Germany Day 3

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Today was combination travel day and Stuttgart exploration. We gave ourselves some extra time to sleep in (which is a weird concept on its own, as anyone who knows us will understand. Jet lag does some odd stuff to you. 😊 ) Got ready to go, packed up, etc, then we headed down to the continental breakfast. Once again, I enjoyed my Nutella and croissant.

Once we had checked out, we headed out of town on the way to Stuttgart. It's a pretty good drive, but the view was wonderful. Germany occasionally experiences this really cool weather phenomenon where the early morning fog freezes on the trees, so it looks like fairies have come in overnight and spun delicate ice frosting all over them. It is at moments like this when you start to understand why so many of our fairy tales originated in Germany-they are living in a fairy tale land! We stopped at a roadside rest stop for a quick bite of lunch, and headed back into the car.

This afternoon George had to work, so Dad and I took the train into downtown Stuttgart and went exploring. Talk about a change from Heidelberg! As we got off the train, there was so much activity everywhere, not to mention smoke. What seemed like a million people all pushing and pulling to get to their respective trains on time, another group yelling their food orders to the vendors lining the platform to be heard over the announcement system, small groups lighting up their cigarettes everywhere. I must admit to having a bit of culture shock at this point-the entire station is underground, and all of that combined (along with an absolute loss of sense of direction) made for a head-spinning introduction to Stuttgart. Eventually we did find the entrance to the Bahnhof, only to find we were in one of the seedier areas of town-everything was pretty grimy (and still smoky), not very well lit. Nothing screamed dangerous, but all the little bells built into women's heads were definitely chiming warning signals. Well, let's just say I'm glad that I was with Dad, and we successfully found the main shopping drag, Königstrasse.

This street is a world apart from the train station. The wind was fairly brisk and biting, but the sun shone, all of the storefronts stood up classy and inviting, and a lively crowd seemed to be thoroughly enjoying a day out on the town. At first we just wandered around trying to get our bearings a bit (though we did make a quick detour into H & M; come on, a girl has to check out the foreign fashions) before we stumbled onto the Altstadt part of town (literally, old town). I don't know for certain, but it seems that Stuttgart was more heavily bombed than Heidelberg in WW2, so there aren't that many older buildings left, but you could see the old and new palaces, as well as the university. To be honest, the parks behind the buildings were much more interesting, especially after school let out. Children slid across the ice, people went by chatting with their friends and towing along their instruments (the music conservatory was right across the street), Stuttgarters came out walking their dogs and enjoying the beautiful day.

By the time we'd explored the older section of town a bit, the growlings coming from our stomach could no longer be ignored, so we wandered into one of the shopping arcades looking for a place where we could get a quick bite to eat. There was fast food Chinese-esque place that had a line 20 people deep, and no one was waiting at any other place, so we joined the queue. After much confusion, a lot of brusque "Was möchten Sie? WAS MÖCHTEN SIE!?!", and quite a bit of guesswork, we'd gotten two entrees and found a legal place to sit and eat them. I still have no idea what I ordered, but hey, that's part of the fun. TIP: Learn how to count to 20, and REALLY learn it, in the local language before you go to a different country. It will offset quite a bit of the language barrier.

After lunch, we meandered up and down the main street, poking our head into any shops that looked interesting, partly to look around and partly to thaw out before heading back outside. Shopping highlights of the day:
1) Hamley's-esque toy store. This store was 5 storeys tall, had lifesize teddy bears, and a great collection of model trains and cars. Needless to say, everyone involved was very happy in this store. 😊
2) Farmer's Market. A slice of local life, this area was fascinating. Different cuts of meat hanging all over the place, people (I assume, couldn't understand what they were saying) bargaining for fruits and vegetables from Spain and Africa that I had never seen before in my life, wonderfully foreign odors tantalizing you from every corner. It was wonderful.
3) top of the line deli that willingly gave out free samples even when they know you weren't planning on buying anything. Mmmm, tomato soup and bread.
4) LUSH!!!! Thank you for indulging me Dad. Simply put, the best line of 'smelly shops' anywhere-puts Bath and Body Works to shame. They have bath bombs and good-smelling soaps galore, as well as other beauty products. Walking into that store is like walking into a wonderful conglomeration of man's favorite smells all wrapped up into these small balls of powder.

By this time, most of the stores were closing, so we got back on the train and headed back to town. We checked in to the hotel, settled in, met up with George, got to meet the hotel manager, and we wandered out into the town square for dinner. I tried Fleischkäse for the first time with egg on top-sounds gross, tastes wonderful!!! It's vaguely similar to ham, but not quite like anything I've tasted before. We decided to just head back after that and hit the sack after grabbing some dessert from the lounge-everybody had a big day the next day.

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Photos

Stuttgart altstadt
new 'schloss' where the parliament resides

town square
here's the hub of all the activity

front view of schloss
better view of schloss up close

my new German boyfriend Friedrich
OK, so not really, but this was one of the lifesize teddy bears

the almost as cool bunny
it's just not fair when stuffed animals are taller than you

Farmer's Market
here's an example of what the stalls looked like

other face of Stuttgart
beautiful parks just off the main street

local ice skating rink
we had to get in on the fun!