The Boulderhaus Heidelberg

Tucked back behind the old Mark Twain Village of now abandoned, but soon to be student housing, former military barracks, is a group of warehouses.  Two or three times a week you can find Rio in one (and lately I am even there once a week)--the one with a door labeled "The Boulderhaus"  where the climbing rope company next door has set up an indoor bouldering gym.

It's a really nice place to work on those climbing skills (and climbing is about the most fun way to get a full body workout that I know of).  Everything is set up for "bouldering" (for those of you who do not climb, this means not going very high and not needing any ropes or harnesses) which means you can spend a lot more time on the wall and a lot less time waiting around for a turn.  Yay for that.

I was able to snap some photos of the set up on a quiet Monday afternoon:

There are 50 or more routes available, and they are changed fairly often (you will notice two sections down for changing in the middle photo)--so there is always a challenge at every level.  It is a fun, casual place that also does special events like the Friday night glow in the dark climb and tournament last week--in which they cranked up the music, turned off the lights and set up 25 routes that had to be completed in order to compete in the finals.  That was a fun evening.  Rio climbed with a friend, and Dave and I and the friend's parents enjoyed watching some of the very skilled climbers while we had some drinks.  

Having grown up in and around  Boulder, Colorado, I appreciate the name because, while I know they refer to Bouldering, it also has very much the vibe of my hometown.  There is definitely a hippy, outdoorsy culture going on in the Boulderhaus.  Young parents bring their toddlers and leave them to climb on the kiddie wall at the back of the room (no photos--there were some little ones there and I didn't want to put them online without asking their parents), hairstyles and clothing styles look like they could be on Pearl Street Mall as easily as anywhere, and the furnishings remind me of an old highschool hang out, Penny Lane Coffee Shop (which is, sadly, no more).  Here are a couple of shots of the seating area and snack bar:

All in all, we find the Boulderhaus to be a really pleasant place to spend some time and get some exercise.  If you ever find yourself in Heidelberg on one of our many rainy days and are looking for an indoor activity, I would recommend this as a very fun thing to do locally.

--Hadley

The ice cream returns!

Every year, as the grey and chill settle into the November air, our local ice cream window (connected to a coffee shop) puts up a sign informing us that the ice cream is "on vacation."  Much like the closing of the local Dairy Queen when we lived in New Hampshire, this ushers in the winter season in a very unmistakable way.

In past years, the ice cream has returned around mid March.  This year, we had a mild winter (my apologies to my American and Canadian readers), and are having an early spring.  Happily, the coffee shop owners noticed and the ice cream returned on Saturday.

We saw the signboard out and were drawn to that window for some of the cool and creamy stuff.  Here's Marika with her first cone of the year:

Now that the ice cream has returned, it really feels like spring time.

Here's wishing you lots of sunshine and warmth wherever you may be,

--Hadley

 

9 months after the military left

Heidelberg was fortunate to be one of very few major German cities that did not sustain heavy damage in WWII.  Our castle, known worldwide and loved by Americans (many thanks to Mark Twain) and university and hospital must not have seemed too threatening and DID have both historical and humanitarian influences, which protected the lovely city.  Being such a beautiful place and fairly centrally located, it became the US Army headquarters for all of Europe following the war.

This resulted in a several smaller posts and lots of military housing throughout the city and its suburbs.  When we first moved here, the kids learned to recognize US military housing as "those places that look like prisons" (Rio) or "the only ugly buildings in Germany" (Marika).  Sadly, for our service personnel, their assessments were pretty accurate.  Here is one of the housing units in Heidelberg (taken today):

In October of our first year here (2009) US Army Europe announced that they were building new headquarters in Wiesbaden and that Heidelberg would be closing in a few years (much to the chagrin of the personnel who had been lucky enough to be stationed in a near perfect little city).  By the time the last of the posts closed here in May of last year, and the final ceremonies were held in June, I had heard dozens of dire predictions (mostly from those in the military) about how badly the economy in the area would be harmed by losing the large population of US military and their families and support personnel.  I was thinking about those predictions today as I happened to be out near the first of the housing units (all now having been turned back over to Germany) that has been converted into student housing.  These are directly across the street from the units posted above:

Wow!  What a difference some cheerful paint makes.

After nearly five years of closed and locked gates (most of the abandoned posts are still closed and locked up awaiting renovations), it feels a little odd to see the barbed wire gone and the gates wide open.  It is a wonderful sort of odd though.

These units have all been converted into student housing, and students in Heidelberg tend to ride bikes very often.  I love that each building has a covered and locked bike shed for residents.

I have no access to any official numbers only my own observations to go by, but so far I have seen very little negative economic impact and quite a bit of positive (which surprised me, but makes sense when I think about it).  

One restaurant, which catered almost exclusively to Americans, did close down--even faster than I had predicted it would.   They served large portions, for low prices, which appealed to the US mentality, but I never met a German who had eaten there more than once (and it is walking distance from my house) because the quality was just not good enough for the local population.  We gave it a second try, and regretted having done so, so seeing that close was really not heartbreaking to us.

