Stuttgart 21

Stuttgart 21 is a plan to move the existing Main train station in Stuttgart, underground. Our current 'Bahnhof' is an end station, so to speak, that basically means that the trains arrive in the station and then have to reverse out again to carry on with the journey. Now the local government want to dig under the city and build extensive new railways so that trains travelling from all over Germany will be able to save about 10 minutes of their journey time. In doing so, they will also dig under one of the large parks in Stuttgart city centre, and that means that they will be uprooting a large number of the beautiful 400 year old trees that presently stand in the 'Schloss Park'. It has also been rumoured that when they dig the tunnels, they are not exactly sure whether the city will hold up!! We have seen something like this fairly recently in Cologne, when a building literally sank into the ground. A terrible tragedy that really wasn't necessary, and that we do not want to see again. The entire project will end up costing more than 4 Billion Euros. Surely there is better things to be spending that money on!
Here in Stuttgart there has been a lot of unrest because of this Project, every Monday evening (in fact almost everyday now) there are large demonstrations outside the Station. All over the city you see stickers and slogans against Stuttgart 21.

This is the most common one, and they are stuck on every corner post box, bus stop and basically anywhere they'll stick.
On Wednesday, Philipp and I went to a massive Demo with Philipps father and his partner, who came in from Karlsruhe to show their support. In fact, they come almost every week. The mood in the crowd was actually really nice, mostly because it was a quiet march, and people were talking and passing around information that they had heard. I even heard one guy telling some people of a beer that has been specially labelled and sold in a couple of Bars here and that from every bottle sold, 21 cents goes towards general costs like the badges and stickers against Stuttgart 21. There were signs everywhere and lots of people had dressed themselves up to emphasise their point. There were Police everywhere, but no trouble. We walked from the Bahnhof up to the Schloss Platz (the square in the middle of the city) and gathered there for what I can only call a mass shouting session. At exactly 7pm, after a few speeches from the leaders of pack, the entire square erupted with the noise of between 20,000 and 30,000 people. The hair on the back of my neck was completely on end!!

Africa Festival

Recently I've been seeing all these posters for an African Festival in Stuttgart West. I was really excited about it because the poster promised a Drumming band and African food and I thought it might be a good opportunity to go and take some interesting pictures. Philipp even stopped studying for a couple of hours to come with me! However when we finally found the 'Festival', it was literally about 15 people sitting at a garden table. The African food was just a grill with some steaks on it and the Drumming Band the poster promised, was.... (and get this).... A Stereo!!!! I was so disappointed, and a bit pissed off!! As you can probably tell from the photo below!!!
The main problem was that last year there was another African Festival, down in Stuttgart South and it was fantastic! The food was amazing and in the evening you could hear the music all the way up to our house on the hill! There was also loads and loads of stalls selling everything from wooden Jewelry to wicker laundry baskets. It was great, and unfortunately I had hoped this one would be similar, if on a smaller scale! What a disappointment!

Photo taken by Philipp Linder

Moving

Back in March, Philipp and I moved house, mainly because the old one was rotting away and our Land Lords were Idiots who couldn't see that it was super unhealthy to live in a flat that was slowly turning green. We had huge problems with them while moving out but we managed, thank goodness! We used to live on a big hill looking down into the valley of Stuttgart, it had a wonderful view but it was a bit tiring to walk home after a long shift in Soho (the bar where I work!) 
Anyway, we left the fresh air up on the hill and moved downtown, into the valley. We now live in Stuttgart West and as they say here 'Western ist am Bestern' (West is Best)! We live in a lovely area, kind of quiet, the flat is small but big enough for both of us, cool in Summer, Frickin' freezing in Winter, the shower takes 45 minutes to warm up, then only gives you 10 minutes of hot water, and is situated in the kitchen (apparently very normal for Stuttgart West). We have 2 and a half rooms, bedroom, living room and the half is a Dining room. Because we live in the 'Hinterhof' (back yard) we have houses on both sides, we have fantastic views; one the one side we see the balconies of house no. 81 and on the other side we see the back end of house no. whatever-it-is. Lovely! However, despite all the negatives of this flat, I love it, we have a kitchen (which we didn't have in the old flat) a massive fridge, the shops only 1 minute away, and we have good ones too.
We have:

• An organic Super Market
• A Normal one
• The Best Bakery in all Stuttgart
• Another bakery
• A Fresh Veg shop
• A Butchers shop (very good for me!)
• About three Pharmacies
• A Tea Shop
• A Pizza Takeaway
• A Sushi Takeaway
• And a Petrol station

(just to name a few!!)

During the first few months, we lived in the (now) living room, because there was still a student living here, he was never there and I only saw him once, which was when he handed over the keys after moving his stuff out. The first month was Chaos!

