Stuttgart in the Snow

I really didn't think it could get much more beautiful but then it snowed.....

The Joke's on Me and Dennis....

Ho ho ho ladies and hooligans,

Now that it's turned so fine in PA.....did anyone put on a tee-shirt over the weekend?....it's gotten more like usual here in Stuttgart. Yesterday was cold and rainy and blustery and today there's a light snow coming down. Pretty. But there's STILL laundry out on my neighbor's balcony!

It seems every time I look out my window, that neighbor in the building across from ours is hanging out laundry. I took pictures once....it was funny, I felt very furtive....like a private eye. But I want to know about my neighbors.....and record life in the big foreign city.

Everyone in our apartment leaves their shoes outside their door....

I spy on my neighbors whenever I can. Out the peephole in our front door, I've watched the boy next door give up waiting for the elevator and head down the steps. The elevator came like two seconds after he headed down....haha.

I know this much about him: 1. he's about 14 or 15
2. he plays tennis well enough or with hopes enough to

have one of those multi-racquet bags.
3. he gave Anna a good long look the one time we were in the hall

at the same time
4. he wears high-top brown leather sneakers with brown fur inside

I've started moving his shoes around. I know, I know, silly jollies, but it's just a little joke. Germans are so orderly! Usually all the shoes are neatly lined up pair-by-pair in the hallway.....so if I turn one of his shoes to a 90 degree angle, or switch one shoe with the shoe of the other pair....haha....do you think he'll notice? Could this be a crime here? Could we be ousted from the apartment? Or does he think it's as funny as I do....if he notices?

I quickly hurried to the stairs to get a look-over when I heard a neighbor two floors down moving about. But alas, all I saw was the back end of a small black dog. The puffy pom-pom of it's little poodle tail and to about mid-belly was all I could see. A dog-lover on floor 3.

People put plants in the window-sills outside their apartment doors. On the floor below ours is a small lime tree with two limes that have looked ready to pick ever since I got here. Oh no, NO, no way.....I wouldn't ever, really, really I wouldn't, I'd never pick someone else's fruit. I just hope they get those limes before they go downhill.

I love seeing that lime tree when I'm coming up the stairs...only one more flight to go, halleluya!

Our other neighbor across the hall had these beautiful lillies, pink and white, that were outside her door in a blue vase on the floor. I don't know if they were out in the hallway because she was decorating the outside of her apartment....joyous greeting when she returns home. Or was it because they smell so SO strongly that they were overwhelming her apartment. I'm guessing about the smell reason because you could get the first whiff of those lilies....those lillies up on the 5th floor.... by 2nd flight of stairs...4th step....coming up, they were that strong. I've put paperwhites out into the cold to fend for themselves for just this same strong odor issue. Phewwweeeee.

I'm really glad those lillies are out there, I love seeing them....and actually smelling them too. Now, there are a couple of cut blooms in water on the windowsill. You can't smell them as soon coming up the steps.....maybe only by the beginning of the 4th flight, but they're quite beautiful too.

Well, shoot! I didn't get to the story of the joke on Dennis and me....hmmm.....this story would be too long, really too long. Oh well, another day. It's funny.

I Love Chinese Take-Out

They have Chinese Take-Out and they love it too.....

For the past two weeks, I've been noticing all these people in the Schlossplatz with Chinese-Take-Out. I mean, here we are, in this very Baroque and Classical Old-World-Charm-Coming-Out-the-Wazoo-Plaza, and there are all these people with little white cartons with cheery red pagodas and letters filled with Chinese food. It seems so odd, so weird, so very out of place and time. But......where are all these little cartons coming from?

I've strolled up and down the 8 block Konigstrasse, the pedestrian walking, shopping, street-performer-performing, and eating street and have seen kebap stands, coffee shops, pretzel huts, and even McDonalds and Pizza Hut.....but no Chinese Take-Out.

I know it's gotta be here somewhere. Yesterday when I was hangin' 'round the platz, it was late...about 4:30 and there were only 3 other groups. I had coffee, but the other 3 groups ALL had Chinese Take-Out.....3 out of 4........75%! I'm finding this place!

Oh Eureka! Here it is, INSIDE the building. This place does a whopping business! I mean long lines that go fast. All those folks eating Chinese Take-Out in the plaza.....ha! That's just the TIP of the ICEBERG!

Benches and tables filled with Chinese Take-Out lovers. The more adventurous are using chopsticks. The less adventurous, but more practical are using plastic forks.

I saw one woman going up the escalator and eating from her carton at the same time!

