After spending a while working to understand the dialectic evolution of Spirit in the Hegel museum we decided to give our brains a rest with a stroll around Stuttgart. It was a beautiful, if slightly brisk, day so we had a nice walk. Then we stumbled upon something that we'd both been cruelly deprived of for 6 months while living in rural Hungary: Thai food! I had panang curry and it made me happy in ways words cannot capture.
After a full day in Stuttgart we made our way back to Micha's apartment in Ludwigsburg. We walked around the town's center for a while and then picked up dinner supplies from a grocery store. Back at Micha's we made a dish impossible to make with the ingredients available in Hungary: fettucine alfredo with sundried tomatoes. Parmesan cheese, high-quality olive oil, and sundried tomatoes all being unavailable in Szentes, the dinner was quite a treat. We spend the rest of the evening in trying to figure out what to plan the rest of our week on vacation.
The next morning we were up early to visit Strasbourg. Taylor had heard it was really beautiful and I knew it to be roughly the home of my ancestors (though I wouldn't learn until returning back to Ludwigsburg to read an email from my mom that I could have found records of my ancestors in the city library) so I was up for it. Strasbourg is in the Alsace region that straddles the border between France and Germany. The territory and the city have been banded about between the two powers throughout it's history, though since the end of the Second World War it has been French territory. It is one of the most impressive cities I've ever visited, both in history and beauty. Historically it has been an important place since Roman times and today is a world capital as the home of the European Council and the European Commission for Human Rights. Aesthetically, I think the pictures speak for themselves:
The next morning we were up early to visit Strasbourg. Taylor had heard it was really beautiful and I knew it to be roughly the home of my ancestors (though I wouldn't learn until returning back to Ludwigsburg to read an email from my mom that I could have found records of my ancestors in the city library) so I was up for it. Strasbourg is in the Alsace region that straddles the border between France and Germany. The territory and the city have been banded about between the two powers throughout it's history, though since the end of the Second World War it has been French territory. It is one of the most impressive cities I've ever visited, both in history and beauty. Historically it has been an important place since Roman times and today is a world capital as the home of the European Council and the European Commission for Human Rights. Aesthetically, I think the pictures speak for themselves:
After a full day of walking around the downtime historical section of the city we decided to get out of the center to see the new European government complex.
The main building for the European Council, headquartered in Strasbourg. This is just one of many huge shiny glass buildings in the European complex in Strasbourg. When asked why the European bureaucrats need so many huge shiny glass buildings, Micha unenthusiastically replied "for meetings."
That night we arrived home just in time to meet Micha and create a big dinner consisting mostly of resurrected leftovers from the previous night. The three of us sat around for the rest of the evening discussing our trips and then catching up. The next day Micha had to make it through one more busy day of meetings and such while Taylor and I set out to explore some more of the local scenery. We made our way first to Schwäbisch Hall, one of the oldest cities in the region, founded on this location in the 5th century BC by the Celts. It was once one of the regions most important centers because of its designation as capital of Schwäbia. The town's long history has seen devastation during the Thirty Years War and blights of the bubonic plague, but now it's a charming city full of beautiful German medieval buildings and lively street scenes.
Views of the city from the river at the bottom of the valley it's built around:
After spending a lot of the day strolling around Schwäbisch Hall we bought a picnic lunch in a supermarket and hit the road to visit a few other small cities in the region and find a nice view to enjoy during lunch.
After a day of driving around and seeing the little towns we retired back to Micha's to wait for her to be done with work. After she escaped from her 11 hour board meeting we geared up for a nice dinner in Stuttgart with Gert, a friend of Micha's who I also knew as he studied at William and Mary. We went to a local restaurant and had a big dinner of Maultaschen, a local specialty that is like mushroom ravioli. After that we hit a few bars and just relaxed and talked for a few hours before heading back home where Micha had been promised a day of sleeping in until whenever the hell she wanted. After our sleeping in we got up for a day seeing Ludwigsburg itself with our qualified native tour guide. Ludwigsburg is home to one of Germany's biggest Baroque Palaces. Indeed the city was pretty much built to support the monarchs who built the palace and ruled the surrounding Wuerttemberg from there. When we arrived we discovered that we had a few hours before an English tour began so we went outside to see the gardens. Outside of the palace is a really cool fairytale garden which Micha had shown me a few years ago when I'd visited and I thought it would be great to see again and relearn all of the Grimm's fairy tales. Unfortunately it was closed for the summer, so Rapunzel's tower was all we could see:
Instead of reliving our childhood fairytales we walked around the mostly muddy gardens for a while before going to a really good pizza place Micha new. By the time we finished lunch it was getting close to tour time so we made it back to the Palace.
After finishing our tour of the drafty palace (marble is not good insulation) we warmed up in a nearby cafe and planned our next step. We wanted to go to the Mercedes museum but we didn't have much time before it closed, so instead Micha suggested visiting another well-preserved town nearby. We hopped in the car and soon made it to Besigheim.
As we walked around the town Micha's eyes narrowed and she began exuding signs of immense anger. She had spotted her enemy. Micha, you see, has a Big Important Job with the in the upper echelons of the gardening supply company that her father started. They produce mostly potting soil and sell it to stores, and she just had been in countless hours of tedious board meetings trying to figure out what to do about one popular German store chain that was fighting dirty and trying to seriously undercut them. And here, right in front of us, was one of their chains. We decided to stride in and check out how much they were really selling her products for:
Indeed Micha's Big Important Job was really going into overdrive the week that Taylor and I visited her. She's been working with her father's company for some time now - officially for over a year and she grew up in the business. As her father steps out of the spotlight she is taking the helm. The press loves the story: pretty 23 year old assumes dominant position in the board room. That week 3 large German national papers covered her story, one calling her "Die Torf-Prinzessen" - "The peat moss princess." Hilarious (sorry Micha). Then she was one the cover of a financial magazine. Then, perhaps most insanely, on Deutsche Welle, the German CNN. (click here it's the first segment of the show).
Insane.
But even with all of the glamor of being one of the Goddesses of the fertilizing world, she still has her feet on the ground. She's the kind of person to have a nice laid back dinner with and discuss anything and everything, which is precisely what we did. Micha was happy to have won 4 days off from work and life in the fast lane, so after our day around Ludwigsburg we relaxed over dinner and prepared for the next day's journey to Holland.
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