Heidelberg (October 16, 2006)

Complete Set of Photos

Last Monday, the first day of classes for the University, I didn't even have any classes. Normally I do, but here most of the labs and language classes start the second week of the semester, for whatever reason. Since I had this whole day to do nothing while everyone else was sitting through boring lectures, I took the train to Heidelberg for a day. Heidelberg is only a 1.5 hour ride away from Stuttgart on the slow trains and is about an hour away by car.

The cool things to see in Heidelberg are the old bridge, the castle, and the Universität Heidelberg. I saw all three and it was really cool.

The bridge was built a long, long, time ago (just like everything else in Germany!) and is only open to foot/bike traffic. Throughout the span, there are statues and monuments and stuff. There are nine arcs in the bridge and most are large enough that the ships and stuff can still pass through. This bridge is over the Neckar river, which also passes through Stuttgart.

The castle (Schloss Heidelberg) was very cool. It was build originally in the 14th century and was continually added on to and destroyed through various wars and such. It sustained heavy damage during the 30 Years' war and that's about how it stands today. It is on a large hill overlooking the city and is spread out over quite a large area. Since many parts are only ruins, you can't go in them, but it was still neat to walk around the courtyards and stuff. Inside the castle there was also the Deutsche Apothekemuseum (German Pharmacists Museum).

There was nothing special about the University, in my opinion, but I didn't spend much tim there. There was a nice plaza and a million college-aged students walking around and riding bikes, other than that you'd never really know you were at a university. It's not slighly separated from the city the the Uni-Stuttgart is.

VfB Stuttgart Game (October 14, 2006)

Complete Set of Photos

The national soccer league in Germany, the "Bundesliga," has various team in major cities throughout the country. The team in Stuttgart is called "VfB Stuttgart." The name means "eingetragener Verein für Bewegungsspiele Stuttgart 1893," or "registered Club for Movement Games Stuttgart 1893." The stadium that they play in is called "Gottlieb Daimler Stadion," after the founder of Daimler. The stadium is a couple hundred meters from the Mercedes museum and factory. It was also the host to a couple of games during the World Cup this last summer.

I went to the game with Justin (Canada), Gerald (Canada), and James (USA, Ohio). None of the Germans or other exchange students wanted to go! Tickets were less than 20 Euros and we were down near the field, but admittedly in the "end zone." The good tickets are quite expensive. I had bought a jersey a few days before and wore it to the game. The other team was "Bayer Leverkusen," from western Germany. Stuttgart ended up winning 3:0, so it was a good game for us!

Something new that I saw at this game was the beer guy that would walk up and down the aisles. This may not sound exciting, but he had a beer keg cut in half vertically (re-welded shut, of course) so the flat end was on his back. This whole thing was in an insulated backpack thing with a tap hose hanging out. All you had to do was wave your hand and he'd walk over. You give him your glass and he pours a fresh-tapped beer from the hose! It was quite interesting! (Picture coming soon)

Fernsehturm (October 12, 2006)

Complete Set of Photos

The Fernsehturm (TV Tower) in Stuttgart is the world's first TV tower. It is by far the tallest structure in the area and it is located at the top of the valley, so it visible from the whole area. There is an elevator inside it where people can go to the observation deck (actually, it's about 2/3 of the way up the tower) and look out and see the city and stuff. If it's a clear day (which it wasn't when I was there!), you can even see the Alps, or so I've heard. The tower is still actually used by some radio station to broadcast its signal.

Mercedes-Benz Museum (October 5, 2006)

Complete Set of Photos

As a field trip for my Intensive German class, we went to the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Bad Cannstatt, a district of Stuttgart. The museum is housed in a huge, brand-new modern building with a very confusing layout. You start out by taking an elevator to the eighth floor and then you slowly loop your way down from there.

At the top, the first displays are the world's first car and the world's first motorcycle. I heard that sometimes museum staff will start the vehicles, but they didn't while we were there. As you would expect, most of the museum was filled with various historical models of cars. Among some of the interesting ones I saw were:

• A car similar to Steve's "The Benz"
• Cruella DeVille style cars (from the 101 Dalmatians cartoon)
• German police cars and ambulances that were Mercedes (Taxis and buses in Stuttgart are also Mercedes)
• Ringo Starr's former Mercedes
• One of the Jeeps from Jurassic Park
• The world's first airbag system
• Kaiser Wilhelm's auto
• Arnold Schwarzenegger's car
• Many cool race cars from a long time ago

It was a very cool museum with a lot of cool cars to look at. Luckily, students get in for half price, so if I ever want to go back, I can.

Oktoberfest (September 30, 2006)

Complete Set of Photos

There were a bunch of us international students who decided to go to Oktoberfest today. Munich is about a 3-hour train ride from Stuttgart. The German train network offers a special weekend ticket that costs only 30 Euros per day and up to 5 people can use it. There were about 20 students that met at the S-Bahn stop at 5:00 AM. We split off into groups of 5 and headed to the Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof to catch the regional trains. The train was actually quite nice, especially considering I only paid 6 Euros for transportation the whole day!

