on one of the many luscious green hills and was inhabited when the area belonged to the Holy Roman Empire, long before Germany existed as a nation. According to Saturday’s tour guide, the castle housed the vice-prince elector of the region and was glorious during its time, but King Louis XIV of France destroyed much of it during a war. (The tour guide seemed to like emphasizing the fact that it was the French that destroyed the castle, not the Americans. Rather amusing! Apparently, Heidelberg was spared by American bombs during WWII because it was so pretty that the Americans wanted to live there.) Because of powerful influences from the Romantic era, the castle was never reconstructed; instead, the remaining ruins are maintained and proudly displayed to the public. A cool factoid about the castle: it has the largest wine barrel ever, holding more than 50,000 gallons of wine!

From what I saw of Heidelberg, the most distinguishing features are the massive, green hills (and all the houses on them) surrounding the Neckar River and the plentiful Christmas shops. (I really liked seeing all the Christmas trees, toys, decorations, ornaments, etc. in July–that is truly “Christmas in July”! Definitely exciting for a Christmas-nut like me) Heidelberg is such an idyllic sort of place that I don’t think I would want to work there–I would always feel like I should be on vacation! Interestingly, after seeing how the beauty of Heidelberg differs from that of Bonn or Berlin, I have decided that each city in Germany (at least the ones I’ve seen–Berlin, Düsseldorf, Jülich, Cologne, Bonn, Heidelberg) has its own very distinct flair so that they really cannot be exactly compared. Perhaps I am just more sensitive here in Germany because I am consciously visiting new cities in a foreign land, but now I wonder if the cities in the U.S. are as unique from each other as here.

Though Heidelberg is a beautiful city with lots to see, I think my favorite part of the weekend was meeting up with all my friends from the Berlin language course, most of whom I hadn’t seen since the beginning of June. Between sitting through administrative speeches, wandering around the picturesque Altstadt, and enjoying the lively bars and clubs, we had a great time exchanging stories about our cities and making new memories. (at least in my opinion!) Most of us chose to stay the extra night on Saturday, so we got to see fireworks on the river in the evening and enjoyed one more night out in the Altstadt. While it was also fun to meet other RISE interns (there were around 300-some interns there, so plenty of new people to meet!), I felt very glad to have a group of people I already knew and liked with whom to explore the city. Additionally, I now have even more travel buddies for any future visits to other cities!

And of course, such an exciting weekend would not be complete without a zesty ending. Sunday morning after I turned in my room key and ate breakfast, I almost lost my luggage, which contained LOTS of personal belongings, including most of my clothes and toilettries (I’m a heavy packer), all my souvenirs from Heidelberg, and my laptop!! I had left my suitcase in the lobby with some other people’s suitcases (thinking they were other RISE interns’) while I ate breakfast, and when I returned a half hour later, all the bags were gone! I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared in my life, as I really had no idea where my bag would be, since it seemed that the people who took it probably did so by accident, thinking it was theirs. To condense this rather traumatic experience, after about 2 hours of frantic searching and help-seeking, one of my friends suggested looking in a van that had been parked outside the hostel for a while. Though I did not actually think it would be there (I had looked everywhere and asked so many people already), I thought, “might as well,” and asked the driver of the van, which was full of people and looked completely ready to leave. Glancing halfheartedly into the back of the van, I saw my suitcase, which still had a Southwest Airlines tag on it with my mother’s name and contact info–the bag I had been desperately searching for in the past 2 hours!! I was so elated that the driver and the others were quite amused, and thinking about it, it really is quite amusing: that van, which had been parked there for a couple hours probably, was just about to leave for Sweden! This was definitely the most fortunate and unfortuante experience I’ve had so far–losing lots of personal belongings and luckily retrieving them seconds before they disappear to another country!

To end on a good note, I also discovered during the meeting that people actually do read my blog, which is really nice! I got to meet Ms. Steuer, the blog coordinator with whom I have been corresponding with regards to this blog, and she is very nice also in person. Coincidentially, one of my roommates at the Youth Hostel knew me from reading this blog, and I must say it was rather warming to realize that others who didn’t know me before are reading my posts. Thank you to everybody who is taking the time to read this blog!! =D I hope the posts are interesting, and I will try to keep them lively!

About the pictures: a view of Heidelberg from the castle; the castle (not such a great shot of it)–you can see some maintenance work being done on one side; a decorated tree in one of the lovely Christmas shops in the Altstadt; Bananeweizen beer–one of my favorites!!–that I recommended to my friends on our first night out in Heidelberg; the interior of the sleek ICE train I took from Cologne to Mannheim (then to Heidelberg); a dense sea of bikes parked outside the Heidelberg Hauptbahnhof; me, bundled up in a blanket where we sat outside the biergarten Thursday night–I thought it was so cool that the bar provided blankets–the first I’ve seen! =P