Café culture is huge here. The streets are lined with cafés, and when the weather is warm you can enjoy a coffee in a table outside. During the winter, I liked to go to a cozy café with a book. I learned to say: "Ich hätte gerne eine heiße Schokolade!" ("I would like some hot chocolate!") There are so many kinds of sweets in German bakeries. The "Schneeball" is made of fried dough, and looks like a snowball. Chocolates called Studentenkub (student kiss) are also special to Heidelberg.
As a student, I often eat at the mensa or the university cantene.
The mensas in Germany are very healthy and have so many options to choose from! There is a bar for making your own salads, a soup station, a buffet of entrees, and a refrigerator with cakes and puddings. There is even a separate station for vegans and vegetarians, which I thought was a great idea. The first time I went to the mensa, I was excited because I had never seen a cafeteria as nice as the one here.
When you walk in, you first grab a tray, plate, and utensils. Then, you can walk around to all the stations and fill your plate. At the end, you weigh your tray on a machine a pay for your meal by the ounce. I noticed that meals are a lot less expensive in Germany!
