A weekend in...Stuttgart (continued)

SATURDAY


Saturday morning we enjoyed breakfast at the hotel and then headed off to the Mercedes Benz Museum. I spent a lot of time trying to decide if I wanted to go to the Benz museum or the Porche museum. In the end, since I'm not a huge car person, I figured that Benz had more history attached to it and that that would be the most interesting.

The whole weekend we traveled using a combination of the S-Bahn and the U-Bahn. We were lucky because that weekend there was a special on tickets so any ticket you bought was good for double time, so we bought a daily group ticket which was good for Saturday and Sunday.

The museum is located outside of the city a bit, but is easily reachable by public transportation.

The very first thing we saw was this...some sort of moon-rover / monster truck. The first thing I thought was that Mercedes and John Deere must have worked together.

The museum itself was so cool, a great record of the progression of the car over the years. The museum started at the top of the building and you worked your way down.

The very first thing you saw was a statue of a horse, with a quote from Kaiser Wilhelm II, "I believe in the horse. The automobile is no more than a transitory phenomenon." Shows that the museum director has a sense of humor!

I had a really fun time taking pictures of the Mercedes symbols on the cars, which will come as no surprise...

I was excited about the reflection on this one!

This was the car used by the last Emperor of Austria (whose palace I visited in Vienna). He lived out the remainder of his life in Germany after he refused to abdicate. Benz made him a special car with his crest on it.


























Other fun car pictures:

Hi Margaret!

 

Pope-mobile!

From the racing section of the museum

The museum was also in a really pretty part of the countryside, and you could see the vineyards on the hills from the museum. The stripes are from the skin on the outside of the building. The football fields (for you Americans out there, soccer) are where the Stuttgart team practices.

After the museum, we headed farther out from Stuttgart, to a smaller city, which is in the hills, just like the picture above. The city had a castle that had some great views.









The two church towers were built at different times which is why they have such different styles.

 

This part of Germany grows a lot of grapes. It was really similar to the area Kristin and I visited in Austria. 

And that was basically Saturday. We had ice cream for dinner. =) German ice cream is excellent! 

Sunday in the next post because I have to get some work done!

A weekend in...Stuttgart

So, as I mentioned earlier, I wasn't too excited about the thought of traveling alone in Europe, but still wanted to maximize the time here before Wes arrived. That meant that I found out where other people were going to be here and invited myself along on their holidays. Margaret is a friend of mine from high school and was gracious enough to let me visit her in Stuttgart.

FRIDAY

First indication that the trip was going to be amusing, if nothing. Security was baffled by my camera - Likely the only picture on my blog EVER that will be taken by someone I don't know....I told the guy before the x-ray machine that there was a camera in my purse and he made it seem like not a problem. Of course the level of scrutiny made me really nervous for the trip back where my camera battery had died and no one could verify that this camera-shaped machinery was actually camera. Fortunately no issues on the way back.

Overwing shot from the flight:

I arrived in Stuttgart and Margaret met me at the airport, which was really nice of her. I find the idea of figuring out public transport alone to be a bit scary (especially because I sometimes have trouble asking questions...) so it's awesome to have someone who will meet you.

We stayed in a hostel for students, Margaret graciously got a double for the weekend. Once we got settled we met a friend of mine who works for PwC in Stuttgart for coffee. We found a place that overlooked the Schlossplatz (the largest square in the city and home to the New Castle which was built between 1746 and 1807 - that's what in the background of this picture)and was kind of out of the rain...either way it was great to see Van before he took off for his south of France holiday because he was full of great suggestions for Stuttgart, since he's been there for 2 years already.

After coffee Margaret and I wandered down the Königstraße, which is the main shopping street in Stuttgart. There were tons of people there, because there were big sales happening. We did manage to see someone who was a staple of the Königstraße when Margaret was in school. Yes, that is a guy playing a saxophone, and yes, that is a parrot on his head, and yes, it is a real parrot - I watched it move. And the guy was pretty good too.







We wandered around the city center a bit more before heading back to the hotel -

Then we took a turn into the park before dinner. Margaret explained to me that there is a big protest regarding the current renovations of the Stuttgart train station - check out Stuttgart 21 for some additional information. Basically, the way I understand it is that a bit of a very large park that is next to the train station would be used to modernize the station, of course I'm sure that's vast oversimplification. Anyway, the fun part was the protest camp in the park, some people have a lot of time on their hands...

Yes, a tree house...

This train station is killing the best friends of small children!

Translation:  
Thou shalt not kill.
This tree (and all his friends) makes our life here possible.
In case of imminent danger to his existence notify us immediately.

Secret: This scarf was not part of the initial protest. Margaret found this scarf the day before I arrived and draped it over the branch. Someone else came by and artistically added it to this tree's decorations...I mean protest gear...Congratulations, Margaret, you contributed to the cause!












We saw a bunch of police officers out and around the city and realized it was because there were protests planned for Monday. I suppose they were monitoring the situation to make sure nothing got out of hand. They did step in to take down this sign - "all cops are bastards. They at least had a sense of humor because there were other officers taking pictures as the two were taking the sign down.

