Wine Festival & Baden-Baden
Jared Pelletier
This weekend was an eventful one; we went out clubbing Friday night (where we came back smelling like cigarettes), went to the world's largest wine festival on Saturday (where we had 4.5L of Schorle) and went for a hike in the Black Forest (where we found a castle from Skyrim).
It all started Friday evening at the student residence with a few friends from school. After consuming a respectable amount of Tequila, we made our way to the club around the corner called Shooting Stars. Amanda made friends with a Russian girl and a German girl at the bar when trying to prove she could order drinks faster than me. Needless to say, 20 minutes later I finally got my beer (I had to go and GET it from her too). We stumbled home fairly late. I rushed to sleep (a.k.a. passed out) while Amanda instead made a sandwich and stayed up for another hour.
We left for Bad Durkehim around lunch time on Saturday. We travlled view the tram with one of my colleagues from Brazil. All in all the trip took about 50 minutes. We met up with the rest of the group and quickly ordered our first round of Schorle (a mix of wine and sparkling water, served in 0.5L sizes). Despite what you may think, they were actually delicious. So delicious in fact that we ordered 9 of them. We also took some time to check out the festivities; we sampled the fair food, rode the ferris wheel and I won Amanda the biggest teddy bear in the park, which she promplty named Princess Pony. Much to my relief, Amanda was kind enough to give it to a little girl on the way out.
On Sunday, despite our headaches, we took the train to Baden-Baden, which is a town on the border of the Black Forest. We hiked up to the castle on the peak of the hill overlooking the town. This hike took about 2 hours and was roughly a 450m elevation change. The castle itself was stunning; it is super old, super destroyed and super built into some random rock formations. It is definitely worth the trip out when you come visit us! We ended the day with a trip to the thermal baths where we were able to relax our muscles, enjoy the sun and wash away the stink of the day.
Thanks for being patient and reading this until the end. JARMANDA OUT.