My young high-school friends visiting from Wales.....

People from other cultures think it's wonderful....

Even criminals like the guy on the left.....and his cheerful buddies....they all eat Chinese Take-Out....

Everyone in the WORLD loves Chinese Take-Out....

And me, I'm happy as a clam that I finally found it!

The Mysterious Case of the Distressed Young Woman

The first time I passed by, she was crying softly, enveloped by the man who was consoling her.

She was dark, an immigrant perhaps. He was also dark-skinned, a black man who I guessed was from Africa. Who knows where we pick up these clues to origin. Of course, I could be totally wrong because I really can't tell you why I assumed the things I did. I can try to explain, but these are just assumptions, nothing concrete or verifiable.

He was black but not an African American or German. He was too thin for that, with a face that was thin also, with high cheekbones. His clothes looked foreign as well, thin-threaded and too short at the ankles. The woman's hair was very black, but straight and long. I didn't notice this about her hair....that it was straight and long..... until the second time I walked by. When I first passed them I couldn't see her face because her face was in her hands and she was doubled over with the backs of her hands on her knees, sobbing. The man's arms encircled her almost completely and he was quietly talking to her.

I had ordered a milchekaffee and was looking for a bench in the Schlossplatz, a huge square between the New Palace and the Konigsbau, a vast arcaded and columned building facing the Palace across the plaza. The plaza is of monumental size, I don't know, maybe 300 yards across in each direction, maybe more. There are grand-scale monuments with statues and fountains and probably 30 benches encirling the main area. There are also benches off to the side, their backs to the streets that run on the sides of the Schlossplatz. This is where the couple was sitting, on the side. When I find a bench about 30 yards away from them, I must turn and look over my right shoulder if I try to glance back at them.

All of the benches are full when I reach the plaza. People come here to meet, to talk, to smoke cigarettes, to pause for lunch. I see people eating kebabs, or many times, even though it seems incongrous, eating chinese take-out from little white cartons. Sometimes bicyclists stop here for a break, drinking water from the bottles stored on their bike frames. I once saw a couple, there at the Schlossplatz, with a bottle of champagne and two champagne glasses, pouring, toasting and sipping in celebration and happiness.

Even in cold weather, people gather here. But this day is beautiful, especially for the middle of winter. It's still cold enough that you need to wear a coat, but it's warm enough to feel the faint winter sun if you pay attention and think about it.

I sit down as a group leaves a bench and I start to sip my coffee. It's then that I start to hear the crying woman, for now she is sobbing loudly enough that I can hear her from where I'm sitting quite a distance away. It's hard not to look. I do sneak a couple of quick glances as I notice people on the other benches doing the same. This is so very un-German, showing emotion, crying, out loud, in public.

I find her sadness very riveting and disturbing. And it continues, not really building in volume, but continuing, none the less, for quite a while, to be heard above the general street sounds.

I feel alarmed as I wonder what this is all about. I'm worried for her and viscerally feel a wrenching concern. At first, when I saw her in passing the first time, I assumed it was a relationship issue, a break-up probably. Briefly flickering through my mind is an unwanted pregnancy or the loss of an unborn child. But now, as the crying goes on and on, I wonder if she has lost a friend, or even a family member. I am imagining, I suppose because I have type-cast the man to be from Africa, that she has just learned that a brother or father in Africa have become infected with AIDS. Or a younger sibling has died from some terrible disease. Or her own child is in some sort of trouble. Maybe it's the man himself, the one who is consoling her, who is terribly sick.

About the time I finish my coffee, she has quieted. I get myself ready to head to the train station and home, throwing away the coffee cup, winding up my scarf, putting on my gloves. Then I walk back the way I came, towards her bench. I would love to take a photo, but I wouldn't want to get so close as to invade her personal sadness and privacy.

But as I walk by, the young woman has lifted her face.....not an African face, but more of a Pakistani or Turkish face. She's no longer crying at all. She and the man are eating Chinese take-out. With chopsticks.

If any of those terrible things had been true, it would be impossible to eat Chinese take-out.......wouldn't it?

Up the Stairs.....and down....and UP!

This is the coolest thing! Oh man I love it!


Stuttgart is a city in the valley of the Neckar River. With hills, big, great hills on every side. There used to be grapes growing on the hillsides and stairs were put into the hills so the vineyard workers could get up to the vineyards. Now houses go up the hills....and the best part, the steps are still there.


Every morning, I take a hike and the rule is: If there's a staircase, I MUST go up. It's not completely random. I check the map before I go so I have a destination in mind. But many of these staffels are a surprise and I just keep going up. I have to, it's the RULE.


