Royal Stuttgart

... cute little animals and feast on them, well at least I was. So, coming back from the Volksfest, the guard on duty spoke English. Turns out, it's a club where they raise little animals. So I asked if they ate them. His jaw almost dropped, "no!" So no, they don't eat the little animals. They show the little animals and have club meetings and events where they eat large animals that are decidedly not raised there. It's a Thumper safe zone.

Nun sind es also knapp zwei Monate her, als ich das letzte Mal an einer Schule die Geschichte
von Selma und mir erzählte. Einen Abend zuvor telefonierte ich mit meinem Bruder und so ganz nebenbei scherzte er, dass ich aus der Übung sein müsste, da ich schon mehr als 8 Wochen keine Schule mehr betreten und Mainecoon gepielt habe. Ach, von wegen aus der Übung. Bücher zu präsentieren ist wie Auto fahren. So etwas verlernt man nicht, und ...

... 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 ...

... and the gardens are really nice. I think the Basel zoo is better as far as animals go, but this one isn't bad for variety. I did not like the small areas where the animals are kept though. It seemed much too small for large wild animals.

After the zoo we walked around the city center and stopped in a beer garden for a little relaxation. We managed to walk around the New Palace and Palace Square and then went to the ...

Today we met at the music school and walked across the street to the town art museum where we took a our and saw some amazing art work. Then we boarded a wonderful tour bus and went to a middle school for a concert. The middle school students performed first followed by the BVNW orchestra. Our audience was very responsive- giving a long ovation at the end of the concert. We had lunch at the school cafeteria and some of the students engaged some German students in a soccer game ...

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.

... you have to go onto the spur upon which the castle sits. Today there is a nice road, even though the last half of a kilometer is on foot, with a bridge across the shallow gorge that separates the spur from the rest of the plateau. Everything is forested and overgrown, but in the Middle Ages the approach to the castle would have been kept clear so that attackers wouldn't have had any place to conceal themselves. We spent a couple of hours at Hohenneuffen with me wandering around ...

My second stop on my journey took me to Stuttgart, where my great-aunt and her relatives live. I had never met these people before, but I was anxious and excited to get to know relatives from Germany! My time in Stuttgart was very much a trip back in time. I visited my great-aunt, Tante Lydia, as well as her children and their lovely families. Tante Lydia taught me some Schwaebisch with the help of Nina (her granddaughter ...

... through the centre of Stuttgart to see the sights. We saw the Old Castle, next to the New Castle (its only a few hundred years old...) as well as more Christmas markets. Every stall had nativity scenes or something done on its roof, very scenic! Today, cousin Michael took us to the Mercedes Benz museum. We got to see the very first gasoline powered car, as well as many other interesting things. We spent hours ...

... us off and with our wonderful luck, we ended up taking the train the wrong way. AHHHHH!!!!!! Just how much bad luck can we have?!?!?!?!?!????? When the train started to crawl forward, we noticed right away that the train was going in the wrong direction! I jumped and ran to the the train conductor and asked if we could get off as we were on the wrong train, he shook his head no and would not stop. So with no other options we went for a ride and about ...