After spending a great Easter Sunday with the Klemm's, we packed up and got ready for a trip to Heidelberg and Stuttgart. Heidelberg was an important destination on the itinerary because 40 years ago, Tessa and Mike were married here while Mike was serving in the military. Of course, a lot can change in 40 years, including your memory. Upon arrival, we picked up a map and looked over it as we had lunch hoping to spur some memories of where they lived, hung out, got married, etc. The street name they could remember was, of course, not on the map and the military base is no longer there. The map wasn't too successful so we hit the town.
Heidelberg has a beautiful but very touristy old town. In fact, we thought the town was a little dead until we came upon the pedestrian strip and all of the sudden the streets were packed with people. As some of our party were distracted by all the neat souvenir shops, I went walking around trying to get some good pictures of Schloss Castle. As you can see from the pictures, it has seen some better days.
We all climbed the hill to check out Schloss Castle and had some great views of Heidelberg. Tessa also had Mike reenact a picture that they have of him overlooking Heidelberg on top of Schloss (I'll have to get a copy of it later). By now, they remembered that the place they lived in was across the river. Sadly we didn't have time to check it out because we needed to get back to Stuttgart to meet up with a family we were staying the night with (another great perk of traveling with a missionary with connections).
We stayed outside of Stuttgart that night at the family's house. They were very accommodating and had a good time talking with them. They have three boys as you can see in the pics below (if you haven't figured it out yet, you can click on the thumbnail for more pics!).
Darren also arranged transportation for us getting around Stuttgart. A woman named Silka served as our private taxi driver in her huge Renault van, she was great. We checked out the Porsche Museum and tried to get in on a factory tour, but there were none available. The rest of the day we spent walking around Stuttgart, enjoying our last day of Europe as we had to leave early the next day.
After the day in Stuttgart, we took the train home to Landshut for one last evening with the Klemm's. I must say that they really made the trip great but we had to say goodbye. Hopefully someday they will come visit us in the States so we can return their hospitality.
Wednesday was literally the longest day of my life. Thats what happens when you leave in the morning and fly halfway around the world. I think I was awake for 26 hours with a few naps here and there and finally crashed at home around 10pm PST which was 7 in the morning the next day back in Germany. The trip in Europe was great, but I'm not looking forward to the long flight next time I go.
Enjoy the rest of the pics, I finally figured out that I took nearly 2000 pictures on my trip so I need to do some editing. I haven't decided how many more I'll post here but feel free to check back for more.
Now that I'm back I'm getting ready for the real world, I start up the new job with HP on May 1st. I'm excited about it but not so excited about having to leave Seattle. Well I better get back to packing for the move. Thanks for reading and I've enjoyed all of your comments and emails. Maybe I'll set one of these up for everyday life...we'll see.
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| Heidelberg and Stuttgart |