We arrived in Munich at around 10:00 AM that morning and went straight from the Munich Hauptbahnhof to Oktoberfest, about a 5 minute walk. Before we even got there, the first thing I saw was some drunk Bavarian guy in full Lederhosen-garb passed out in the grass!

When we actually got to the fest, we soon found out that the tents were already full/reserved (this was half expected), so there was no way we could get into a tent. Most of the people gave up and just went back to walk around Munich for a day (weak!). Myself and a few other people decided to stay, because Oktoberfest ended this weekend, whereas Munich will always be there for another weekend visit.


The fest itself was much like a very, very large county fair with Lederhosen- and Dirndl- clad Bavarians instead of rednecks. We walked around for a while seeing the sights and eventually finding our way into a Biergarten (basically, the same as a tent but outdoors). We still got to order a "Maß' of beer (1 liter) and a huge pretzel. There was a lot of drunken singing going on at adjacent tables, which made it even more interesting!

Because I had woken up at 4:30 in order to catch the early train, I was naturally feeling tired. There was some big classical building nearby with a lawn of sorts, so I laid down and took a nap on the grass. It was quite refreshing, actually. Most people there, however, just came to pass out on the grass. Some didn't make it - see picture! After my nap, I purchased a huge bratwurst - it was well over a foot long and it was very tasty.

Soon afterwards, we had to work our way back to the train station to catch the train(s) back to Stuttgart. After one transfer in Ulm (right on the Bavaria-BW border, this is where Albert Einstein is from), we made it back to Stuttgart at 12:40 AM, so 40 minutes late. Of course, we just missed the last S-Bahn train of the night, so we had to walk from the train station to Schlossplatz to catch the night bus back to campus at 1:11 AM.

I was very tired, but I had a good time at Oktoberfest. I would actually say that I preferred the Cannstatter Volksfest, because it is right here in Stuttgart, not as crowded, and it is much easier to get into a tent.

Cannstatter Volksfest (late September, early October)

Complete Set of Photos

Bad Cannstatt, a district of Stuttgart, throws its own festival that is similar to Oktoberfest called the "Volksfest." It is the second-largest beer festival in the world and it is a 15-minute S-Bahn train ride away. I would say that it is much better than Oktoberfest for us because it is much closer to campus, it isn't as crowded (meaning we can actually get into the tents) and they have student discount days.

When I went, I went with Jerome (roommate, Germany), Annika (roommate, Germany), Christoph (Jerome's friend, Germany), and some other people. The tent we went to had roasted chicken halves, which is a specialty around here. It was well seasoned and tasted really good. The Stuttgart breweries also make a special "flavor" of beer for the festival that is served up in the 1-liter "Maß" glasses. Me, Christoph, Jerome, Annika

Later, we went to a different tent that was aimed more at the younger patrons and college students. There was a live band here (in addition to the first tent) and tons of high-school/college aged kids packed in here. There was a lot of stereotypical German music being played (Nena's "99 Luftballoons," David Hasselhoff, etc.) and lots of dancing on the benches. It was a good time, with a good atmosphere. It could've been the large amounts of alcohol that most people were consuming, but everyone was very happy, very friendly, and having a good time.

(Yes, that's David Hasselhoff from Baywatch. He's some sort of popstar overe here and is actually quite popular among the Germans.)

Schwarzwald (Black Forest) & Freiburg (September 23, 2006)

Complete Set of Photos

The International Office organizes a couple of excursions to various places around southern Germany. I went on the excursion to the Black Forest and the town of Freiburg. The Black Forest is a very nice area of Germany. There are nice hills covered with pine trees and very picturesque streams and small villages, etc. We drove through (we went with a big tour bus) the town of Rottweil, which is where Rottweiler dogs come from.

The Black Forest part of our excursion was actually a tour of a farm museum. It was quite interesting - the huge houses with the thatched roofs were both the house for the family and part barn as well. The museum had working sawmills and grain mills, as well as multiple other houses that we could walk around in and look at. There were examples of how people from this area of Germany lived and how they dressed, and so on.

After the museum, we boarded the bus and drove east to Freiburg. This is a very old, historic town about 30km from the French border and little farther from the Swiss border, so in the very southwest corner of Germany. The coolest thing about this town was that in the Middle Ages, they diverted some water from one of the nearby rivers and routed it through canals that run through just about every street in the city. It's supposed to be in case of fires and for cleaning water. They are not convenient urinals! The locals find if funny when tourist are trying to frame their picture and they back into one of them!

We also visited a church that was built in the 1300's. You could still read the roman numerals that were etched into the stone when it was built. It was currently undergoing some renovation, so there is scaffolding in the pictures. This is one of the few buildings in Freiburg that was not completely destroyed in WWII.