Stuttgart, Germany

A few weeks ago I received word that my entry visa had been approved. Obviously I had already entered Switzerland, but I was only allowed to stay in the country for 3 months without an entry visa. The long and confusing process of obtaining this visa went on until the very last second, but finally came through a week before I’d be forced to leave the country. Eek! Now that I had approval, I then had to do something called “Family Reunion” to actually obtain the visa. Essentially, I had to leave the country, go to a Swiss Embassy, and pick it up. Only then would I be allowed to reenter the country. So, Justin and I decided to make a bit of a trip out of it. Our approval came from Stuttgart, Germany and we decided to go pick it up the weekend of March 17^th, 18^th, and 19^th. We booked round trip train tickets, scheduled a two night hotel stay at the Le Meridian, and packed our bags.

The night before leaving, Justin and I had dinner with our friends Raphael and Lijin to celebrate their engagement. They are the same wonderful couple that we went sledding with in January. They are a very cute couple and are both really into robotics; this of course explains the awesome engagement ring Raphael gave Lijin that he made himself from scrap robotics parts. It was so incredibly cute. We ate dinner at an Australian restaurant called Outback Lodge near Stadelhofen train station. Justin and I both had the kangaroo and it was surprisingly delicious! We do love trying new things. But no, in case you were wondering, it wasn’t as good as the horse or the ostrich from Stones. J After dinner, we hit the hay early so we could save our energy for our trip to Germany the following day.

Our train wasn’t scheduled until noon so we could take our time getting up and about in the morning. We were excited for our first trip outside of Switzerland and especially that is was St. Patrick’s Day. We headed out and found ourselves standing in Germany about 2 and a half hours later. Not too shabby! I’ll be honest, when we first stepped out of the train station we were underwhelmed by the city. Our first impression was that the city was old, run down, abandoned-like, unkempt, and dreary. We walked past loads of people that in the States we’d called “hoodlums”. It was about 2:45 and these teens were lounging about smoking, drinking heavily, listening to music, yelling at one another, and dressed like they were at a Van Halen concert in the 1980s. It was interesting. Justin and I anxiously headed to the hotel which was an SPG property. We were not disappointed there. The hotel was beautiful and thankfully paid for by Justin’s many hotel points.

We relaxed for a little while watching hand ball on T.V. (may be Justin’s new favorite sport) and then headed out to get bathing suits because the hotel had a free spa that we planned to enjoy on Sunday. My research on the city had told me that Konigstrasse was the best place for shopping. Thankfully, in the same way Dorthy sees the Land of Oz for the first time, we walked over a bridge in Stuttgart and suddenly the place didn’t seem so bad anymore. There was some exquisite architecture, open fields, ponds, and gardens. We walked through a park and found Konigstrasse. The street was probably a mile long and loaded with restaurants and stores. It was awesome. Justin and I found a wonderful sports store where we ended up buying our bathing suits for very cheap compared to Zurich. We also scrounged up a new back pack, basketball, basketball pump, ping pong paddles, and pull-up bar. What can we say… we hadn’t seen good deals in far too long.

Later that evening he and I went to Pizza Hut (yum!!) and then headed to an Irish Pub to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. The line to get in was wrapped around the building and we decided we’d wait in line for about 10 minutes to see if the line was moving quickly. It wasn’t. I was in the middle of complaining when the guy in front of us turned around and offered us a beer. In Europe, it is completely legal to drink in public if you are of age, so Justin and I took him up on his offer and started a conversation with this guy who had selflessly parted with two luke-warm Milwaukee’s Best. He was from Kentucky and had moved to Germany to go to college. He was a very nice guy. At some point in the conversation, the two guys behind us in line joined in. They were from Germany and their names were Matt and Jeffrey. After about 15 minutes, Matt and Jeffrey decided they were going to go to another bar that wouldn’t have a line and invited us along. We decided they probably knew what was best since they were from Germany, so we joined them. That’s when the real fun began.

Turns out, you can order four delicious German beers for around 10 Euros. What an incredible deal compared to everything we were used to in Zurich. So, we stayed with Matt and Jeffrey for the remainder of the evening. They called a bunch of their friends and we were joined by a large crowd, some even were Americans. It was awesome. We laughed, danced, talked, and had an excellent time. There are a bunch of pictures from the evening on our Shutterly account, so make sure you check those out.

After our long night on Saturday, we slept in on Sunday and spent the entire day at the spa (it was free with Justin’s hotel status). We swam in the pool, laid in the hot tub, went tanning, sat in the sauna, and did some reading and napping by the pool. On Monday, Justin and I went to the Swiss Embassy to start the paperwork and they told us they would be finished around 3pm. That was good because our train tickets were for around 4. We tried to go the Mercedes Benz Museum, but it turns out the only day during the week that the museum is closed is on Mondays. So instead, we walked around shopping, taking pictures of the interesting buildings, and trying to experience the culture a bit more. We picked up my visa and then headed home. Turns out, Stuttgart is a great place to visit. We’ve even been invited back for Oktoberfest. Yikes!

