Day 50...I'm dreaming of a Black Forest cake - 15th August

Woke up the usual time and had our breakky. Nathan was amused by the other guests - he saw a lady sneaking the jams and butter and breads into her bag. She had clip-seal bags for it too, so it was all planned! He also said she filled her thermos with the tea.

We then spent a 1/2 day wandering around Zurich on the other side of the river. This side had all your standard brands like Louis Vuitton and H&M so it was pretty dull. Nathan checked out the Tag Heuer watches but they pretty much matched the Australian prices. We might see if Dubai is our best bet, like Dad says.

The river that ran through Zurich was so clean and clear and fast flowing! The water was absolutely see through, and you could see the bottom. Definately not the Brisbane River or the Yarra that's for sure! You could see the swans heads when they put them under the water and ate stuff from the bottom. We were amazed. Standing on the bridge too, we could see the massive snow capped mountains in the background from where we had been yesterday. They looked huge! But they were so far away, they end up looking like clouds in our photos!

The stores in Switzerland are really cool, and are done up like the prolly would have been in the old days. The toy stoys seemed more adult like, with stuffed toys all neat in a row. The chocolaterie had delicate chocolates and flowers and it was all "just so". The butchers was so clean, and had big fresh slabs of meat all tidily arranged. Very nice. We ended up walking around and delighting at all this, so we decided we had to skip the Lindt tour, or we'd never reach Germany. Doh!

So we drove straight up north, back to Germany via the Black Forest. The Black Forest is on the west side of Germany and borders France. Things got gradually more German again as we went in. The forest was patches of pinetrees interspersed with large fields and farmlands. Dotted amongst them were small ski resort towns, made of dark brown German wood with white trimmings. Along the roadside was evidence that they were good Christian folk (volk) with big crosses on top of rock hilltops, and saints carved into the stone. It all felt very German, but it didn't feel to country or impressive so we punched on straight up to Stuttgart.

Once in Stuttgart we went straight to the TIC who were still open in the evening and they hooked us up with an excellent deal we were really pleased about. It was on the edge of the city but near the train station. We drove up to the hotel and it was really cute on a hill. The lady there didn't speak any English. That's the thing about Germany: It is such a cool country, prolly even cooler by the fact that it is not a tourist country so it's not marred by globalisation too much. Locals who can speak English are scarce and we havent heard or seen one English or Yankee person yet! (We heard one guy in Zurich and that was it). So you really get the German vibe wherever you go. There are two types of Germans too. When they find out you are English speaking, they react in two ways:
1) Speak in short sentences or single words with lots of arm movements which helps you
2) Speak really fast in long conversational sentences that completely baffle you.
Our lady was the latter, but it was really funny. Our room was neat and tidy and had the odd German toilet, where the porcelain bowl sits out like a shelf so your poo lands on it. Great.

We caught the train to the city centre and walked along the main pedestrian and shopping street. The night was quite warm and clear and there were lots of people out on the grass or stairs just sitting and chatting - quite a few for a weeknight! We found a place that served foor outside overlooking the new palace, built in the 1700's and 1800\s and is now a parliamentary building. There were some fountains and statues and we drank some wine and beer. It felt very nice and extremely relaxing. Nate preferred Stuttgart as more his town that Zurich as it felt clean, more modern, and had more pubs and loungebars suited to his style. Where we sat, it also helped that there was a big Mercedes symbol spinnnig around on top of a building. We wandered back to the train station after, looking at all the funky lounge bars, then headed home to bed.