Stuttgart (Day 1)

Hey All!
Sorry for the 2 day break! And I actually do promise to write a little more about the research because I would like to eventually go back and re-read this myself :)
But for now, Stuttgart!

Stuttgart is located in the south of Germany, and so it was a 5 hour train ride to get here last night. I travelled on one of the ICE trains, which are the really fast ones that go throughout Europe.

I gave some family friends who live here, and so I am staying with them :)
I was really pleasantly surprised when I got out of the train station here around midnight yesterday...it looked like a street party! I made a mental note to come back here and participate when I am here with someone else and not alone...
People just seemed to be having a really good time wandering between patios and up and down the streets (its legal to drink outside here), and there were sooo many people...it was great!
The family friends here live in a small suburb of Stuttgart named Tamm. Its super suburban...like much more than Richmond Hill suburban, which is saying something!

This morning we went to the Mercedes-Benz museum. Stuttgart is pretty much car production central with the head offices of Mercedes-Benz and Porsche. The museum was pretty good, even for someone who doesn't really like/care about cars. They showed important events that happened during a period of time, followed by pictures of cars from that era. I will be uploading the pictures up to facebook in the next few days!
I think the most interesting thing I learned was where the name Mercedes comes from (Benz was the name of one of the intervtors of the first automobile). Emil Jellinek was this European enterpreneur who bought lots of cars from Benz and resold them, therefore making great business for them. I believe he wanted a fast car for a race and so he commissioned Benz to make him one. He insisted in naming it Mercedes, which was the name of his only daughter. Emil Jellinek doesn't really get enough credit, even though he helped popularize the Benz cars all over Europe.

After the museum we went to a little town close to Stuttgart called Esslingen. There is really not much I can describe about it expect that it was really quite beautiful. Lots of pictures of it to follow. Its positioned on a slope and so there are some really great views of the hill side below. The streets are for the kmost part cobblestone which makes it even better looking. In terms of interesting landmarks, we saw a synagogue that used to function until 1937 and a street that used to be called the Jewish street but was also renamed in 1937. Apparently the city used to be home to many Jews before World War II.

After this city we went to downtown Stuttgart which was again beautiful. We walked through a park and then went to eat on the top floor of a department store (apparently most department stores here have food places at the top). I think the deaprtment store was much like the Bay. It then started raining like crazy (even though it was close to 30 degrees outside). And so it was an interesting experience- we ran to the car under strong sunshine and pouring rain.

That was pretty much the end of my sight seeing. We did some conventional stuff like eating dinner afterwards as well. Don't know if I mentioned this before, but the food here is really good. It just tasted better. From the vegetables to the fruit to the cheese and meat. I don't really know what the rational explanation to this would be.
Tomorrow we will do some more sight seeming before I have to get back on a train going to Berlin at 5pm. One more interesting thing...I went to the McCafe (which is the coffee off-shoot of McDonalds, popular in Europe) and it is actually more expensive than the Starbucks in Canada...go figure!

In high hopes of more interesting stories in the next little while...
Hope everyone is doing well! Please leave me comments :)

Cheers,
Alina