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VOLKSMARCH AND POOP
September 7th, 2002, Heidelberg, Germany
By Stef

Today we headed to Heidelberg for our first Volksmarch.   A Volksmarch is like a walking tour and is a popular pastime here.  They have Volksmarch Clubs and every weekend (not sure if they do it in the winter or not) there is Volksmarch somewhere.  You do not have to be a part of a club to do it though.  The marches are held all over Europe I believe. 

There are different distances you can walk; the one we went to this weekend was 5, 11, 22 or 42K.   We walked the 5K part (which is about 3 miles). 

You pay your money to register and are given a card.  Sometime during the walk you reach a “station” where your card is stamped.  At the end of the march you turn in your card and get a “prize”. Prizes range from ceramic plates to figurines to glasses and steins.  This time it was a Beer Stein with a picture of the Heidelberg castle on it.  We had it engraved for a couple of Euros with the date of the march. 

 We had gone with our friends Jeremy and Sandy Bennett (we knew them from Bragg) and our sponsors Jennifer and Shawn Holmes (we'll quit calling them our sponsors as they've now fulfilled that role!)

 We had parked on the Army base so after the Volksmarch we walked down the block to the Strassenbahn (the local train system) and took the train to downtown Heidelberg.  .  We window shopped a bit and got some dinner at a great Irish pub and then trekked some more through the streets toward the castle. 

 The castle is on a big hill.  A steep hill.  It is actually a cobblestone road that you climb.  Even wearing sneakers it hurt your feet!  It takes about 10-15 minutes to climb the road to the castle but the kids really wanted to see it, and we did too, so we geared ourselves up and climbed up the hill. 

 The castle is huge and has extensive grounds and is in very good condition.   Part of it is in ruin and one tower is halved, the other half broke off and slid into the moat during a siege with the French I believe sometime in the 1700's. 

 The views were just beautiful as there is a river that runs below it (not sure which one) and the area is slightly mountainous.   Heidelberg is about an hour and a half NW from us and is the place I had originally wanted to be stationed at. 

 They have a chapel there where people can get married, (in fact someone got married there yesterday and we have a friend who is getting married there next month… not sure if we are going to be able to make the wedding or not, but we'll let you know if we do.  I just hope there is an easier way up to the castle!!) 

Anyway, inside one part is a HUGE wine keg, the story behind it escapes me but it holds over 220,000 L of wine! (FYI- 1 gallon = 3.8 L) so it roughly holds 58,000 gallons of wine!   There are stairs that go around and over it that you can climb. 

 The kids got a thrill out of that too.  It started getting late so we decided to head back.  We made our way down the hill and back through the center of town.  By this time, all the climbing had made Shawn and Jeremy were hungry again so they stopped at a take away pizza place to get a calzone.

 The rest of us waited across the street for them.  They got their calzones and joined us and we lingered and rested while Shawn and Jeremy ate.  That's when Gordon notices in the middle of the street, a lone (but huge) log of doggie doo. At first we were not even sure it was doggie doo.

 Now, here in Germany dogs are allowed everywhere including restaurants.  Their dogs are strangely well behaved a good 99% of the time.  Even the puppies.  It's a little creepy.

 Ok, anyway, back to the poop.  So Gordon notices the poop and we all turn and look at it.  (nine Americans standing in the middle of a beautiful city in a foreign country discussing whether or not dog poop is lying in the street…it was a moment worthy of Bill Bryson!)

 So skeptical that it is actually poop due in part to its huge size, we begin to laugh as we realize that the people walking in the street are not seeing it until it is almost too late.  They hop and skip over it, a few of them looking like they are about to break an ankle in an effort to not step on the “poop” 

We stand there greatly amused, trying to nonchalantly watch and see if someone actually steps in it.  Sure enough, after about five minutes of people making wildly contorted gymnastic like movements to avoid it, a very well dressed man with a very well dressed and pretty date comes along and slides right through it!

Now we are laughing uproariously because the seal has been broken, and there is no longer any doubt that it is indeed POOP! 

 We stood there a few more minutes watching to see if anyone else would step in it.  It seemed a bit more noticeable now that it was half smashed and people were giving it wide berth.  Then from behind us runs a little girl about Anabelle's age.  She had obviously broken away from her captors, I mean parents, and shot right past the pile of smashed poop.

 Then it was as if lights flashed and her radar went off.  She screeched to a halt, turned around, squatted and peered down at the poop.  Then she apparently decided it needed to be smashed into oblivion, with not one, but both feet.

 All of a sudden the parents come rushing over and grab her, but the damage was done. She was dragged down the street leaving big poopy footprints and the parents (who noticed us laughing) glared furiously at the lot of us as we fell over each other in hysterical laughter.

We did not have our camera with us as we left it resting peacefully in the car, but we sure wished we had as it has a video camera feature.  So sad to say, the highlight of our day trip to Heidelberg was not the beautiful castle or the spectacular view, but watching people slide and stomp through a gigantic dog turd!

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