Wandering Around Talking To Rainbows

There's something charming and surreal (charmingly surreal perhaps?) about Heidelberg. I decided to stop off there for a few days as I inter-railed around Europe, mostly on the strength of some photographs that Dune took of its medieval architecture when she was there for a conference some years ago.

The architecture was every bit as stunning as I was promised, but it didn't feel fake and conserved like some places do. Buildings had been repurposed, things were in use and not just as museums, it felt alive and vibrant, the old seemed to blend into the new rather than feeling stuck on and awkward. I stayed in a youth hostel that was inexplicably right next to the zoo. I mean, right next to it, there was a bear almost close enough to touch from the grounds of the hostel. I saw pretty much every possible contraption you could legally use to carry a child on a bike – and some I wasn't so sure about – my personal favourite was a bike with what seemed to be essentially a four foot tall box on the front (presumably with a hole cut out for the front wheel), containing two young boys of about 7 or 8 peeking over the top while their mother propelled them along at a decent rate of knots. Late night shopping on the main pedestrianised shopping precinct was livened up by stalls doing hot takeaway food (mmm free samples) and bars doing takeaway cocktails, and shoppers could be seen pottering happily round fashion boutiques, record shops and the like totting multicoloured drinks and carefully balanced munchies.

(There's an anecdote that Nanci Griffiths tells at the start of the version of 'Love at the Five and Dime' that my mum has on CD, about her childhood memories of Woolworth stores. Her description pleases my mum inordinately as its the way she remembers them in her youth, the way they weren't - hadn't been for a long time - by the time they closed down here a few years back. But the bit that always amused me most was Nanci Griffiths recounting her first trip to London and coming round a corner a chauffeur driven car to find that 'by golly there was a Woolworths store'. I found myself standing at the tram/bus station in Heidelberg that evening, casting about to spot which stance I needed to get my tram back to the hostel. I turned around and...yup by golly there was a Woolworth store. It took my breath away, I'm not sure why, I didn't even go in but I felt simultaneously a very long way from home and very close to home too. I had to sit down and text my mother to tell her and she text back to tell me not to fill up my suitcase with unnecessary plastic objects...I'd come across unexpected branches of C&A in Munich and Brno but maybe because they were gone from home much longer - C&A in the UK closed down when I was about 14 or 15 - or maybe they'd never been as integral a part of my childhood landscape, they didn't have the same impact. Tesco in Prague weirded me out but in a different way, more of a – is there no end to your expansionist ways, sort of thing. By the time I'd gone back to Berlin for the film festival last year, I'd got over the Woolworth thing enough that I could go in and buy an excellent and cheap pair of gloves to replace the ones I'd accidentally left on the metro...)

The abiding memory I have of the place though, is sitting half way up a mountain in Heidelberg, enjoying the view of the castle and the town below. In the background I can hear both the gentle electronic whirr of the modern funicular railway and the slightly louder but somehow friendlier clunk and clatter of the older funicular that takes you the rest of the way. There are some American tourists off to one side be annoyingly stereotypical, but both the waitress and I are pretending that they're not there and enjoying our respective hot beverages. It's peaceful, the summer has ended but autumn is looking pretty promising from where I'm sitting.