ERASMUS TIMES: Stuttgart

Last Thursday I went on a lovely adventure to Stuttgart. I had been to Stuttgart before, while I was at secondary school, but tis a nice auld spot, so I went again. And it didn't do any harm. In order to get the most out of our day we left at 7am. I'm not the most coordinated early in the morning, so this mean I had to be awake for 5am. I think it's safe to assume my flatmates hate me, as I was thundering around the flat at 5am.

"Aaaah don't kill me, Daisy!" - Myrtle Wilson

We walked to our meeting point where we got on our private coach (wooooOOOOoooo) and headed north. When I got on the bus, I was disappointed to find that people wanted to do things other than sleep. namely take photos and talk loudly. This displeased me. They soon came around though, falling asleep like the rest of us. That or there was a fumes leak.

Our first port of call was the Mercedes Benz museum (wooooOOOOoooo). I had heard many good things about it, so I was looking forward to it. It didn't disappoint. I wouldn't be the world's biggest motoring enthusiast, but I enjoyed it immensely. There was a pope-mobile, vintage Mercedes Roadsters and delightful cars from the 1920s, which one could imagine Daisy Buchanan mowing someone down in.

Judging Schiller is judging you. 

After a little picnic and another short bus journey, we went into the city centre and did a little tour. We got a look at the new and old palaces, the Konigsbau, Schillerplatz, among a few other bits and pieces. It's certainly a very pretty city. We then were left to wander about for an hour or two, which I spent looking for a Starbucks and then having a Starbucks. They wonderfully got my name right and to put an end to the suspense, I had a hot chocolate. And it was nom.

In order to get some learnings in, we visited the Landtag, which is the parliament for the state of Baden-Wurttemberg. We got to listen to and observe the parliament in session (they were discussing the provision of care for the elderly) and we got to speak to a nice man from the Green Party. One of our guides decided to take it upon herself to translate everything he was saying for us, even though we understood 90% of it. Bless her for making the effort, but it was as if we had put what the man was saying through Google translate. They were indeed English words, but were in very "creative" contexts. At that point we headed home and we got McDonalds when we got back. Winner.

I can highly recommend Stuttgart. It was nice to be in a relatively large urban centre again and there was a nice atmosphere around the city, which was probably owing to the preparations for Christmas markets among other things. I think I should like to go back there again before the year is out.