Monday 4th January - Friday 8th January
Stuttgart
The first day would be slow and easy. Purely administrative on the Monday with no start until 2pm. With that in mind I enjoyed a nice sleep in and then decided to get a little familiar with my immediate surroundings. Last night I snapped some shots of the view from my room which spans across the next village and the airport in the distance...
Now it was light however I could get more of an idea...
That night we had a dinner put on by the university with our host families with numerous local delicacies as well as desserts which I found out in Germany, quite commonly consist of large amounts of rum.
The next day was the first real day of classes and we got stuck into it, introducing ourselves, others and the basics of the language such as numbers etc.
That night most of the students decided to find somewhere to eat and have a little look around the main shopping and central strip; Konigstrasse. A few shots show how awesome it looks at night...
We eventually decided on a small upstairs pub but I decided against having a full German meal and instead opted for a bowl of chips just to snack on. I did however get a beer, which was roughly $5 for about 1.5x a pint - pretty epic.
Wednesday was a public holiday in Germany so the first week was beginning to become quite a walk in the park. It was a cold day...
Today we had a bus-tour of the city planned out for us for free which was able to show us the main sites and give us a quick understanding of the layout.
We started first in the main centre of the City near the Hauptbahnhof (central station), called Schlossgarten (Castle Gardens) and then poked around a few of the buildings that fronted onto the square.
(and a half-assed rough panoramic of the entire Schlossplatz...)
Next on the agenda was one of the landmarks of the city, the TV tower. It may have been a particularly foggy day however we still managed to get a good view and perspective on the city.
Lastly we had a quick look (we would checkout the entire building another day) at the awesome Mercedes-Benz Museum by UN Studio. This building gets my approval if not entirely for the foyer for which the only word to describe is EPIC. Lighting effects are used throughout to increase the impact and effect of awe, and when looking upwards the scene is reminiscent of a rocket silo. There were also some pretty sweet stairs that took good shots. I would look forward to coming back here on Saturday.
Thursday = rest.
Friday afternoon was very slack. Finish at 12 and the rest of the day off. Could easily get used to this routine. Jess, one of the girls in the course and also from my uni had...err...'lucked out' and landed herself in quite a nice house. The family had gone skiing for the week and so, the house was ours...her's rather. Hence there was of course no harm in a few friends over and a few drinks at that. Dave had decided that he would cook us a spaghetti bolognase (sehr Deutsche!) and so we did a little shopping for ingredients and then stopped for coffee.
On this day and in a little cafe called Treppe (it was under the 'stairs'), I had without a doubt the best mocha of my entire life. The chocolate and coffee was layered in what could only be described as a beautiful arrangement, it.....OK it was just really good!
After a little rest we made the journey to Jess's host-house. Though to be honest a trek would be a more appropriate word given the snowfall and incline...
Two things made this house epic; 1) the view and 2) heated floors! (and maybe the Porsche in its little separate garage which can be kept a safe eye on from the Boss's office however I missed a photo of this!)
Seated like the rich students we all were, we tucked into a lovely meal with some nice vegetables (apparently a rarity in this land of bread and cold-cuts) and enjoyed an awesome end to a fantastic first week in Deutscheland - Guten Appetite!
