Stuttgart Report

We survived the 5 hour trip to Stuttgart and the 4 hour return trip (I sped up on the return a bit). I can now, honestly say that I'm not afraid to drive our car anymore. Do I love driving a stick shift? No, I don't think I'll ever be one of those people. However, the Autobahn has made me a more confident driver.

My favorite driving moment, was on the way to Stuttgart, after Anna's bed-time on Friday night, Anna was very cranky and needed to be entertained. So, James & I struck up a chorus of Old MacDonald had a Farm, where one person said the animal and the other had to do the noises. We had just run through all the normal animals 'pig', 'cow', etc. and the choices were becoming increasingly bizarre. James chose something like "emu" for me to sing, and at the same moment I was cut off by a semi going up hill. Needless to say, the song feel apart, as I frantically down-shifted and cut over to the fast lane. James was dying laughing singing the song and watching my circuits reach overload very quickly and finally ask, "WHAT animal am I supposed to be?" And really, who knows what an emu says?

Stuttgart was good. We stayed at Le Meridien, the nicest hotel in town, booked at 50% off on their website. I throughly enjoyed the big bathroom and loved the big room. The indoor swimming pool was enjoyed by all! The reason we chose Stuttgart, was a work associate of James' is from there and had encouraged James to go to a football (= soccer in America) match. Unfortunately, she had to work, so James ended up going to the match by himself :(

While we were there, we enjoyed the beautiful park, old & new churches combined (restored after WWII bombing), the Mercedes Benz museum, the Art Museum and the biggest zoo & botanical gardens in Europe. Whew... we were busy in the 1.5 days we were there. We put some photos up on the website, under the winter folder.

Also, James found a new love at McDonald's, which we have eaten only as travel food. A Big Rosti... a horrendous looking combination of burger, hash brown patty, bacon, onions and a white sauce. I took his word for it that it was fantastic.

One more comment on the Autobahn... there are speed limits on most of it, and all of the sections we drove on. I did feel pretty speedy on Sunday when I got up to 160... km/hr which was 30 km/hr over the speed limit. On accident though, really! You do have to be careful of the multitude of speed racers that care nothing about the speed limits though. I stayed in the right lane and let them fly by us as much as possible!

Thanks for your prayers.