Letter of Rizal

Apolinario J. Katipunan
Department of Mining Metallurgical, and Materials Engineering
University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines
Instructors Name: Sharon Pangilinan

12 Ludwigsplatz, Heidelberg
20 March 1886
MY DEAR PARENTS AND BROTHERS,
Winter is over and this is now spring. Here the changes of the season are greatly
appreciated for a great contrast is noted in the change. After the cold of a severe
winter, after so much ice and so much snow and so much fog, in two or three days,
the sky turns blue, the air becomes moderately warm, snow and ice melt. Men lay
aside their wraps and overcoats and the women put on lighter dresses of various
colors. The change of seasons is more notable in Germany than in Madrid. Now my
windows are open; I hear and see the children playing noisily in the square whose
trees are beginning to sprout again. This is so beautiful that one feels like singing.
Everybody tells me that I have made very rapid and surprising progress in the
German language. Now I already speak it and the Germans understand me; that is,
high German or hochdeutsch, for I don't speak or study the dialect spoken in this
city or the Heidelberger Deutsch, being a dialect and neither a scientific nor literary
language. I hope that before the end of the eight months I have fixed, I shall be able
to leave Germany and go to England, or whatever you think convenient.
I still have money to live on for 27 days and to pay the house rent. If by chance I
don't receive money until May, Luna has spontaneously offered to send me money
any time I may need it as he has some, for being a good painter, half the year he is
poor and the other half he seems like a millionaire. ...

References
n.d. Rizals letters to Heidelberg (II) addressed to his family in Calamba, Philippines
(1886). 23 August 2015. <http://ufreytag.michel-media.de/page19.html>.