Mein gott, leibe ich Karlstorbahnhof. It's probably the best place to go to in Heidelberg for a night out, next to Destille or Sonderbar on Untere Straße (You'll find out about these places when you come and visit). They've got a good indie scene there, which results in better than average track selection from the DJs (I haven't seen any technically brilliant DJs in Heidelberg!) and a good night out for all. I've been going there once a week for the past few weeks, and usually end up trying to catch the last bus home. I didn't quite make this last bus one evening, and so, in my infinite wisdom (My mind, as always, is clear and sharp at 4am on a Saturday night), I decided to walk home. On paper it's not really that far for me to walk home - the bus takes 10 minutes, and it's only a few kilometers. The whole journey ended up taking me 55 minutes - and it was windy, and I was walking by the river. Somehow the beer jacket managed to keep me warm for my little adventure.

I tried a similar escapade today, where the first signs of weather approaching spring-like were evident, with actual temperatures above zero, and some sun in the sky. After grabbing breakfast in Hemingways, discussing the exploits of the previous night in Karlstorbahnhof (The "Tighten up" evening - wall to wall James Brown, funk, soul and even some electro!), we went for a brief stroll around the Old City, trying to find something to do with a Sunday afternoon. Technically I should have been in the lab, but to be honest, they're not paying me enough to get me in there on a Sunday. When you've got something that even vaguely resembles good weather after 4 months of poor weather - you spend as much time as possible enjoying it. After getting stuck halfway up a ramp which hadn't been cleared of the ice and snow, I gave up exploring the city, and decided to do the walk home again. Now, I'm not sure how this works, but I somehow managed to take more time walking home today than I did in the middle of the night at just over an hour. Once the weather improves a bit (I have heard that it actually does happen), I'll get the bike out, and it should take only about 15 minutes to get home.

Now for some fraud: Here in Germany (and other places too I guess), you get a little token when you get a bottle in a pub/bar that you take back with the empty bottle, and get a little bit of your money back. It's basically there to encourage people to recycle their bottles. The reality of the situation for me is that it's usually too much trouble to go down to get the money back, and they kind of sit around in my apartment for ages. The system is called the Pfand - which is I guess comes from the same lexical tree as Fund. Somehow, you usually end up with more tokens than bottles when you're out somewhere. To solve this you just go on a little pfandnapping spree, and collect up as many empty bottles as possible from people who are too drunk to notice that you're nicking them. You then go up to the counter, slap down the bottles and tokens, and collect your 100% sweet profit. I made €10 like that on Saturday night.