Marburg - Fairy Tale Land (Literally)

This past weekend I had the opportunity to spend a relaxing weekend visiting one of my oldest friend's, Maya. Coincidentally, Maya is studying abroad in Marburg, Germany this semester. Marburg is about 4 hours (by slow aka. cheap train).
The city of Marburg is a picturesque University City complete with a castle that sits atop a small mountain. One immediately gets the feeling that they are in the setting for a fairy tale as the styles of buildings and the castle itself create an atmosphere of make believe. The Brothers Grimm actually lived in Marburg and much of their inspiration for various tales is drawn from the surrounding area.
Aside from visiting the castle and just walking around and taking in the atmosphere, I did not partake in many other "tourist activities". Apparently there is a fairy tale road, the tower where Rapunzel let down her hair, and other sights, however, I mostly just enjoyed being in the city and spending time with my friend.
Every day Maya gets together with a group of American students and they make dinner together. This gathering proved to be a lot of fun and I was able to learn how to make sushi -which is something that I have wanted to learn how to do for quite some time.
Karaoke (which is one of my favorite activities in the States) was on the agenda for one of my nights in Marburg. Interestingly enough, Karaoke songs are mostly in English. I don't know why this surprised me since the majority of the popular music here is American, however, I guess I was expecting people to be more interested in singing German music even if they do not necessarily listen to it. The whole karaoke atmosphere was different than my experiences with Karaoke in the States. Everybody was sitting at tables just listening to the singers - in the U.S. it has been my experience that people are usually dancing and singing along. The DJ got a kick out of the fact that we were Americans who understood German and so he continuously decided to use us as a theme for the evening.
In addition to Karaoke, I attended a German University party, ate at a traditional German restaurant, and did some shopping. All in all it was a fun and relaxing weekend.