Date: Sat, 13 May 2000 05:51:28 -0700 (PDT)
From: nathaniel finley
Subject: greetings from Heidelberg

hello, lovely's,
greetings from Heidelberg, where the tourists are thicker than the accents...

I arrived without much ado, except that I didn't realize that I needed to change trains in Mannheim from Frankfurt and had to pay an extra 15 DMs. That hurt, but the blow was blunted by the incredible 2.15 rate of money exchange. That means I only had to pay some 7 or 8 dollars for a chance to make the train ticket checker blue in the face trying to explain to me that I had to get off at the next stop and buy a new ticket. Finally, probably with German that a three year old could understand, the two women in the cabin with me told him to go away and helped me out.

Even with the exchange rate so high I can only afford a hostel bed every third night until I'm sure my financial aid kicks in. That means I get to sleep in the terrific parks that they have here. The weather is quite warm and friendly so far, and I hope that the homeless population takes the clouds as an example. Well, I can't picture any homeless population being any more or less disgruntled than G-ville's, so I'm looking forward to yet another great outdoor experience over here in Europe. (For those of you who are familiar with my former days of homeless wandering through Italy and the Netherlands, you won't be too surprised to find me sleeping outside in Germany). The language is the toughest thing right now. A lot of Germans in this town speak English, and would rather use it than struggle through a conversation with a beginner. And then, though I can put together a German sentence like an English speaker would say it, I have no clue yet about good German sentence construction the way a German says it. For example, I just learned how to say Have you change for five marks the German way, which is more like change five marks? than anything we would say in English.

The tourists here are thick, but I love the 1/3 of the town not inundated with them. Consumer culture is strong here, and in many ways it reminds me of any large Italian city. I have found the public library where I plan to spend a great deal of my time in the kinder- und Jugendbücherei section. The internet costs 5 marks per hour in this library, and I have only a few moments left. Hope you all have a wonderful summer (the z key is where the y key should be on this German keyboard, and it keeps throwing me off).

tshüs,
Nathaniel