Sunny Heidelberg

I found out on Tuesday that Dave, a close friend from college, would be spending Wednesday night in Heidelberg. He's on a 25 day European tour with a busload of Americans, so I suppose Heidelberg was the perfect place for them to stop in Germany. Heidelberg is the ultimate in American, or simply English-speaking, destinations in this country. It seems like it's a beautiful city, but every time I go there it rains on my parade. It rained right as we got there for Walpuergisnacht about a month ago and it rained the entire time I was there on Wednesday.

Dave and the girls were supposed to arrive between 6 and 7 PM, so I got there at 6. I then found out that their bus driver had gotten held up in the matter of a ticket that the company had left unpaid since 1999, so they wouldn't be arriving until 10. We eventually had an awesome night, but before that...well, I did what I could to kill 4 hours alone in Heidelberg, including nursing a drink at a bar and eating dinner very slowly, but I still spent ages wandering or simply twiddling my thumbs in the drizzle.

At one point I was sitting in a square near the old town hall and the Holy Ghost Church, when some strange German man came by, asking in a slurred English, "Are you English?" I replied in the negative, which elicited a, "Oh. You look English." I repeated, "Well, I'm not," which he took as an invitation to sit near me. What he asked next was hilarious in its rudeness and absurdity. But I don't think I should write it.

Since anyone can view this, and in fact I offer it to employers as evidence of my writing skills, I still haven't quite figured out what level of language I should use on this blog. It's not even as if I'm personally using controversial language, I'm simply trying to tell a story, and stories need the facts. But when certain language is involved, people have a hard time looking past it to see the big picture.

I could pull the standard "s***," but I'm not about to censor myself with a line of asterisks because that's about as repressed and immature as it gets. Contrary to popular belief, censoring things only gives them power. You're better off trying to educate people as opposed to "protecting" them by pulling a curtain in front of everything you find morally reprehensible.

On the other hand, it's wise to pick one's battles, and while employers are hopefully impressed by independent and challenging thoughts, I'm not sure it's worth the risk right now. I suppose there's a thin line between "asset" and "liability" in this world, so for now I'll just leave the best part of the story up to your imagination. I still can't tell if this is the right decision: I'd love some feedback on if I should just go ahead and say what happened despite the inclusion of a word that has a long and unfortunate history in America. I need a different perspective on it.