On Sunday, August 1, my son Jonathan and I flew to Germany. This is his first time since we came to the States, 20 years ago. He was excited, anxious, nervous, but mostly excited. As usual, the flight from Atlanta left shortly before dinner time and arrived after breakfast in Stuttgart. Going through passport control and retrieving our luggage was quick and easy. We took the S-Bahn down into Stuttgart and went to Starbucks where we were able to sit outside in absolutely gorgeously warm and dry weather. Starbucks in Germany offers free wi-fi, with a two-hour time limit. We checked email, and updated facebook.
Lugging our suitcases, bags and backpack through town, we stopped at Tchibo to purchase another month worth of internet access – still only 20 Euros, and continued on through Marktplatz and Schillerplatz where the very light sprinkle turned into real rain. Subway to Hauptbahnhof, S-Bahn to Winnenden where it was still raining thus taxi (instead of bus) to my mother’s apartment.
We didn’t spend much time in the apartment, just enough to put suitcases down, wash hands, and then walked back to Winnenden for a very late lunch. Jonathan wasn’t very hungry, neither was I, so coffee and cake at Maurer sounded good enough to us. To my disappointment, the Pflaumenkuchen was not as good as the one I had had last winter, in January, in Esslingen. My mother would have shaken her head and said “What do you expect? Pflaumen season is not until September.” Pflaumenkuchen normally uses very ripe plums, very sweet, and so ripe they fall apart. Yesterday’s Pflaumen were still a bit hard, and tart.
We walked down Marktstrasse, stopped at Schunter, a stationery shop that sells books (mostly for children) and school and art supplies. Kind of a small version of Varney’s in Manhattan (minus the clothes). I found a calendar, and Jonathan bought a Notenheft - where “Noten” means musical notes, a booklet to write out your own music.
I showed Jonathan one of Mark’s and my favorite restaurant, Cafe Benz, which offers free wi-fi. I pretended to seek shelter from the ultra-light rain sprinkles, standing under one of their huge umbrellas, and pulled out my Touch to very briefly check email and update twitter.
Because it was only 4 p.m. and we had just had something to eat, we were not sure what to do about dinner. We were tired, so very ready for a nap, and it was tempting to just grab some bread and cheese from a grocery store on the way home, go home, eat and go to bed at 6 p.m. but that might mean wake up at 2 a.m. and be awake, unable to go back to sleep.
We decided to go back into Stuttgart. At the airport I had bought a group-day-ticket which allowed the two of us to take any train, bus, subway within the (very large) system until midnight yesterday. By the time we got to Stuttgart it had stopped raining so we were able to walk up Konigstrasse, do tons of window-shopping and look at some of the many many things I wanted to show Jonathan: the little bookstore/cafeteria next to the church, Schlossplatz with the new and the old palace, etc. We took tons of pictures.
Next, Wittmer the bookstore, “an absolute must” on Jonathan’s list. We looked for and found a book for one of Jonathan’s friends. As we were getting ready to leave it started raining again, quite heavily, but we had brought umbrellas, so we just walked briskly, across Königstrasse, and then on to Schillerplatz, to Die Alte Kelter, another one of Mark’s and my favorite restaurants. They had huge umbrellas over the al fresco dining area which sheltered the tables enough from the rain so we decided to sit and have dinner outside. Typical Swabian fare: Flädlesuppe for me and Geschmältzte Maultaschen for Jonathan. He also had some kind of ice tea, with a slice of lemon, orange, and lime each, and (as promised by the menu) “tons” of fresh mint leaves. We sat and talked and took pictures, and about an hour later, left to go home.
That last S-Bahn ride on the first day tends to feel rather long … We were lucky to catch a bus to Leutenbach which left just a few minutes after the S-Bahn arrived.
Jonathan requested a bath to soak and rehydrate – my mother’s bathroom has an old-fashioned deep (though narrow) tub, perfect for soaking. I took a shower. Hot running water – perfect bliss after an almost-thirty hour day…
Today we will survey the apartment, contact some of my mother’s friends, continue the packing which Mark and I had worked on the last time we were here in June, and contact the bassoon factory Jonathan wants to visit tomorrow.
