We went to Stuttgart in a somewhat unconventional way: carpooling with a total stranger named David (pronounced Da-fid because he's a German). We had to meet him at a trainstation just outside of Zurich. Unfortunately, I didn't realize this and thought we were just meeting him in Zurich. When we got to Zurich and I was informed that we had to take another train to get to him, we were in such a hurry that I forgot to buy another train ticket. Fortunately, we made it there without anyone checking (a rarity on Swiss trains) and this marked the beginning of the unprecedented chain of luck that would continue for the next day or so.
It turns out that Steve Paige and I both managed to forget our passports and it worried our driver slightly when we told him this. We carried on regardless and fortunately it was never an issue. We arrived in Stuttgart after about two hours of driving the Autobahns (which, incidently, I can't wait to drive myself) and began to search for our accomodation. Steve Paige had lived in Stuttgart for 6 weeks some years prior and as such was able to get us a place to stay with the family he stayed with then. It took him a little while to remember the neighborhood but he eventually figured out which direction we should go. On our way, realizing we were quite hungry, we happened upon a Burger King and stopped in for some quick eats.
We eventually arrived at the house, chucked our stuff down, got acquinted with our host and decided to go out for "a few drinks and a chill night". Our host was kind enough to drive us to a bar whose name I can't remember but was adorned with lots of fluorescent paint and lights. It just so happened that it was reggae night and I must say that the music fit the atmosphere quite well. Another important thing to point out is that we were officially the first 3 people in the bar at around 9:45PM.
Not minding this - it was going to be a quiet night after all - we ordered some Jaggerbombs(!) as we'd been talking about them earlier, pounded those back and had beers. And some more Jaggerbombs(!). And some more beers. Basically we just got far more drunk than we intended to. People started to arrive at the bar quite a bit later and we were approached by some 18yr old german kids who invited us to come to their table. Flo-rida, TIMMY, Mo and Katie (these were their names. Well, close enough anyway) had never heard of Jaggerbombs and had the absolute worst choice in drinks - Caiparihnas & Baileys on the rocks to chase? Come on kids! Eventually, we were asked to pay and were ushered out of the bar - opened it AND closed it, right on! Fortunately there was a club downstairs where we drank a little more and danced like idiots to some reggae music. Dave and Steve Paige went of and hit on some gay guys for a while, not sure what that was about...
We left the bar and as we were walking away found that TIMMY, who had gotten waaay too drunk had been kicked out of the bar and accompanied by Mo, was wandering around like an idiot. We wished them our best and started our walk home. But we were hungry. We sought out food trying two gas stations to no avail. Then we saw it. The blue, white red and gold beacon of hope: BK. Yup. We ate at BK twice in one day. Three times if you count the fact that after we had sat down and eaten our meals, we were given 3 more free burgers by staff that couldn't finish them - Luck strikes again.. kind of..
Having gotten home after 4AM, we had a pretty slow start to the next day. After having breakfast, though, we got our asses out the door and headed to the Mercedes-Benz Museum. Only had mild trouble finding it as well. Probably one of the more spectacular museums I've seen. Granted, I'm biased towards it because it's full of cars, but it was really well done (and a good deal at that!) Free audioguides that automatically activate in certain areas of the museum were very informative. I had no idea how much Karl Benz and his company contributed to motoring. I particularly liked all the relics, the first cars, engines, etc. That old technology is simply beautiful.
The museum itself was inside a gorgeous building. A really cool elevator takes you to the top to start, speakers inside it play the sound to a movie that you can view outside the elevator as it rises with you. From the top, you make your way down the building and the exhibits take you chronologically through the history of the car, the engine, the company, motorsports, and even some german history. It was really cool to see where all the product names came from (ie. Mercedes was the name of a client's daughter - the car that was named after here was a phenomenal success) and what the symbology on the cars represents (the 3 pronged star represents their 3 pursuits: Land, sea and sky). They even had special sections dedicated to famous people's cars, service vehicles and buses!
Immediately following the Mercedes museum we decided to check out the Champion's League game between Stuttgart and Koeln happening more or less right next door. We missed about half the game trying to buy tickets and food but we did see the second half and witnessed Stuttgart lose 2:0. Oh well, good try..
That night we were knackered, went to bed early despite intending to party in Stuttgart, and got up early on Sunday. After a nice breakfast we set out for the Porsche Museum. In an equally spectacular building to that of the Mercedes Museum, the Porsche Museum was also very nice. Porsche got into the game quite a bit later than Karl Benz but there was still a lot of history and technological evolution evident. Porsche seems to have a very strong identity and it was cool to see the evolution of their cars as they stayed true to the original designs.
After this museum we were hungry and only had about 3 hours before our train home. We sought out pretzels to tide us over and then headed to the biergarten for a schnitzel and some beers. Walked down Koenigstrasse and saw some of Stuttgart as opposed to the outlying industrial areas. Then, grabbed some more pretzels and went home!
A good first foray into Germany - I'm excited to go back next week!
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