This is the greatest Staffel I've found so far. There are 4 parts to it and what you see here is just a small part. Total number of steps? 403!!! Wow. I love it! The topmost part has 193 steps...and these are no little baby steps....these steps have huffin 'n puffin steps. I have to remember to NOT wear my coat on these Staffel Adventures.



This is the Willy Reichert Staffel.....he was an actor....a HUMORIST actor. Yeah, Willy, it's pretty funny, ja, all those steps....you're a clown!





Here's another piece of Willy.....whoa babies!

Anna and I went up our very first Staffel before I started to count. It goes up to the Eugenplatz. A little plaza with statues.....of course.....and a dynamite overlook of the city.

Anna made it to the top!

OK, this is a private set of steps up to someone's house. Yeah, that's right, they park in that garage and walk up those steps every day. And take their trash down to the bottom too.

Looking down, looking down......

You always hafta come back down....

The views are supercallifragilist..........very very awesome!

This overlooks some still-existing grapevines. Sometimes there are walkways from one overlook to another......actually, just one long overlook. What a great way to make a stab at working off that Brat, Bretzel and Bier! Actually, Brat, Bretzel and Bier is the official Breakfast of Munich......lots and lots of steps worth in that breakfast!

This is the other Rule. NO taking the elevator up to the 5th floor apartment. No! You can't do it! Not even if you're tired.....not even if you're carrying groceries. OK, well maybe if you're carrying your suitcase full of clean laundry, but that's the only exception. Otherwise, up you go.....75 more steps.

Good Encounter Leads to Joy!

When I came out of the Post Office on Senefelderstrasse, I wanted to jump up and click my heels together. But I wouldn't do that here in Stuttgart, oh no. I actually wouldn't do it in Lititz either. Well, actually, I have done that in Lititz, but only when I was somewhere where I was sure no one was watching. But, yeah, I was that tickled.




I'd gone to the Post Office to buy postcard stamps....30 postcard stamps.




So I studied up on how to say it....."I need 30 stamps for postcards to America, please". Wowowow. Here's how it goes......"Ich brauche dreisig briefmarken fur postkarten nach Amerika, bitte" Hiyo. OK. That's 9 words and I sort of know 2 of them already, so seven words. I can do this.




I kept repeating it all the 8 blocks to the PO and stopped to look again before I went in. I'm ready.




I was in line in front of 3 windows. I hoped I'd get the friendliest-looking woman to my right, or else the 2nd-friendliest-looking, man in the middle. I was mind-hurrying along the people at those windows, and hooray, I got the friendliest woman. I started to say something and she said something about "no English."




I continued on anyway, smiling big and saying,
"Ich.......brauche........dreisig......briefmarken.......fur........postkarten.....nach.......Amerika.....bitte"




It took a lot of brain power, there was nothing fluent about it, but all the words were there, YES! She smiled big, kind of laughing and said something, of course I don't know what, but I think she meant "oh yes, very good, of course!" She counted out the stamps and then said the total. I didn't understand so she turned the computer moniter around so I could see.




Then she held up her finger and walked over to the middle 2nd-friendly man and asked him something, came back and said, full of cheer, "Thirty euros, please!"




She was tickled with herself, I was tickled with myself and we were both laughing at our little triumph.




As I left, she said, "bye, bye". I turned around, said the same and put up my thumb. She responded with with her thumb and then 2nd-friendlly man cheerily called out "bye, bye" too.




So as I left the Post Office, I felt so delighted....not so much for getting the words right, that was good, ja, but for the little happy uptick in the day that this friendly woman (and 2nd-friendly man) and I shared over the buying of postcard stamps.

S&M Barbie and Gefiltafish

After several posts of the beauty of the area, I think I can officially start to post some of the "quirkies" (not quickies!) as well. We were in Munich, just casually walking down the street, when Steve said, or was it Annie?....would ya look at that! There in the window of a sunglass store (we think....I don't know, maybe it's like one of those pizza places where you know they aren't making all their money on pizza...heh, heh) the window display of the sunglass store had all these.....uh....Barbies.




Can you believe those tiny clothes!!....thongs and bustiers (?)....!!

Actually, they're not real Barbie clothes.....no, no, no....you can't buy them for your little neice...

These Barbie clothes, on closer inspection.......these are magic marker-painted-on clothes.

I had read somewhere that Barbie was going to upgrade her image....and maybe become a little less "good girl" wholesome. But I had NO idea!

OK, enough now......back to the beauty and light......