Wow, this was a long day.  Jet lag caught up with me and I slept very little overnight.  We got up at 6am to have time to eat, pack and get to the factory by 8:30am.  We made it.  We got the car early on, and a tour of all its features.  Then a fascinating factory tour and a gourmet lunch.  Then off to the autobahn.  And then back to the factory.  And then off to the autobahn again.  Uh, yeah, the car had an issue.  Turns out the right side tires were seriously over-inflated which threw off some of the electronics.  We called the roadside service and they told us to go back to the factory.  By the time we left the second time, we were deep into the Friday afternoon commute.  All told, we were four hours behind our planned schedule.

That said, the car is a blast to drive.  It is fast with a capital ‘F’.  And there are parts of the autobahn without speed limits.  🙂  You can see where this is going…

Anyway, being overly tired, and in traffic, we had little chance to stretch it out.  About 200km/hour (about 125 mph) was the most I got going.  There’s always tomorrow.   And the day after that, and the day after that…  Even more than the speed, the acceleration is what impressed me the most.  In any gear this thing just flat out hauls.

People drive at speed quite well here.  They have rules and conventions and everyone seems to follow them.   You stay right except to pass.  And if you see a black spec on the horizon behind you, you stay out of its way.  More quickly that you might imagine, you get overtaken my some giant Mercedes or BMW.  And that’s while you’re doing 200km/h yourself.

We used the navigation system to guide us to our hotel in Munich.  It worked very well.   It receives digital traffic reports in the background and makes route adjustments on the fly.  Really cool.

When we left Stuttgart the first time, it was sunny.  The first sun we’d seen since arriving on Wednesday morning.  When we left the second time, it was completely overcast.  We had a little rain on the drive.  But when we stepped our for dinner after checking into the hotel, it was pouring.  Same weather as the last few days.  We may have brought it with us…

We ate at a beer hall named J.W. Augustiner.  It was established in 1328.  Yup, almost 700 years old.  And they serve a beer that was established 500 years ago.  So I guess they are just checking it out…  Anyway, the food was good, the beer was good and the place was hopping.  We had fun.

It was a long day, but a good one.

So we finally had something German for dinner!  I had to buy a new filter for my camera (because I dropped the camera in the Frankfort airport!).  While in the photo store, we asked the clerk for a lunch recommedation.  He gave us a specific place, but we never found it.   Later we asked about it at the desk of the hotel and they said it was very good.  So we went for dinner.  We both had variations on pork roast.  Mine came with cheese Spätzel which is noodles and cheese.  Can you say… macaroni and cheese?!  Always eating American…

The trip has been great fun so far, but gets funner tomorrow!

Ok, not sure I have that totally correct, but it means “The key is in the dog.”  And yes, I heard that on German television last night.  We spent some time sort-of learning German using the Rosetta Stone DVD.  We really like the classes, it’s fun learning and the software is very good, IMO.  So after quite a few weeks, we take off on this trip.  And of course, we are not at all equipped to speak much less understand any practical German at all.  Fortunately, for us, just about everyone here speaks excellent English.  We found exceptions of course.  The woman that sold us the cell phone, and the woman who set the menus to English for us, did not speak all that well.  And the guy behind the counter at Starbuck’s (yeah, such Americans!) was put out to have to speak English at all.  But everyone else has been easy to converse with and very friendly.  It’s grey and rainy here, still, but the people are very nice and helpful, so it doesn’t seem as dreary as it looks.

So anyway, back to the dog… The TV was on and they were advertizing some kind of animal hospital show.  Mostly I didn’t understand a word they were saying until I heard a man excitedly say “Die Schüssel ist im der Hund!”  I look up and sure enough they were showing a x-ray of a dog, with a key in its stomach.  Awesome!  Well, not for der Hund.   (BTW, you capitalize all nouns in German.)

So, trip update:  We went to bed early last night, slept about nine hours and still got up fairly early.  Had breakfast in the hotel.  Things sure are expensive here!   The buffet breakfast is 22 euros each.  At 22 dollars it would have been pricey.  Multiply by 1.65…. ouch.  After that we went for a long-ish walk in the rain/mist down the KoningStrasse (sp?) which is basically a pedestrian mall.  Bought some chocolate at a store along the way and shot some photos.  I’ll put a few up on SmugMug when I get a few minutes. 

We ate lunch standing up, a sandwich (belegte Brotes, if I remember correctly) that was not very good and a pretzel that was better.  Now we’re chilling out in the hotel before we walk out for dinner in a little while.

Wow, same exact weather in Stuttgart as we left in Seattle, only a little rainier.  Oh well.  We’re cooked, fried, dead-on-our-feet, whatever.  Not sleeping on the flight over looks like a mistake in retrospect.   Long day here.  We’ll be out like lights soon enough.  (Nine hours ahead over here.)  The hotel is really nice.  I’ll take some photos tomorrow.  We checked in and started dozing off as soon as we got to the room.  Decided to get out and get some food and some Wasser and call it a night.  Had cheeseburgers at a place next to the hotel.  Such Americans!  Tomorrow we head out for a cell phone and to explore Stuttgart.  Later!