The first weekend, we had plans to go to the Stuttgarter Weihnachtsmarkt with my friend Andrea and her fiance, so Saturday I gave Andy a little tour of the university and the city. Unfortunately that first weekend it was SUPER cold and snowy.
We went up to the building where I have most of my classes and grabbed a hot chocolate in the cafeteria there. Well actually, it's a little trick that I found out the other day. You press the cappuccino button and it gives you hot chocolate. One day they are going to fix it and I'll actually get a cappuccino, but for now it's tasty hot chocolate. And rather hot. I showed him a couple of other buildings at the university before heading back to the Altstadt. Then I let him see the two grocery stores where I do most of my shopping. I think Andy was a little surprised by the lack of selection and the soviet style lines, but it was a Saturday and the stores would be closed on Sunday, so it made sense to me. :)
That evening I made dinner and we headed out to grab a drink. Collegium, the place right around the corner from my dorm was pretty packed. We were going to go to a place that my friend Bobby recommended just down the street, but it was full too and most of the places on the Marktplatz were also full, so we decided to go to the Schlosscafe. We ran into a friend of mine there and after a drink or two headed back to my dorm since we had to get up early to go to Stuttgart the next morning.
On Sunday we met Andrea and Cap at the train station and headed off to Stuttgart. The Stuttgarter Weihnachtsmarkt goes on for a couple of weeks (unlike the Tübingen one that is only for a weekend). It was a 5 minute walk from the train station, but most of that was underground. We wandered around, drank some Glühwein, ate some bratwurst and a Dampfknödel filled with cherries and covered in warm vanilla sauce and looked at the various stands. It was however REALLY cold. After almost freezing we headed to a pizza restaurant that Cap and Andrea had been to their last time in Stuttgart.
The place is called Vapiano, and in looking at their Web site they apparently have a couple of locations in the DC area, so we'll have to check them out the next time we're up in DC. The concept is fairly simple. You get a card when you enter. Then you decide what you want. There are various stations where you can order pizza, pasta, salad or drinks, and if it's something that takes a little longer they will give you a buzzer to let you know when to pick it up. We got a pizza and a salad to share along with a soda and an orangina. I don't recall how much it was, but not overly expensive. They also have fresh herbs on the tables so you can add basil, rosemary or whatever else to your pizza/pasta if you want.
We headed home on the train. We rode there and back using a Baden-Württemberg ticket, which costs 26 Euros for up to 5 people. Though there were only four of us, this meant that each of us rode round trip for 6.50 which is really reasonable. With the ticket you can also ride on the public transportation systems in the cities as well, which means if we had wanted to go someplace else around Stuttgart we could have done that with the ticket as well. Honestly it's a very reasonable way to travel.
The next day I was going to pick up the rental car so that we could have some other fun adventures around the area, so I got up early, took the train to Reutlingen, figured out what bus to take, and picked up the car. I had ordered a manual transmission Seat Ibiza - which is a subcompact cheap little vehicle. Instead they gave me an automatic 4 Door VW Golf. This was actually really lucky because I had been looking at the Golf as a potential next car so it gave me an opportunity to drive it and see what I thought of it. I picked it up, got a little lost getting out of Reutlingen, but made it back to the house in one piece.
After eating breakfast, we decided to head over to the Ritter Sport Factory to check out the factory store and the Museum. Unfortunately the museum was closed, but the store was open so we bought some discounted chocolate. The prices are definitely better than what you find in the store, and in the back section they have their "irregular" chocolates that they can't sell in stores, but which taste just the same. We ended up getting a 1 assortment of chocolate, some minis and a bag that I have wanted since I saw it the first time years ago. Then we headed back to the city to meet up with friends for coffee.
We ran into my friends on the way home and they were headed to Kalendar for a döner, so we told them that we would meet them there. We dropped everything off in my room and headed over to eat. After eating we went to a bar/cafe called Tangente Jour. It is here that Andy encountered Cherry Glühwein. I think it kinda changed his life, because now it is going to be his fall/winter "thing." He's decided that he wants to learn how to make really good Cherry Glühwein and we're going to have a fall/winter party this year and invite people over for treats and Cherry Glühwein. I'm all for it. It was damn tasty.
Not much to report after that. We headed on a couple of driving trips to Rothenburg ob der Tauber and Neuschwanstein the next two days which will be the recap in the next post.
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