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Published: July 12th 2014
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Weekends are meant for rest and relaxation in order to recuperate from a busy week and "recharge" for the week that is to come, right? Such is not the case on this trip!
We met at the school at 9am and departed for Stuttgart on a top end charter bus. These folks do know how to travel. It was quiet at first while the students and teachers worked hard to summon the energy to interact. As we drew nearer to our destination though, the energy started to increase along with the volume of chatter and laughter on the bus.
Our first stop was a guided stadium tour of the Mercedes Benz Arena, home of Bundesliga One side vfb Stuttgart. It's a well designed and unique 60,000 seat facility that has hosted many international and even World Cup matches. We were privileged to be granted behind the scenes access. We started in the press room where our students posed for pictures in the same chairs that players and coaches sit to give their post match interviews. We then climbed to the top of the stadium for our first view inside to the pitch. From there, we headed over to the
VIP seats where the German Chancellor, club president and other dignitaries sit to view matches. Of course our kids plopped themselves down and figured that this was the perfect place for a quick snack! After the break, it was time to head to the field. On the grass? No, for most of us anyway. Errant elbows touching during pictures, or Julians nose touching as he performed pushups field side for some reason. I suppose it was our way of rebelling. After the obligatory group photo pitch side, it was time to run out of the tunnel with the music blaring. This was as close as one could get to playing for vfb Stuttgart. unfortunately, none of us have the multi-million Euro contract to go with it. Back inside the stadium, we were led to the locker room. It was surprisingly small and lacked many of the luxuries you would expect to see for a top flight professional soccer club in Germany. Onward to the gift shop!
Post tour shopping spree complete (one person bought one item), and it was time to add beautiful cars to the days menu. Sports and cars, these folks know me well! The Mercedes Museum
was next up, and only a few hundred meters walk.
The Mercedes Museum is 5 stories tall, holds 178,000 square feet of exhibition area and within its walls has over 160 cars in display. After taking an elevator to the top, it winds physically downward and chronologically upward until reaching Mercedes newest models at the end. It was a trip through time really, beginning with the horse next to the elevator entrance, and ending with the CLK GTR Racer, which costs roughly $2 Million. I'll take one in silver please.
After drooling over cars that cost more than most houses, we proceeded back to the bus. On to the city center of Stuttgart for some free time and shopping! Students broke into mixed groups in order to explore the roughly two miles of pedestrian only consumer brilliance. The shopping hub of Stuttgart is without rival on a warm Saturday afternoon. It is a flowing river of humanity churning every which way as thousands of Germans from every walk of life peruse the many stores and ice cream shops, or lounge on the village green and listen and dance as a live jazz band performs. It was everything a
friendly European city should be, and our kids ate it up! By the time they returned to the bus, all on time by the way, they were somehow simultaneously exhausted and hyperactive. They really seemed to enjoy all that the city center had to offer. Judging by the amount of shopping bags strewn about our meeting point, they sure seemed to enjoy all that the shops had to offer as well!
All in all, it was another great day! We are staying busy with fun and entertaining activities that have been well planned by our gracious German hosts. Tomorrow is a free day with families. Hopefully some of them will be able to sleep in and relax a bit, as next week is jam packed with some amazing events, such as the castle tour Tuesday, Strasbourg, France on Wednesday, and Lake Constance on Friday. The weather is really supposed to clear up and warm up this week as well, so pool time cometh!
One thing that I am sure is on every German families calendar is the World Cup final between Germany and Argentina. It promises to be an amazing game, and it will be even more amazing
to witness the event here in Germany! They have already officially declared that school will start late on Monday due to the game Sunday night. How lucky are we to be able to be here for this?!
Go Germany!
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