Ibis Stuttgart Sindelfingen

... form, and the nut man. Even being full, we couldn't pass up the nut man. Imagine every kind of nut coasted in many kinds of goodness. We couldn't even choose, went for the mixed bag. The nutella coated hazelnuts, white cherry chocolate coated walnuts, and the caramelized cashews ranked up there for me. Sorry to say, the liebkuchen just didn't do it for us.

The last pictures are somewhat unrelated, except our mystery came to a ...

... the Germans. They down played this of course but history is history and it did advance their technology quite a bit. They also had an exhibition of all the famous cars from movies or used by stars including The Pope Mobile, The Jurassic Park cars and Ringos car! We did a simulation of being in a racing car which was pretty fun! I could never drive that fast!

We stayed at a ...

... nein, schloss interaction) there was a big crowd in the center. It was pumpkin racing day complete with announcer, starting gun, and two lanes through the main fountain! Yes, giant 1000 lb plus hollowed out pumpkins with kayak paddles being raced across the fountain. We walked all around the front grounds, seeing many, locked entrances to the castle. It was cool, but not 14 euros cool. Little did we know! In a much needed search for the WC, we ...

Haven't been wanting to get out of bed in the morning, this is a good sign. The up and at 'em, hungry and awake at o'dark thirty side effect of jet lag is disappaiting. So long, farewell, hope not to see you for awhile. So what to do with our first awake and alert weekend? Explore!

We have a pass for 3 days of unlimited exploring around Stuttgart. (ie. We can get lost as many times as needed, see whatever we happen upon, and it'll ...

... from Stuttgart. Don't let the name or pink jerseys deceive you, they are certainly the best mixed team in Germany. We put up a good fight, but in the end they came ahead with the win. I think the video of the game is floating out there on youtube.... I'll be the out of focus #46 in black....

... of the Mercedesturm to get a nice view of the city, for free!

On our drive back we spotted a castle ruin high above the autobahn and tried to find it. We climbed up a steep and winding hill through wine fields to the castle gates, which were locked. A sign posted on the gates stated that the castle is private property and trespassers will be fined. Unfortunately this is the only thing I took pictures of from our entire trip.

... Mal aus dem Fenster sah und immer noch den gleichen Bahnsteig vor mir hatte, dachte ich mir schon, dass irgendetwas nicht stimmt.

Tatsächlich hatte ein Blitzschlag den gesamten Bereich des Wiener Westbahnhofs lahmgelegt. Und so kam alles ein bisschen durcheinander.

Irgendwann ging es dann weiter und wir kamen mit ca. 3 Stunden Verspätung nach München...

Caught a night train from Vienna and arrived in Stuttgardt in the morning. Had a great day wandering and seeing the sights. Yet another map from yet another tourist info place. More statues and old buildings (Boring right? Not by a long shot). Still walking around wide-eyed like kids at Disneyland.

... changed - or not - in the 20+ years since I last was there. Over the course of the week I visited several art galleries, a number of museums, the planetarium, the zoo and botanical garden, and the town of Esslingen. My two favorite museums were also the two newest: the new Mercedes-Benz World and the "Haus der Geschichte Baden-Wuerttemberg" (House of the History of Baden-Wuerttemberg). Benz has done a magnificent job of giving the history of the company and its products in context of ...

Well, it's been a while since we've added an entry to the old blog. For the last month we've been living with Nadja's sisters family in a small village in Southern Germany. It's great to be able to settle down for a little while in the same place. It also doesn't hurt that the place that we're living in at the moment is a guesthouse and we're able to enjoy our own big ass 4 star room for most of the time and every morning we sit down to the delicous 'haus am bluanbach ...