Germany - Wednesday

The weather still was pretty rainy on Wednesday, but we decided that we still needed to venture out. We visited the next town over from Heidelberg, the Schwetzingen Palace Gardens in Schwetaingen, Germany.  It was pretty deary out, but the gardens at the palace were pretty amazing.  The palace was pretty cool, but what everyone comes to see is the gardens.  There are french gardens (think very germetric, and orderly) and english gardens (more like nature, just a little idealized), and they are just huge.  I think we walked around maybe 2-3 hours just in the gardens.  Lunch was at a little cafe across from the palace, it has a cute magazine theme, and had a cracker thin crust pizza with a creme, cheese and bacon on top.  I am the worst foodie and can't remember the proper name for what this is called, but I know it is french.

Later in the day we headed to Manheim for dinner.  We met up with Oliver, and spent a while trying to find a parking spot (these are in way short supply all over europe, no wonder they need so many smart cars).  For dinner we went to a Leboneese place, but a lot of the food that was on the buffet was actually items I have had at most Greek restaurants in the states, pita bread, tabouli, hummus, etc.  There was a buffet for dinner, with some awesome lentil soup, and some sort of ground veal in a yogurt sauce, and then all the other usual suspects.  I think my favorite part was the awesome cup of spiced strong, strong coffee that they give you when you first sit down.  After dinner, we moved over to the other side of the room and enjoyed a hookeh and after dinner drinks.  John had never done a hookeh, so we thought it might be fun to try.  The hookeh was similar to the times I have tried it at the KC ren fest, but I think the flavors were a bit tamer.  We just went with a normal apple flavor, supposedly the most popular flavor.  The pipe only came with one hose, which we shared with the group.  Our drinks were mint and citrus flavor, and pretty awesomely decorated, as you can see.

That was about it for Wednesday, we had to do a early night since we had a morning train to Munich on Thursday morning.