Countryside of Germany and Day 1 of Amsterdam

Well yesterday was a day full of traveling the German countryside seeing more towns with small,

Fritz and Stefan

cobblestoned streets and sidewalks.  Cousin Fritz and his nephew Stefan took us to the places the he knew about that family members used to call home.  We visited the place where my great-grandfather lived, the place my grandfather and his brothers were born, as well as several other places of previous generations - like aunts, uncles, etc.

Fritz is amazing, he wanted to make sure that we saw plenty of the Schwabian part of Germany which included a museum that was housed in the castle of a past king of the region during the 1700s.  He also showed us a tower that had been reconstructed just feet from where the original had been uncovered about 30 years ago.  The tower was used by people to see the enemy arriving and sat on the territory limits of the "civilized" area of the kingdom.  Using the towers, soldiers were able to see the "barbarians" that may be coming to try to fight for land within the kingdom.


After seeing about 10 small towns, having lunch at a little cafe and going to the museum, we were treated to lunch at Fritz and Kerstin's restaurant Weinkellereinhorn in Esslingen.  They serve traditional Schwabisch German food.  We didn't know before we came here (although I suppose we really should have) that the food is different depending upon the region of Germany that you are in.  Bavaria is probably what most people think of when they thing "German food"  as it is the traditional sausage and sauerkraut.  But I must say that I think I enjoyed Fritz's food much more than I thought I might.  Perhaps it is simply because I was tired of sausage and potatoes.  Anyway after 4 hours, yes four hours, we said our goodbye, thanked our hosts, and Fritz took us back to the hotel in Stuttgart.

We got up this morning and caught our train out of Stuttgart to the Netherlands. We changed trains in Duisburg and finished the ride to Amsterdam.  Total travel time was about 5 hours.  Once we got to Amsterdam the fun really began!  We got off the train at the main train station which sits within a very short distance from the harbor/seaside.  We grabbed a cab since our hotel was about 1.5 miles from the station.  The station was surrounded by people, trams, bicycles, scooters - you name it ti was there.  I have never seen such a mess in all my life.  I thought Chicago was crazy - this puts all of our big cities and those in Germany to shame.  One must watch for people, bikes, scooters and dogs in the street, on the sidewalks, in the bike lanes - everything was everywhere.  By the time we got to the hotel, we were so shell-shocked we didn't quite know what to do.

We got up to our room through the very narrow hallways to find a room that wasn't much larger than most master bedrooms (12x20 maybe) the room's arrangement was strange with the desk in the middle and the TV on top of it facing the bed.  At the end of the room was a daybed.  This will be a very interesting 4 days.  We then met a former colleague of Mom's, Robert, and his family.  They met us here at the hotel and we went to the city center for a drink to chat.  We will be spending the day with them tomorrow going to a couple of museums and then having dinner.  They have two sons, one in college and the other in high school.  The high school student will be a foreign exchange student next year in the states.  How funny would that be if he ended up in our area?  Well more tomorrow if we don't get back too late from Robert's house. Untill then....Ciao.