After this we climbed the tower of the train station, which had some great views of the city. The tower has the Mercedes symbol because Benz is headquartered in Stuttgart (as is Daimler and Porche for you car people out there). You'll see later that on Saturday we visited the Benz Museum which is outside of the city.

 We had dinner at a place off of the Königstraße called Ochs'n Willi. From the sign, it looks like a complete tourist trap, which is the reason that Margaret had never been before. However, inside the place is pretty classy and a lot bigger than the entrance suggests. The restaurant serves Swabian food, which is the regional specialty for the area surrounding Stuttgart. Perhaps it's because Swabia is relatively close to Italy (or may be for no real reason) but Swabian food has elements of the traditional heavier German cuisine and elements of Italian in that there's lots of pasta and pizza type dishes.

I had a traditional dish called Kasespätzle (translation: macaroni and cheese). The sauted (may be fried?) onions on top were awesome.

Margaret had another traditional dish called Maultaschen, which are similar to ravioli, usually with a pork filing. It was tasty too!

I bought an English language Swabian cookbook before dinner and I'm really glad that I did!


After dinner we met a friend of her, Robin, who is in school at the University that Margaret attended in Stuttgart. She met him when the University sent him to be a teaching assistant in Charlotte at her middle school! The party was organized by the university students to celebrate the end of the term. And when I say organized, this was not your traditional fraternity kegger. Why? In Germany, there are strict recycling rules. These are enforced by "pfand" (translation: deposit) on each plastic or glass bottle. For example, we purchased a few bottles of water and the pfand was more than the the cost of the water (for 1.5L the cost was 0.19 cents while the deposit was 0.25). Amusingly enough, I learned of this earlier in the day when meeting Van. The restaurant put a deposit on the glass my tea was served in!

As you can imagine the student organizes don't want to be stuck with the cost of this deposit so they pass it along to the partiers by handing them a bottle and a chip, that is used to redeem the deposit. The students came up with what might have been the most complicated but ingenious system to get back your deposit, driven by the fact that the bar staff wasn't handling money. So here's how it went down:
1) Cover price of 10EUR paid at the door when you arrive. This got you a ticket that you used at the bar.
2) At the bar, you used your ticket to pay for the cost of your drink and the deposit. You got your drink and the deposit chip.
3) When you finished your drink and returned the empty bottle and the chip, you got a slip of paper.
4) The slip of paper was presented to the people at the door to redeem your deposit.

That's the complicated part. The ingenious part was that the students had allowed for a shortcut here - at step 3 - where you could just get another drink instead (one that cost less than the deposit...). Smart kids...making money by capitalizing on the complicated nature of their process.

We caught the last tram home because we are old and were not willing to a) walk back to the hotel or b) stay out until when the trams started running again.

Saturday & Sunday coming in the next post!

A day trip to...Brugge

So, most everyone who knows me from the US knows that I don't like to drive. Which is why when I say that I drove from Amsterdam to Brugge a few eyebrows will probably raise. And when I explain that it was my first time driving in the Netherlands and that there were 4 other people in my Honda Civic, the remaining eyebrows will probably shoot up.

I'd heard lovely things about Brugge from almost everyone who has been there, so when Elizabeth suggested the trip I volunteered my car so long as she would tell me exactly where to go...I would like to point out that Tom-Tom has voices that you can download for your GPS. Yoda directed us on the way to Brugge and Cartman on the way back. Yoda was great, Cartman made me nervous - he was not so polite in giving directions as Yoda.


The first thing we did (after Alex and Roy helped me park the car) was eat lunch. The drive is about 2.5 hours so we were pretty hungry.  We wandered towards the main square where there are lots of restaurants. It was pretty busy, likely because it's Saturday afternoon and European holiday time.

The restaurant was right off the main square (if you've got the belltower at your back, it's to the left if you're looking for a good place to go). Elizabeth was insistent because of the steak and the bearnaise. I didn't try the steak but the bearnaise was excellent! The view from the restaurant into the square was also great. 

Elizabeth was keen on ordering steak with bearnaise sauce...she and Adrienne shared and they still had a giant plate of steak....The restaurant was a 2007 Michelin pick, so obviously it was going to be good.

After lunch Roy, Alex and I climbed the Bell Tower.

All around the edge of the tower, there were cities listed. I tried to find Amsterdam but I couldn't. =(

The bells were really interesting. There was this giant player piano type drum that all of the bells were attached too, you can see the strings here. And when the drum turned the bells rang in the prescribed order. Genius!

 

After the bell tower, we visited one of the churches, which had a Michaelangelo statue of the Madonna. Photographs weren't allowed unfortunately, but I wholeheartedly agree with the preservation of a piece of art that amazing.  It was beyond beautiful, truly a masterpiece. 

There were a few other museums that we visited as well, again where photography was not allowed. 

In general Brugge was really pretty! (I found that Roy was trustworthy enough to handle my camera).

Finally before we left, I demanded waffles. However, I was too hungry when the waffle came to take my camera out!! That's my goal next time in Belgium to get a few good waffle pictures! 

We also visited a truffle shop, which was tasty!

 

I had to limit myself to just buying two, otherwise that could have been really bad!