Flying to Stuttgart

Flight to Amsterdam was "less than". I flew KLM specifically because of the great food and service I'd had in the past. This time the food was really rather mediocre. I felt a bit like I was on an American airlines. (Mental note: fly Lufthansa next time).

Met a nice gal, NC, who lives in Atherton part time and in The Hague part time. She spends 2 months in The Hague, returns to Atherton, and then goes back to The Netherlands. She's been doing it for nearly a year and loves it. I would love a job like hers. We promised to get in touch with each other and she would hook me up with her friend "A" to show me around Amsterdam my last night. Cool.

Arriving in Amsterdam, I perused the shops, grabbed an apple (0.50E) and sat down to try to get my email to work. No luck. IPASS thinks I have a wrong password or login. Sucks.

Boarded a shuttle van to take us to our hop to Stuttgart. Plane seated 80 people and was probably 60 to 70% full. I counted 6 women on the plane, the rest being men. WTF? Where are the women? The gross man behind me hacked all the way to Stuttgart, making disgusting noises with his throat. "Ah, I know where the women are", I thought. "They've all left Germany because of the gross men!" My first impressions of German men on that plane weren't good ones.

Descending into Stuttgart we hit loads of clouds. The lower we went the darker it got. We were nearly on top of the runway when the clouds broke. Nasty weather. Dark, gray, windy, a bit rainy.

I was a bit nervous in the airport waiting area. I didn't have to go through customs, so that wasn't it. But AA wasn't there to greet me. I felt a bit conspicuous waiting for him but eventually he showed. Thank god.

We went to a tourist office and bought me a 3 day train pass (17E) and off we were. The trains are conveniently located in the lower airport area. Easy to find ever if AA weren't with me, but navigating the maps are more difficult. The trains are very similar to the metro in Paris so I'm not sure why I had a hard time. I think I was just tired from not sleeping on either of the flights.

His apartment was a short uphill walk from the train stop. Ah, didn't realize he lived up a hill. I didn't bring flat shoes with me. Big mistake. I'd have to buy a pair of flats at some point. Ugh. We passed an interesting looking meatshop and bakery. Food, conveniently located. A good thing.

We dropped off my bags and headed back to the train to check out the downtown area. A few of the booths were already set up for the Christmas festival that starts on the 28th (Wednesday). We chowed down a couple of sausages on buns with mustard. I found out later that the vendor stiffed me 2E ($3) on my change. Bah. I looked at some shoes in the windows of a few stores. God, these folks wear ugly shoes and boy are they expensive! Most shoes started at 75E (add 50% on to convert to dollars these days thank to our fearless leader in Washington who has destroyed the power of our dollar - another rant for another day - perhaps when the bills from this trip roll in?)

Made our way to a market to pick up food for the apartment. AA's refrigerator was, in typical bachelor style, quite empty. We bought bread, a bottle of local red wine (pinot style), fruit, coffee, and a buttload of ritter bars. Groceries are about what we'd pay at Whole Food's. I wasn't too surprised at the cost of anything, but I was blown away at the selection. I felt like a kid in a gourmet candy store. I think we bought EIGHT bars of chocolate.

The chocolate gluttony begineth.

OMGF. Their chocolate selection is to die for. I will have to return to the market to take pictures just of the chocolate selection. They must have had an entire wall devoted just to Lindt chocolate. It's so unfair that we can't get the same varieties!

Getting late, we headed back home, popped open the wine, two ritter bars, and set up my laptop. I was exhausted but I tried to stay up as best I could to ward off the jetlag. I woke up in my chair around midnight and decided I should go to bed. It had been such a long day.