The strongest beer in the world

This entry is for Friday 2/19 through Sunday 2/21.

That weekend was our last weekend all together. The Americans (all 15 except for me and one other) were headed to Vienna on Thursday to start their semester there. The Brazilians and the Argentineans were headed home on Thursday because their summer break was wrapping up. Everyone else was pretty much leaving, too. So we had this weekend and the next Monday-Wednesday to enjoy each other’s company as much as possible.

Also, a slight bit of a scare came on Friday when I heard that the branch of the Dresdner Bank that I use had been robbed a few weeks earlier. They hadn’t been robbed by gunpoint, but instead thieves had contrived a way to procure the pin numbers of all of the cards people used at the ATM and took over 100,000 Euros worth. I checked my statements and breathed a sigh of relief when everything was ok. Apparently the robbery had taken place on January 30th, and I opened my account with them February 4th. What a close call!!

So Friday afternoon started out in an entertaining fashion. We went to feed the ducks!! We spent about thirty minutes chucking old bread at the swarm of ducks down by the river. Definitely a good time. We then played soccer outside later that afternoon. And that was something to see. We decided to play outside. It was roughly 35 degrees Fahrenheit and softly, but steadily raining. We walked to a park about 20 minutes away and played on a snow- and mud-covered field. It was a ton of fun, but we were sliding everywhere and people seem to get hurt every other play—nothing too serious, but enough to have them sit out for 5 minutes. The kid with the terrible circulations to his extremities (me) was miserable at points because he couldn’t feel his hands or feet about 20 minutes into the 2 hour session. But we all still had a great time. I’m surprised no one got extremely sick, though.

After showering and cleaning up, Derek, Ben, Andrew I., and I met up for dinner. We decided to try a new thing for dinner and went to a pizzeria close to my house. It was actually pretty decent pizza, and it was a good size (about 10 to 11 inches in diameter). That being said, it wasn’t anything compared to American pizza and made me crave some good ol’ Pizza Hut and Domino’s. It was an enjoyable dinner, though. After that, we headed to the Supermarket and then went back to the Wohnheim. It was a blast hanging out with everybody, and around midnight we all headed down to the disko (dance club) again, called Barfüße. If you recall our first Friday night in togas, then you will remember that we went to Barfüße that night, too. At first we were the only people on the floor. Just a bunch of international kids looking like fools in front of the Germans just hanging out at the bar. However, we eventually coaxed a few of them to come join us and by the end, we all had a blast dancing and being stupid with everyone.

That next Saturday morning, we all awoke bright and early for our Goethe-sponsored trip to Heidelberg! We boarded the bus at 8:30 and departed on the two hour trip. Our arrival to Heidelberg greeted us with clouds, bitter cold, and snow. None of us were surprised, but we had been told sun might be expected. Somewhat disappointed with the weather, we headed to grab some delicious breakfast at Kamps. I had an Amerikaner and a cinnamon scone (the German word is escaping me right now). The scone was scrumptious, as is expected, but the Amerikaner was definitely a new experience. I loved it, and it tasted good, but it was unlike anything I had seen in America, which I find highly ironic. Someone even asked me what they are called in America, and I said that I had never seen such a thing. It was about as round as a large sugar cookie and was frosted with chocolate icing. However, it was about an inch and a half thick and had the consistency of a muffin. It was intriguing, to say the least.

After breakfast, our tour guide (another one of Die Freunde des Goethe people) showed us around. She pointed out some historic buildings and then took us into the Heiliggeistkirche (Holy Ghost Church). It is a famous and beautiful church in Heidelberg and serves as a distinct landmark on the city’s skyline. The church was gorgeous on the inside and we spent about 40 minutes in there looking around and hearing about the history. We then headed through the streets of Heidelberg to the famous Karl-Theodor-Brücke, which translates as the Karl Theodor Bridge. It is the old, famous, and picturesque bridge in Heidelberg. If you have ever seen pictures of the city, you have probably seen this bridge before. It was definitely awesome, and I made sure to get lots of pictures. After the bridge, we headed to the University of Heidelberg.

If you don’t know, the University of Heidelberg is the oldest university in Germany and the third oldest in Europe. I want to say it was 1386 when it was founded, but I’m not positive on that date. I do know it was the late 1300’s. It is also famous for being a home to the Romatic movement in Germany and harboring a myriad of intellectuals throughout its time. The actually university now is in a different place because of size/demographic constraints (about 30,000 to 40,000 students attend now), but we saw the old buildings just how they were. One of the coolest things we saw was the Studenten Karzer (or Student Jail). The university actually had the right (and fully exercised it) to incarcerate students that broke important university policies, such as noise, alcohol, and curfew violations. The normal sentence was two weeks in the prison, and by the end (this practice stopped in the mid 1900’s, I believe) it was more of a sport to say that you got into the prison than a thing to be feared.

