Go on a walk, and find a castle

Today after school, I decided it would be nice to go on a walk and explore my area of Jena a bit. Although I have only been here for less than two weeks, I have been thinking it would be fun to walk around by myself for a while now. It's important for me to know the area well so I can get from place to place easily in the future, and so I can discover more and more activities that I enjoy doing. I decided my walk could take a couple of hours, so I would be back before dinner, but put no restrictions on where I would go.
To start, I walked down roads near my house where I had not been before. It's always nice to look at German architecture, and see how unique each house can become within that spectrum. These roads soon met up with ones I had taken before with friends, and I was happy to re-walk and solidify the route in my mind. Along the way, as is probably expected, I was constantly snapping photos. One of these pictures was of a sign at a place that seemed like it had to do with sports. I took it so that I could remember what it said and ask friends at school to translate it for me. As I turned to walk away, a German boy that I hadn't see before started talking to me. All I was able to pick up out of what he said was the fact that he wanted to know about the picture I had just taken, so I had to tell him "mein Deutsch is nicht so gut." He responded with, "entschuldigung...sorry," and walked into the place with the mystery sign. Although it was not a productive conversation, it makes me look forward to when I'll have the ability to talk and understand German...
The slightly familiar path led to a different part of the city that had I mini-mall. I walked around inside, but did not find much except places I might eat at soon, so I headed back in the direction of home. Next, I took a road past my school. [Note-My school is on the edge of the city so not much seems to be "past" it except for trees.] As I walked on, the road started to go up, and up, and up some more. I was not really prepared for a mountainous hike, but my curiosity was stronger than my need for proper footwear. I am unable to accurately say how long the trek up that mountain was, or even express how long it felt, but it's safe to assume people don't just wander up it often. At the top, my slightly out of shape self was a bit tired, but damn happy to find a ruined castle and a view that only pictures can capture...

You know you're doing something right when you go on a walk and find a view like this, a castle, and a rainbow!