Making Friends

Recently, Justin and I met a group of his work friends at Lady Hamilton’s Pub to watch the Swiss versus Argentina football (“soccer”) game. The pub was very similar to any pub you’d go to in the states and made me feel at home. It is located in Zurich near Bahnhofstrasse, a street downtown that leads to the main train station. Among those friends were Roberto, his girlfriend Hanna, Claudio, his girlfriend Ashley, and a guy named Karan. All of the guys work with Justin at PwC. There were a few other people there, but I cannot remember their names at the moment. All of them were extremely nice and welcoming. Roberto and Hanna are both from Switzerland. Claudio is also Swiss and his girlfriend is American. I had already met Ashley before and really enjoyed hanging out with her. She is from California, extremely tan and beautiful, and surprisingly down to earth. She moved here around the same time we did, so our Zurich experience is pretty similar.

The evening was spent waiting for the T.V.’s to work; the boredom inevitably steered the conversation towards American sports vs. European sports. It got heated, but at some point we agreed to disagree. They were especially being haters on basketball. Not cool. It really was just friendly conversation and led to a lot of joking, sarcasm, and excitement. In the end, Justin and I invited them all over for dinner to our new place for chimichangas. Mind you, at this point we still hadn’t found dining room chairs for the kitchen so I knew I had to work hard over the weekend to put final touches on the apartment.

We had them all over on Tuesday, March 6^th. I had spent the weekend cleaning and buying a few items at IKEA and a second-hand store called Zurcher Brockenhaus to pull the apartment together. It was finally looking up to my standards, so I was excited to have everyone over. Roberto and Hanna brought over the wine. They brought 4 bottles of a delicious 2009 Chilean wine called Santa Alicia Reserva Merlot from Maipo Valley. Claudio and Ashley brought over some yummy chocolate brownies for dessert and the tortilla chips to go with my guacamole appetizer. I made the stuffing for the chimichangas and Justin did the rolling and frying perfectly. The food was delicious and the company was wonderful. Our conversations were interesting and only got more interesting as the wine bottles were emptied. We talked about self-defense, owning a weapon, building snowmen, amusement parks, and religion. Don’t think it could get more random? Haha. But, it was a lot of fun and Hanna and Roberto are having us over tomorrow night for pizza. This time we have to bring the dessert. Can’t wait!

My Romantic Husband

Justin and I don’t typically make a big deal out of Valentine’s Day. As a woman, I pretend to be indifferent to it, but secretly I cross my fingers that he will do something special. We know we love each other, yet it’s nice to do something to keep the romance alive. And this year he actually did! He must have heard my not-so-subtle hints, because the night was perfect!

He told me a few days before that I don’t need to cook dinner because we’d be going out. This was a first because we always cook at home since everything is ridiculously expensive here in Zurich. I was already getting excited. Come the big day, I had some chocolates and a hand written card sitting on the kitchen table for him when he woke up. I thought I was doing pretty well up to this point. But, I had no idea how wonderful the evening would be.

So, I did my hair and nails, put on a nice dress and high heels, and made sure I looked my best. He came home around 6:30 and when he came in the door he had a bottle of wine behind his back. My favorite part was the red heart cut-out that was hanging around the bottle. We sat and enjoyed a few glasses and then headed to dinner for our 7:30 reservations. The restaurant, Stones, was only about 2 blocks away and somehow I had never seen it before. The night was freezing, so I was happy that the walk was short. I entered and the gentlemen at the door took my coat and escorted us to the table. The restaurant was small and cozy, but it was surprisingly classy. In fact, there was only one waiter in the whole place. I knew right away it was going to be delicious!

The menu was in German so I wasn’t sure what to order. Justin had actually thought to look up the menu online beforehand, translate it, and memorize the things he thought I would like. So sweet. He ordered the horse and risotto. Yes, I said horse! And I ordered the ostrich and rosemary potatoes. We found out why the restaurant was called Stones when the waiter brought out these 2 wooden platters. Each platter had our meat, the side dishes, an array of sauces, and a heated stone. At first we weren’t sure what to think of the heated stone and once we cut into our meat and realized that it was raw, we realized what we were supposed to do. We had to cook each piece of meat individually on the stone. Every bite was exquisite and different. You could cook it rare, medium, well-done, cook it with sauce, add tomato, dip it in a sauce, add some garlic cloves, add some rosemary, or just keep it plain. It was fun and delicious. I didn’t ask how much it cost; I just know Justin made the perfect choice.

As we were wrapping up the romantic evening snow began to fall outside. Best Valentine’s Day ever!