Villages and roundabouts

August 31, 2013

 

After a lazy morning, we decided to drive west toward France.  The German GPS lady was right there with us—“please take the second right in the roundabout”—until she led us to a closed road and insisted that we continue along it. Then Robin turned on our GPS lady fromVA—Samantha—and they both told us what to do and gave different directions, only the German lady was much more polite.  What a fiasco of driving through village after village and encountering roundabouts every few miles and having these two strange women competing.  I don’t like having one along for the ride, let alone two.  We made it to Baden Baden and got on a highway and headed back to Stuttgart.

A German village street

A Stuttgart Street

A downtown Stuttgart Street - streetcars are everywhere!

One of the highlights of our jaunt today was stopping at a McDonald’s!  I normally do not frequent McDonald’s, but I was hoping for iced tea. They had ice, no tea. That’s okay—I had iced Coke Light and then I just had some ice.  What a treat!  I noticed that the ice dispenser was “programmed” to only drop out about 1/3 cup of ice into the cup.  I wonder why Europeans don’t indulge in something so necessary in our world.

In spite of the GPS chaos, today was a day of learning about the area and its cuisine, as well as its industry.  Stuttgart and Bad Cannstatt are part of the larger Swabia area. The foods that are essential to this area are egg noodle products in many variations.  Before coming to Germany, I was familiar with spatzle, and I recently learned about Maultaschen.  Because of the stony soils in this area, conditions were not good for cattle; therefore, meat was a luxury and mainly eaten by lords and other wealthy people.  The ordinary folks had to be content to exist on simple dishes made of flour and later potatoes.  Maultaschen is a very thin pasta bag about two inches square, similar to a ravioli, only not as thick; it is filled with finely chopped spinach, onion, and a little meat. The story here has it that these little pockets were first prepared by monks who were trying to avoid the meat prohibition during Lent and thought that God couldn’t see the meat when it was inside the pasta.  I read in one of the travel guides before I left home not to leave Stuttgart without trying some Maultaschens, which are usually served in a broth.  I tried some tonight, and they were delicious—same idea as a Cornish pasty, only smaller, lighter, and different vegetables.

I also learned that Stuttgart is the headquarters for Mercedes-Benz and Porsche, and it surprises me that we are driving a Ford!  According to Robin, Hitler came up with an idea for a car for all people, a Volks Wagen, and Herr Porsche, who had been a race-car designer for  M-B, was appointed to develop the VW.  He then went on to open his own company, and the rest is history.  Lots of these cars are soaring around the area!

Yesterday I complained about lack of shampoo until Robin pointed out that the large container hanging on the tile in the shower said it was for hair, face, and body.  We’ll see how that works—I just washed my hair with it!

Tomorrow we’re heading through Bavaria on our way to Switzerland.  I wonder what the day will bring.

We're getting behind on pictures - Internet access here is s-l-o-w and we're still tired from the flight. We have pictures, and will post them as soon as we get some access speed and a little more time.

Wilkommen im Deutschland

Joyce and I looked for a picture of the Alps for the background for the blog, but all of them were copyrighted, except one, a photo I took from the plane flying from Nice to Dusseldorf in 2008, as we were ending trektofrance. It doesn't show up anyway, so... never mind,

We left Richmond at a little after 2 p.m. on August 29 and flew to Atlanta (this route seemed perfectly reasonable in June when we planned it) where we nearly missed our 5:30 plane to Stuttgart because we were having lunch (breakfast for Robin) and had no idea that they were already boarding. One thing about getting on the plane just as they are closing the doors, there's no crowd!
So now we are recovering from "jet lag" in Stuttgart,
or more accurately, in Bad Cannstatt, a community known for its mineral springs.

Peter, our friend who was born near here, tells of taking his scooter (they didn't own a bicycle) to the spring here to get sparkling water that his family drank instead of cola or such. We saw the "spa" today - it's across the street from the hotel, but we didn't go in.

After a hearty meal (Schniztle, Spaetzle, Goulasch, Bier, salad and bread)

we wandered around the area near the restaurant

 and found a couple of fountains and tried the water. "Sehe gut!"


Joyce's version:

 Travel, the way we do it, is not easy. I keep thinking back to the movie, A League of Their Own, when Geena Davis tells Tom Hanks she is quitting the team because it is too hard. He tells her that hard is what makes it great. I'm banking on that. Our travels keep us on our toes and require a whole different set of skills than those we practice daily.

 Ah, the "joys" of airplane travel abroad--security, customs, lines, rushing, not to mention little ones in the seat immediately behind us continually whining and screeching on this nine-hour trip!  They were sweet ones and what was their mother to do besides comfort them?! We flew from Richmond to Atlanta, only to get on a plane there and fly back over Richmond, losing about five hours in the process. I wonder why we didn't fly to DC or NYC and head out from a northern city for Germany. 

We arrived in Stuttgart at 1:30 a.m. our time in the U.S. and 7:30 a.m. German time, picked up a Ford at Hertz, and headed on our round-about way to find our hotel, an interesting adventure when you don't know the language. Our GPS lady, who talked to us in polite English with a German accent, had us traveling up and down over major highways and small side streets in what seemed like a very indirect way of getting us to our destination. When we made a wrong turn, thankfully she did not say "recalculating," but just started from scratch. I drove and had a hard time figuring out what to do when she would say, "Proceed 60 meters and prepare to turn left soon." I wished I'd listened better to the metric system in Mrs. Caltrider's 8th grade math class.  Robin tells me it is now Saturday morning—I’m still operating as if it is Thursday because we have only had catnaps since we left Richmond.

The first thing that struck me about Stuttgart was how much it reminded me of Pittsburgh—lots of hills with houses and other buildings covering them.

This section of Stuttgart, Bad Cannstatt, has many quaint villages with shops, restaurants, and biergartens. The narrow streets, lined with tall, painted buildings, twist around with little alleyways going in different directions, and generally have massive churches at their center.

Of course, because we do not know the language, we don’t know what kind of churches they are.

Late this afternoon, we happened upon an outdoor restaurant with a vast menu. We hadn’t eaten since a light breakfast on the plane at midnight (Richmond time) last night. I knew I could get by in Germany because the few food words that I know are “schnitzel”and spaetzle, and I like both. I did not know about the hearty servings they would send our way. I ordered rahmschnitzel (pork with a wonderful sauce full of huge mushrooms), which, along with the spaetzle, filled a platter—enough for several diners.

The spaetzle reminded me of my Aunt Minnie’s homemade noodles that we enjoyed on special occasions growing up and also our friend, Nancy Fundinger’s homemade spaetzle.  I had to leave over half on the plate; Robin was working on his own goulash.

 The biggest adjustment for me, as it was the last time we came to Europe, is that there is no iced tea!  Those who know me know about my tea.  I keep a glass or cup going all day long.  In fact, once again, there is no ice.  They do not serve ice; the hotels do not provide ice buckets or an ice machine. I ordered a “Coke Lite” and it came in a glass without ice, although it was moderately cold, but not very.

Also, as I said in a past blog, most hotels in Europe have no wash cloths but, this time, I brought my own.  It’s funny what you get used to.  I did not, however, bring shampoo, and none is provided.  Just little differences in the style of living and major differences in communication.