I was a little tired that morning because I went to sleep relatively late and woke up early under that consideration. My body clock just won't let me sleep in, it seems. Anyhow, the second Welcome Day was to begin at 11:30 at Tomate, a restaurant that sold a "typical Mannheim breakfast". I figured it was a breakfast, so I shouldn't eat before hand. That was a terrible idea. The people leading the Days held off on ordering the food until more people showed up, which probably wasn't until 12 or so. If you know me, I eat, all the time, so no eating for 3 hours really took its toll. We ordered drinks while we waited, I ordered hot chocolate (it was incredible!) and the waitress set out bread while we waited with jam, honey and butter. I ended up eat two pieces of bread with different types of jam.
(There's nothing hiding behind the bread. :( )
Finally, our food was brought out. It was kind of a disappointment, in my opinion. There were 5 pieces of meat that were probably two inches in diameter, two slices of ham, two triangles of cheese, a large leaf of lettuce, a few slices of tomatoes, and two slices of cucumbers. It might sound like a lot, but the plate it was served on made it look tiny. I suppose the main part of the breakfast was bread, they seem very big on bread.
I ended up using 2 or 3 rolls for that food and scarfed everything down quickly. I still felt hungry, I suppose at this point I was eating for two and a half meals. After I finished, I probably had another roll and a half with jam because the late people were still eating so I had nothing better to do. I couldn't help but laugh at how I had eaten quite a bit more than some of the guys, however I think they had already had breakfast that day, maybe. Anyway, I was stuffed, but it was delicious!
Afterwards, the group was divided into two for the tour of Mannheim, one for an English tour and one for a Deutsch tour. I went with Deutsch because, well I'm in Germany and I should be trying to listen, speak and learn as much as I can in German. I thought our tour guide was a little strange and was a little hard to understand from time to time, but I got the essential gist of it all.
(The front of a synagouge - Front of the Rathaus (city hall) - Steps down into the sewer area/ old bathing area)
We were shown around some of the historical areas of the town and learned about the history of the area. After that we were then shown the Jesuitenkirche (Jesuit Church), the one that I had wanted to go to the week before, oh my God (literally). It was so beautiful, I was so overwhelmed and in awe. I was glad to know exactly where it was, and it wasn't as far away as I had originally anticipated. I will definitely be visiting it again, but next time when a mass is going on.
(A fountain in the center of Paradeplatz - Outside of the Jesuit Kirche)
(Inside of the Jesuitenkirche)
We wandered around the church until it was time to go to the mannheimer Schloss (Mannheim's castle). I've already put up a few pictures of it, but I learned a lot more. Apparently, it is the second largest Baroque Castle, second only to Versailles by 10 meters and has been destroyed a few times. Half of the buiding is a dedicated museum and the other is for the University. Unfortunately, we could not take pictures because the flash from cameras can degrade the wall-rugs (and there have been enough dumb people to not turn off their flash that pictures are totally forbidden).
(The organ in the back of the church - front of the castle - a cool statue [if you look in the background, the arches have creepy faces above them])
That was the end of the tour, Rachel and headed over to Marktplatz in hopes that I could find some food, unfortunately it was closing at 3:30 so I went into a Lidl instead. I bought bananas and an eggplant, why not?
The rest of the night was pretty uneventful aside from video chatting with my mom and with others.
[If you want to see a picture full size, right click on it and click "Open in new window/tab" and then you can zoom in]
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