wow.. it's a GTX3Z4500 triple s lutz deluxe limited edition car, or something

Some photos from our trip to the Mercedes-Benz Museum. Brian fell in love, Gigi snapped a million pictures, and I used adjectives for the cars, like "red" and "the shiny one" and "the one with the cool doors".


After you purchase your ticket for the museum, they give you an audio device and then launch you up to the 8th floor in a spaceship. Or something like it, at least. Whenever you want to hear information about a model or exhibit, you'd just aim your device at the circle and press the button. They also had movies and moving pictures, so you could listen to those, as well.

When we were done at the museum, Gigi decided to make us some dinner. We drove downtown Feuerbach, in which I got turned around several times on the little windy streets. After a stop at the grocery mart and a few horn exchanges, we went back to the house to eat. We had a turkish meal called schwarmi (sp?), and then proceeded to crash at our quarters.













(this was Gigi's meal. he likes to stack his fries in the middle)





Happy Fourth of July, everyone!

Dinner in France

Gigi and I decided to have dinner in France on Tuesday evening just for kicks. The following day was the 4th of July, so we would be able to stay out a little later than usual. It took about two hours to get there, mostly due to some traffic around construction areas along the way. I opted to drive since Gigi drove last time. If I hadn't overcome my "small-lane" phobia yet, I sure did fix it along the way. There's nothing like riding next to a semi when the lanes are half the size you're used to and construction barriers kick in.






We got to Strasbourg around 8:00 pm or so and found a parking spot next to the University. We walked along and crossed the river Ill until we found a little city square.









When we found a couple of menus on the street, we decided to go to Au Dophin (the dolphin). They had several entrees and specialties you could order, but we wanted to try one of the set three-course meals that they recommended. The one we chose was called The Terror menu, although the Pirate menu was very tempting. Believe it or not, I was relieved to see that they had German subscript under each menu item. I was able to read and understand some of what I saw, but when it came to French, I had no idea. Gigi said he had studied French for several years, so I told him that he could order for me. As soon as the waitress came to take our order, both of us stared blankly at her for a moment until Gigi finally said "water," and proceeded to order in English. Haha!!










Both of us had the soup of the day even though we had no idea what it was. We wanted to try something authentic since we were there only for the night. It turned out to be a really good (and really green) potato and asparagus soup. For the main dish, I had a steak with mushrooms, potatoes and cheese, and vegetables. Gigi ordered the pork roast with veggies and noodles. When we were finished, we ordered the tart for dessert, but it turned out there was only one left. He gave it to me and instead of choosing ice cream, Gigi ordered the cheese. The moment that plate came out, I about passed out in my chair from just the smell of it. We were laughing so hard, I had to keep my napkin over my nose because I felt my stomach turning each time Gigi took a bite. I tried a little piece because I figured I might as well, but I wasn't a fan. He enjoyed it, but had to acquire a taste for it which he had done awhile back.





After dinner, we took some pictures of the cathedral. The windows and lights were set on different colors and timers, and made for some great pictures. There were quite a few people on the streets enjoying themselves and watching the display.





We had a hard time finding the correct direction to go on the highway, only because the cities listed were the same as the ones we were moving towards when we drove to Strasbourg. The navigation system only seems to work for Germany unless you install a different CD, which we didn't have. After a little effort, we figured out where to go and made it home around 1:30 am.

Deutschland... Austria... whatever!

Yesterday was quite an adventure!! Gigi, Brian, and I decided to go view Ludwig's castles in Bavaria. Here is a recap of our travels.


Schloss Linderhof

We left from our apartments at the SI Centrum around 9:00 am or so. We drove a couple of hours through Munchen (Munich) until we got to Garmisch. From there, we navigated our way to Schloss Linderhof. The tallest mountain Germany, Zugspitze, can be seen from these photos, but the clouds are covering its peak.






We stopped at a restaurant on the side of the highway. Contrary to the U.S and all the fast food, they offer a real nice meal at the rest areas. The three of us had soup and split a plate of schwinebroten und kartoffel (pork and potatoes).





When we got to the castle, I happened to overhear a couple talking in American English. The guy was trying to take his wife's picture by the castle, so I offered to take one of them together. Just out of curiosity, I asked where they were from. They told me they were from St. Louis and had a niece that was attending Mizzou in Columbia! The guy was wearing a red budweiser shirt, which I hadn't really even noticed until after they mentioned it. The woman told me that she did some sort of marketing for the hospital in St. Louis and seemed exceptionally proud of me for also choosing marketing as my major. The two of them had been there for two weeks and were leaving the next day. What a small world!


















Austria

Once we finished taking pictures at Schloss Linderhof, we asked the guy at the Parking area which way to turn to get to the other castle. He told us to go right, so we turned and looked for signs. A few miles later, we saw a sign that said we were leaving Deutschland and entering Austria! We were so confused but we noticed that the city of Reutte, which we saw on the map earlier, was just south of Schwangau where the next castle was. We trucked on through and decided to stop and take a picture. Here you can see Lake Plansee. The water was so clear and beautiful, it was absolutely breathtaking. Bikers were passing often on the road, so I tried to catch one with my camera.












Schloss Neuschwanstein

Once we made it to Reutte, we followed the signs back to Deutschland. When we saw another sign for the castle, we got back on route and found our way. This castle is the one that Disney used when modeling their logo. When you arrive, you have the option of hiking up to the castle or taking a horse and carriage. We took a steep, 35 minute trail to the Marienbrucke. This is a bridge that overlooks the Neuschwanstein castle. It was quite a difficult hike, but the view was worth it. We took one more trail to get to the actual castle and took some pictures of the outside.















you can see the bridge we were standing on in this last picture.



Unterammergau

After a couple of hours at the Neuschwanstein, we decided to stop by a co-worker's house to say hello and drop off some gummy bears for his son. In order to avoid the expensive tourist trap, we found a local restaurant called the Gletscherspalte and had dinner. After our meal, the three of us each had a piece of the most delicious apfel strudel. It was the perfect ending for such a long day.



By then it was 9:30 pm, so we headed back to Stuttgart. We used the GPS in the car to guide us, but ended up taking two very strange shortcuts. Both of them took us off the main road and through a one-way farmer lane. Our car was turning on all the automatic lights outside of the farm houses as we passed, it was really scary! When we made our way back to the autobahn, we hit a stau (traffic jam). At that point, Brian and I were half passed out in the car and Gigi was kind enough to get us through and back home. We were in the stau for an hour or so and made it home around 1:00 am.

All in all, it was a great adventure. I hope to have more pictures soon as taken by Gigi, but feel free to visit my flickr site. You can see more there! "Click me for more!"