The Pizza Hut and Ford dealers in the area formerly known as "Little America" are both still open but never very busy anymore.  No where else, even Mandy's American Diner seems to be lacking in customers.

In fact here in our little town (where many US service families lived in rentals when post housing was full), both our main grocery store and our Aldi have expanded to make up for the increase in customers now that all those rental homes are occupied by people shopping in local stores instead of at the commissary in Patrick Henry Village.  Likewise, down by those housing units I was photographing this morning, a small Rewe supermarket closed down and was replaced by a much larger Rewe and an Aldi and a DM (drug store); again, needed to accommodate the literally thousands of residents who now shop locally instead of on post.

Overall I am happy to see the city thriving 9 months into the new era, and some of the eyesores being turned into cute places for students.  We are anxious to see what happens to Patrick Henry Village, and hope it doesn't remain locked and abandoned for too much longer.

--Hadley

A day trip to Lake Geneva and the Sherlock Holmes Museum

So, one of those quirky, living in Europe moments happened this weekend.  Saturday morning Dave told me that the owner of an online audiophile magazine was moving and had posted that he had various high end stereo items that had been sent to him by manufacturers to review and now he is giving them away before moving, but people had to pick them up from his home in Villeneuve, Switzerland.  So, next thing I knew we had a plan to drive to Switzerland on Sunday!  Saturday afternoon Dave was googling for information about the area, and stumbled onto information about a small Sherlock Holmes Museum in nearby Lucen, which was all it took for Marika to decide spending 7 or 8 hours in a car was totally worth it to join in on the adventure.

Our drive was uneventful, and we enjoyed seeing at least a small amount of snow as we crossed the mountains.  I realize my readers in the US and Canada have been buried in more than the usual amounts of snow this winter, but we have had none in Heidelberg and precious little anywhere in the region, so even a small area with an inch or two was good.

Villeneuve is a cute little town.  Here is a photo of the street we were visiting:

We picked up the stereo equipment and had a really nice chat with the 6moons owner and his wife (an artist, originally from the US), before walking over to the shores of the lake.  It was absolutely lovely, as you can see:

We did not dawdle for too long.  We still wanted to stop at the museum, and had a long drive back home.  our next stop was the town on Lucen, which has the awesome castle overlooking it:

The Sherlock Holmes Museum was originally in the castle, back when the castle and museum were owned by Arthur Conan Doyle'S son Adrian.  Now it is nestled in a building tucked under the castle, with the honorary 221b address on the door:

Entry to the musem is 5 Swiss Francs per person.  Only cash is accepted.  We had come semi prepared, with small bills and coins in Euro, in the hopes that we would be allowed to pay in Euros if we did not need change, and ready to run to an ATM if not.  The proprietor very kindly took our euros and let us into the small, but excellent museum.  He spoke broken English (no German; Lucen is in teh French speaking section of Switzerland) and clearly loved the museum and worked hard to share stories with us.  I think he enjoyed having Marika there, with her clear love for the works and the author who disliked his character so much.

The museum is in just two rooms.  The main room, and a back area which contains a full replica of the mock up of Sherlock'S quarters that was created for the 1951 Festival of Britain.

Here is the main room:

Here is Marika geeking out over an original handwritten draft of teh first Sherlock story, A Study in Scarlet.  She was tickled that in the draft the main character was still Sherrinford.

All but the first of the Holme's stories were published in serial form in a magazine, with lots of illustrations.  Here is Marika showing me one of her favourites, and here is a photo of the illustrator, Sidney Paget, and his brother (whom he used as a model for the great detective):

The table running down the center of the room was interesting.  It was a Holmes family table, and when famous people attended dinner parties, a small plaque was added with their name on it, almost like a mini walk of fame.  Marika got a kick out of J M Barrie and Bram Stroker being next to one another (Peter Pan and Dracula!).  

(photos of the engravings were hard to get, this one is Rupyard Kipling)

Here is Doyle'S desk, where he wrote most of his stories:

and a portrait of the author himself, with Marika goofing around in props (yes, they have those too!):

We all goofed off with those hats and pipes:

In the back room is the glassed in mock up of the 221b Baker Street residence.  It was hard to get good photos (being dimly lit) but WOW was it full of tiny details from the stories!  Loads of them.  Marika spent a good twenty minutes looking at it all (and would have stayed longer if we had not needed to get home); we promised to come back in the summer with enough warning for her to reread them all and catch more details.  

Overall, this museum was a heck of a lot of fun.  Worth a visit if you ever find yourself in the area.  It was also much more authentic (both in terms of having real life artifacts from Doyle and in recreating the stories with many of the details in the texts) than the museum f the same name in London.

After dragging Marika out of her literary heaven, we walked around Lucen just a bit, getting as close to the now privately owned castle as possible, before heading home:

 We thought this house looked almost like a Playmobil model, right down to the color scheme:

Once we got home, the guys were all about the esoteric stereo equipment.  The glowing tubes are supposed to be impressive.  I suppose they are as impressive to me as old letters by some dead author are to them!

--Hadley