June 7, 2009

At the castle overlooking Heidelberg

Today we got to sleep in since church wasn’t until 10:30! It was nice to get some extra hours of sleep. We attended Calvary Church of Heidelberg which is about a 15 minute walk away. It is also where we take our classes while we are here. The church service was good, it was contemporary and much like a typical evangelical church in the U.S. I was reminded of Livingstone when we sang Jesus, Lover of My Soul. Rachel, one of the workers at the monastery used to always use that in her devotional set. The sermon was really good - on the 10 commanments and total dependency on the Holy Spirit and what that means. It was in English, the men who run this church are guys from California. 

Messiah!

After the service we grabbed a quick lunch then headed over to the Heidelberg Castle! It was amazing, and I had to keep telling myself I wasn't at Busch Gardens Europe ;). It was amazing to finally walk around a castle partially in ruins knowing hundreds of years ago men and women actually lived and worked in this monsterous building. It also makes me want to watch Timeline or Lord of the Rings. After the tour we headed back to the hotel. We were free for the rest of the day. Since it was overcast and drizzly all day most of us (including me) just stayed indoors and studied for our exam tomorrow or wrote a paper also due tomorrow. For lunch we ate at a Turkish place right next door. their food was delicious - I had a sort of wrap with lamb and spicy sauce; all for 4 euro!  After studying some more the sun did clear up but we are waiting until tomorrow night when we don't have to worry about any work to spend some more time in the town - it will be our last night. Tomorrow we are up early for an exam and then we see Deutschebank and the European Central Bank!

The inside of the castle in the courtyard