At the University of Heidelberg, they had student groups comparable to what we know as fraternities. They weren’t fraternities, per se, but they were groups of students with common beliefs. Each group had its own color of boots and hats and its own crest. In the prison, these different colors and crests were EVERYWHERE. I don’t think there was a square inch of wall that wasn’t covered with something. The people who spent time in there obviously used their boredom to decorate the place. There are drawings, markings, and sayings everywhere you looked.

We had a two hour break after we all toured the Studenten Karzer, so a group of us headed to the other beautiful and iconic church of the city, the Jesuitenkirche (Jesuit Church). The inside of it was also beautiful and breathtaking. Then we headed back to Heiliggeistkirche and climbed up the tower. After about a 10 minute ascent up a never-ending spiral staircase, we made it to the top. The views of Heidelberg were amazing, and I got a lot of awesome pictures from that.

Once we were back on the ground, we had to decide what to do for lunch. We discussed several options, but we really couldn’t decide on anything. After checking on a few menus, we happened to stumble into a place called Vetter. It might have been the best accidental discovery since Columbus landed in the Caribbean. The place was obviously a brewery, noted by the huge beer vats and chandeliers of hopps. As we were looking at the menu, I noticed something very unique. They served a beer called Vetter 33. It was the STRONGEST BEER IN THE WORLD at 33% alcohol. I kid you not. They even sited the Guinness Book of World Records that they have the strongest beer as of 1994. So yes, we stumbled into the brewery that just so happened to make the strongest beer in the world. INSANE.

They only sell this beer in 0.2 liters. Most beer you can buy in 0.3 or 0.5 liters at restaurants, but this stuff was so strong they could only give you so much. We all ordered a regular beer to try and then split the Vetter 33 among the four of us. I ordered a beer called the Terminator, which was like a really dark red lager. It was heavenly, and it is easily my favorite beer that I’ve had in Germany. (So thus my favorite beer in the world.) Ben got a Hefe-Weizen, which is a wheat beer, and he pointed out that when they brought out the Vetter 33, that the head (the foamy part at the top) of it was darker than his wheat beer. It was crazy! The Vetter 33 was so dark. It was very sticky and clung to the sides of the glass. It almost reminded me of molasses. It was definitely good, but none of us wanted too much of it. It was good to split between the four of us. The beer definitely had a kick to it, too, that reminded you that is no normal beer, but instead 33% alcohol. Oh yeah, and the food was good too. Some tasty wursts and fried potatoes. Can’t go wrong with a lunch like that.

We then headed back across the Karl-Theodor-Brücke to a winding road called Philosophienweg, which translates to Philosopher’s Way. This is a famous road in Heidelberg that famous philosophers have walked in order to encourage their thinking and aid them with developing novel philosophies. We decided to walk up to it and check it out. The road up was definitely tough. Not only were we full off of our awesome meal, but the path was straight up a hill. It wound back and forth up the hill, but there was no secret that we were hiking up a steep slope. The view at the top, though, was a great reward, and we walked along for a few minutes soaking in the overlooking view of the entire city of Heidelberg and the philosophic atmosphere. Then we headed back down to meet up with our group.

The next stop was the Heidelberg Schloss (castle). It is another iconic structure in the city, and we hiked up the steep, steep, steep path to get there. It definitely took some effort to get to the top of that sucker, too, so between the Philosophienweg and the path to the Schloss, we certainly got our exercise in. Once we were in walls of the Schloss, we saw more amazing views overlooking the whole city of Heidelberg. Absolutely gorgeous. Then we headed inside of more mind-blowing things to see.

At first we walked in, and I saw this huge wine keg (Wein Fass auf Deutsch) that was probably 10 to 15 feet tall. My jaw dropped, and we got plently of pictures with that. But THEN we walked into the next room. Nobody could believe what we saw: a wine keg that had to be at least 30 feet tall. I am not kidding. I look dwarfed next to this thing. It was big enough to walk around on top. It holds over 200,000 liters of wine and has only been filled three times. It was just so massive!! You have to see pictures to believe it.

After we left the castle, the group of us who had first discovered Vetter took another group there to prove that we weren’t making up the fact that we had drunk the strongest beer in the world. We sat down and had another (why not?—how often are we going to be able to do that?) and then walked down the Hauptstrasse. The Hauptstrasse is the longest pedestrian zone in Europe at 1.6 kilometers in length. That’s huge! We didn’t even make it half was down before we had to turn back and head home. We boarded the bus around 4:30 and headed back to Schwäbisch Hall.
That night was pretty chill. We mostly just set in the kitchen and hung out. We made potatoes, veggies, and brats for dinner, and it was, as always, delicious.

Sunday I was supposed to go to Nürnberg again with a different group of people, but I decided to instead sleep in and take a day to relax. I was starting to feel slightly sick and figured a day of rest would be better for my body than another day of cold weather and traveling. Besides, I should be back in Nürnberg again in the next few weeks. So Sunday was a relaxing day. That night, Andrew I, Andrew K, Ben, Derek, and I headed out to Olli’s to grab a beer and just hang out. We were only there about an hour just talking and enjoying each other’s company until we headed home for the night. Chalk up another great weekend on the record books.