The week after Kristen's wedding, the Phi Sig Deutschland squad was planning something fun for the weekend. We decided that Lawrence, Gleb, and I would spend Saturday and Sunday in Stuttgart, famous for its automotive industry. The plan was for Gleb and I to meet up in Munich, and since Lawrence had a big conference for the DAAD RISE program (through which he got his university research position at in Würzburg), he would meet us in Stuttgart.
On Saturday morning, I boarded the early train to the Munich Hauptbahnhof (main train station) but was rerouted when some sort of accident/delay occurred on the tracks ahead. The scheduling was such that I would arrive in Munich at 7:20 am, find Gleb near the tracks, and we would leave on the 7:40 am train to Ulm then Stuttgart. The only problem was that I didn't get to Munich until 8:30 am, and I had no means of communication. I checked some of the waiting areas and tracks (there are 28-30 tracks and the station is HUGE), but there was no sign of Gleb. I assumed that he had gotten on the 7:40 am train to Ulm, and if I got the next one, maybe I could catch up. About this time, my stomach took over with a reverberating "FEED ME" command that rumbled my innards, and I decided to buy a bratwurt to dim my hunger. As I took the first bite, I saw Gleb out of the corner of my eye standing in front of me. "Ohhh hey," I said, completely baffled that we had just happened upon each other.
We stopped in Ulm about half way on our travel to Stuttgart. It was the birthplace of Albert Einstein and is the home of the tallest church steeple/spire in the world. Although, there wasn't too much to do after climbing the 768 steps to the top of the church. We boarded the next train to Stuttgart.
View from on side of the top of the Ulm Münster
Gleb and I waited in the hotel room just outside the downtown for Lawrence to arrive. About two hours after we had planned to meet, he showed up with another guy doing the DAAD RISE program who happened to be doing his study in Regensburg (go figure). It was okay that he was late, because he brought another person which made the hotel slightly cheaper. However, since the Porsche and Mercedes museums were now closed, we went into the city for some dinner and sight seeing. There were some nice old buildings and a cool park that had a traveling art exhibit--these life-size bears painted to represent the different countries of the world.
Picture of bears from art exhibit
The next morning we started the day with a trip to the Porsche Museum. The good part was that it was free, but the bad part was that it only consisted of one room that held about 12 cars of various years and models. Overall, the facilities of Porsche were not as "shiny" and impressive as I thought they would be, but they still make incredible cars. Also, we saw the construction of a huge building that will be the new museum opening this fall.
The next stop was the Mercedes Museum, and this place was 'wicked cool'. If you could imagine a museum describable as 'smooth, trendy, flashy, and recreating of the world from Minority Report' (starring Tom Cruise), this was it. The building itself was architectural eye candy with it's spiraling walk way from the top floor to bottom, 'pod-like' elevators (see picture below), and sofas shaped like flowing liquids. It turns out, Mercedes also makes nice cars. I was very impressed with the history of the company (two men, last names Daimler and Benz) and the origins of the name 'Mercedes' (the daughter of a man in Niece, Italy who sold cars, lost a race in his hometown, had a faster model car built, and had it named after his own child). It was also interesting to see how the museum portrayed Mercedes-Benz role in WWII when it shifted to war mode and cranked out weaponry.
View of 'Pod-like' elevators from first floor of Mercedes Museum
I had a fun weekend, but Stuttgart as a whole didn't grab me. It seemed mostly like a good place to spend a lot of money shopping.
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