Happy Fourth!

We wanted to take a long weekend for the Fourth, so we broke out the old laptop. Between Google maps, the Deutsche Bahn (train) site, and Trip Advisor, we threw a bunch of electronic darts at the screen, waffling back and forth between a few different options before settling on Stuttgart.

Cori and I took a bus down to Becca's office on Friday and met her when she got off work. We caught another bus to a metro station, and rode down to the main train station downtown. We rode the train around an hour and a half south. Our hotel was fairly close to the main train station, so we just walked over there. Our hotel was next door to a mall, so we walked to the food court for a quick dinner.

Next morning, we had tickets for the Mercedes-Benz museum, so we took the metro up to the nearest station and walked over. Very extensive museum, covering not just the history of the company, but delving into a lot of what was happening around the world at the same time.

Afterwards... well, one of the things I'd found in Stuttgart was the Schweine-Museum. Just by looking at the name of the place, you might think that it's a museum about pigs... you'd be right. I thought it would be a cutesy, folksy, fun place.

[NARRATOR] You'd be wrong. Dead wrong.

Everybody's got a friend who collects something, right? You may have that one friend who collects stuff with frogs on it, right? They really like frogs, maybe have a couple of frog figurines in a curio cabinet, and a couple of posters of frogs doing silly stuff, right? Everyone that they know knows that person likes frogs, so when you're out shopping and see something cute with a frog on it, you pick it up for them, right? I think that's how this pig museum started. One couple really liked pigs, so everyone they knew decided to get them more random crap with pigs on it.

However many years later, there's a pretty good sized 3 story building completely filled with all kinds of pig stuff, including a room devoted to pig porn. This place was pretty over the top, and I feel a little bad dragging the girls to go see it. Honestly, I feel a little bad dragging myself to go see it. Let's move on.

We made our way back to the rooms and rested for a while, then I packed up and took off for the mineral baths... basically a pool complex. Evidently, Stuttgart is known for its mineral water, and there were a few different facilities with swimming pools filled with the stuff. The one I went to had multiple different indoor/outdoor pools, at different temperatures, all the way from cold to cool to normal pool temp, all the way up to hot tubs. Really cool place, and I enjoyed paddling around for a couple of hours. Yes, everyone wore suits. There was a section where suits weren't allowed, but I didn't go in there. Evidently the saunas were in there, but I didn't go in to look around.

I went back and met up with the girls, they'd evidently walked around the downtown area. For dinner, Becca and I took the metro back over to the downtown area and found a restaurant; pretty good food, I took half a salad back for Cori.

Sunday morning we took the train up to the Porsche museum. This museum wasn't laid out as neatly as the Mercedes museum, and it seemed to focus specifically on the 911 and their racing program (whereas the Mercedes museum tried to put the history of the company more into context with what was happening around the world at the same time). It was still fun looking at the cars though.

Sunday afternoon we found a little museum right next to the hotel called the Museum of Illusions, and I dragged the girls in there as well. This one went a lot better than the pig museum though. It was rather small, but there were a lot of fun things packed in there, including an Ames Room; that's the room that's got weird dimensions, where people stand in two different corners and because of the distance from the viewer, they look to be of drastically different sizes.

Here, for your amusement, are a limited selection of photos from the museum:

Cori got big, huh?!?!?

I got better.

Me and my midget wife.

We wasted some time there and then found a restaurant nearby that was open.

Monday morning we took our time getting out of the rooms and checked out around 11:00, then wasted a couple of hours in the mall food court until our train was scheduled. Turned out the train was late by 40 minutes, but it didn't really matter much in the whole scheme of things.

Becca went to work today, then Becca's boss's wife and I met her downtown, and we went to the Green Sauce Festival. What's that? Glad you asked!

One of the things that Frankfurt is (evidently) well known for is something called "Green Sauce." Well known enough that it's recognized and protected by the EU. I'm not sure that there's a similar concept in the states, since you can get just about anything anywhere. I guess if barbecue were somehow certified by the government, and you could only get it in Texas (the true home of barbecue, as we all know). Anywhere else you went, you could call it whatever you wanted, but you couldn't call it "barbecue," because that name would be restricted to only brisket from Texas.

Anyway, Green Sauce is made of: parsley, chives, sorrel, chervil, borage, garden cress, and salad burnet, together with sour cream, oil, vinegar, mustard, salt, and hard boiled eggs. Think "Green Goddess," and you won't be far off. We've had Green Sauce at a couple of restaurants, served with schnitzel and/or boiled potatoes, served by itself with hard boiled eggs (literally just 4 halves of hard boiled eggs, sitting in a plate of Green Sauce)... we've got some in the fridge that we bought at the store, and we've had it with a few meals around the house - veggies, sausages, etc. Pretty good, but it's not barbecue sauce.

Anyway, that's what we've been up to lately... as always, feel free to let one of us know if I've brought up any burning questions for ya!