FREINSHEIM – Germany (Sun 6 Sept)

Today we met up with Daniela and Armin at Heidelberg Castle.

This is a huge castle overlooking Heidelberg built out of red sandstone (the local specialty). This castle has ‘been through the wars’ so to speak. It’s been through a couple of wars, had various attempts at destroying here (with significant success) and then finished off by a lightening strike to one of the towers (that happened to be the gun powder room). So what the other means didn’t destroy the resulting fire did a pretty good job of. After this run of bad luck, the castle became the ‘Sleeping Beauty’ and slept for 100 years, during which time, anything that wasn’t tied down was stolen or destroyed further. Finally someone decided that perhaps she was worth reviving. Probably one of the most visited items in the castle currently is the ‘Gross’ Keg. This is the wine barrel that has the capacity to hold 221,726 litres of wine. In the days of old the wine was pumped straight up from here to the banquet hall, although the wine of that time wasn’t that great. Evidently the taxes were paid in whatever the local farmers had available, and often these payments went straight into the barrel. This included all manner of white and red grapes and ground bones for good health. Hmmm … sounds a little rough.

After doing our tour we went down the hill and shared coffee and cake with Daniela and Armin. After traveling around for four months it is a fantastic feeling to see someone you know, and we will always be grateful and remember them for their hospitality, including us in their wedding day, and giving up their time today to spend some time with us. They truly are fantastic people and deserve a great life together. We will always be thankful to their family and friends for making us feel a part of their day.

Of course we did have a few questions for them today as well, like what’s the story with the two weddings. Unlike New Zealand where everything is completed on the same day and at the same time, over here they have two weddings. There is the Civil Service, which is the official filling in of forms to make it legal, and the Church Service, where the vows etc are made. The only difference with Daniela and Armin is that those two events were four months apart, instead of consecutive days. So which day is the anniversary? Both perhaps? And tomorrow they are off to Greece for a honeymoon … or is it? Perhaps they will have another one of those too.

We finished the day with them telling us that they would come and see us when we are in the UK, so we hope they do. We can’t wait to see them again. And we hope they get to come back to NZ again too, we would certainly love to see them. These two days are ones that we will never forget. Wonderful people on the other side of the world have made them memorable for us.