I realized that there’s a whole gap of the last two days that I spent in Stuttgart with my friend Matt that I haven’t posted pictures of talked about, and there were some definite highlights.

We went on a nice long 9 mile hike with Matt and his cattle dog Toby, up into the mountains near Stuttgart. At one point we took an incredibly old funicular up the side of the mountain that took forever to get going, driven by an old man who was terribly unconcerned by anything in life! We stopped and bought candles and honey from a tiny “honor system” set up along the trail, and we ate afterwards at a Brewery where I had a “meat salad” consisting of strips of baloney, pickle and other things just kind of bunched up in a pile with a light oil sauce on top. It was odd but the beer was delicious. The hike put me right over the top into being sick, though, unforunately.

The night before that, we went out to a vinyard that Matt had volunteered at crushing grapes and they were having a small celebration with a three piece German band. We met the owner and drank his gluhwein all night while our table full of older German women convinced us to sing along. They had a book of German songs that also, oddly, included a bunch of American 80s tunes and so we were forced to sing while we stood up and sat down to oompah. It was awesome.

I really liked Stuttgart, it seemed like a very livable place. Matt has a good life there. I much preferred it to Berlin, if I’m being honest.