It's a small world

July 29-31, 2005

Hello all!

My roommate Katie moved out on the Friday :( She had to catch a plane to Barcelona really early on Friday morning so I was left with the responsibility of handing in her key. I was hoping that when I gave the Hausmeister the key that I could convince him to leave Katie's room open for me because I knew that I was having 3 guests that weekend (my friend Lara from Ottawa, and my cousin Mike and his girlfriend Nadine). The first time I asked the hausmeister he flat out refused and gave me a "why are you even asking" kind of look......the Germans like to play it by the rules. I asked him a couple more times during and after he checked Katie's room for broken furniture etc. Eventually I convinced him to leave the door open because I told him it was my responsible cousin coming to visit me. This was a big relief because there is no way 4 people could have slept in my tiny room.

On Friday I left work early (surprise surprise) to pick up my friend Lara from the train station. Lara and I used to work at Carleton pool together back in Ottawa and she is currently working in Geneva. I briefly showed her around the university campus then we went back to my place and had dinner with my friend Shawn. Later, one of my roommates took us downtown and we searched for a jazz club that supposedly had live music. After discovering that there was no live music that night we went to a couple places around downtown Stuttgart for some drinks.

The next day I thought it would be nice to take Lara to see Ludwigsburg (a castle modelled after chateau Versailles that is 20 min from Stuttgart) since everyone tells me how beautiful it is and I had still not visited it. My German roommate, Tobias, had also not seen the schloss and decided to come with us......this was to our benefit since he had a car. On the way to Ludwigsburg we visited a gummy bear factory, where Lara purchased some erotic gummy bears for the girls back at the office in Geneva. Once we got to the castle we took an English tour and saw the elaborate decor within the castle......there was even a room full of mirrors (kind of like the hall of mirrors in Versailles but only smaller). From one of the windows we could see a tower in the Garden and our guide mentioned that this was Rapunzel's tower........after the tour and after a traditional Swabish lunch we went on a mission to find the tower. Within the gardens of Ludwigsburg we entered a fairytale land, designed for children, and learnt all about German fairytales (including Rapunzel, and another story where a donkey spits money out of his mouth).

That night my cousin Mike and his girlfriend Nadine came to my house around 8:00. We were planning to go to the zoo early the next day and since they were coming all the way from Heidelberg we thought it best they stay the night. After some great confusion trying to organize where Lara, Mike, Nadine, and I would meet some of my Stuttgart friends we headed downtown for the night. We met up with some other students (friends of mine) but did not end up staying out too late since we were on a tight schedule.

At 6 in the morning I was woken up by Nadine, she wanted to let me know that Mike was really sick and that they wouldn't be able to go to the zoo. They decided to leave right then and there so Mike could recover at home.......it was too bad since I was looking forward to spending the day with them again. Instead Lara, Shawn, Tobias and I went to the zoo..........there were tons of animals from all over the world and I noticed that the zoo is a great place to go people watching too. After the zoo we walked through the park that leads from the zoo to the downtown of Stuttgart. By that time we were famished so we went to one of the Beer Gardens. Found some Roman ruins and vineyards

That night we had a BBQ at my place and then later went to a goodbye party for one of the American students who was leaving the next day.

Lara stayed until Monday but sadly I had to go to work and wasn't able to show her around.....but I did give here a pile of tourist brochures and sent her packing :)

Fun, busy weekend.

Tchuss,

Steph