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.