Philipp trying to build the bed in the dump yard that would become our temporary bedroom/living room.

Literally every room in the house (apart from our flatmates) was filled to bursting, I never thought that we could have collected so much stuff in the year and a half we'd lived in the old flat, but yeah, it was a LOT!!

Even the Kitchen was unreachable!!

It took ages in get into some sort of order, in fact even now (5 Months later) its only just coming together! We finally bought a table for the dining room, and managed to clear out all the stuff that was slowly but surely collecting there. Its often still a mess but that's just the way I am and anyone who knows me shouldn't expect anything else, but once in a while I get all motivated and tidy everything up! And then it looks goooood!!

We also painted everything, because as you can see from the kitchen, the colours were awful. The Kitchen was a Purple, the living room was a dark red that somehow only made the room look smaller, and the bedroom..... Wow!! It was painted ALL OVER, (and I mean all over, even the ceiling was painted) in a weird yellow, like as if someone had been smoking in there for years with the window closed. We named it Nicotine Yellow! eeeuw!

Anyway, now you have seen how it looked before and next time I'll show you what it looks like now!

Happy Wednesday Everyone xxx

Hiking in the Alps

We set off on Thursday, from Stuttgart, in the rain. We drove up to a place called Oberstdorf, in Bavaria, where it was still raining! Back when the trip was booked it was awesome weather but for some reason the German Weather Gods decided to make my first Hiking trip a really wet one.
So me, Philipp, his mum, little sister and his Oma got on the ski life up the mountain, all crossing our fingers that it wouldn't stop raining. It didn't! However, being out in the super fresh mountain air was such an amazing feeling, what a difference to Stuttgart Valley air!!! We set off for the Fiderer pass Hut, which was about 2 to 3 hours walk from the lift station. We were all pretty wet after about an hour but the landscape was so beautiful that it didn't matter too much.
The first half of the walk was great, not too many big hills, apart from the last one, which was rather steep and I only just made it up!! The only problem was that Philipp's shoes decided to kill themselves, both the soles fell off! Luckily the staff at the Hut knew what to do and they screwed them back on!! Literally!

Planning the route down the valley to the next sport shop, so Philipp could buy new shoes.

The next day (Friday) we set of in the snow/ice rain and after 10 minutes we were soaked and freezing! but I was feeling fairly confident because it was all down hill! Little did I know how much pain it would cause! Once we finally got to the bottom of the hill my legs were shaking like crazy and all I wanted to do was go home!
We went to the next village where Philipp and Oma got new shoes and Becci got a new rain Jacket, then we headed off back up the Mountain! I was still desperate to go home but everyone else wanted to carry on, so up we went! To add insult to injury, it started raining again. Despite the rain, it was actually quite a nice climb. nearing the end of the walk we came to what I can only describe as a cliff, it was soooo steep, like 70 degrees steep!! It took a while to get up it and Philipps 77 year old Grandma simply flew up it, she is fitter then me, no joke! But we made it and finally got to the Hut, the first hut to have a shower! Awesome! All in all, we had an altitude difference of over 1000 meters today!

A short break in the rain when my trousers could actually dry out a little bit.

Philipp with his brand spanking new hiking boots! And very happy about it!

On our very steep climb, no photo can do it justice, believe me!

Day three was lovely, great weather, no broken shoes, no 5 hour detour and we were all freshly showered! This was also the day when I realised that Hiking might be to my liking, the walk itself took about 7 hours but only because we had lots of breaks and lots more Photo breaks! Along the way someone, (another walker) had told me that in a valley up in the hills there was a little hut where a family was living for the summer, looking after a herd of cows and that one could stop and have a coffee there, with fresh milk! I was determined to stop! And it was well worth it because even though it was instant coffee, the milk made it taste Amazing. Seriously, the best coffee I'd had in days. The last stretch of the walk was soooo muddy because of the rain, we were so filthy by the time we arrived at the Rappensee hut, but it was worth it. We also had to walk through lots of cow pastures which was funny, because they all had bells around their necks so we always had music while we walked.

Part of our route, not half as bad as the day before, but difficult anyway.

We saw this young Groundhog/Woodchuck/Marmot along the way. (I'm not really sure which is the correct name in English!!)

Having a coffee break, well deserved I might add.

Look, Sunshine!!

My own personal Swiss chocolate advert.

My very delicious Goulash dinner and a massive shandy to wash it down!

The last day started with some sunshine but the rain quickly set in so we decided to head down the mountain and home. I was quite glad because my toe had started to hurt rather a lot and philipps knee was only getting worse. It rained for at least the first two hours of our 4 hour walk to the car but it wasn't half as bad as all the mud we encountered! Philipp and I also collected lots of plants on the way to see if we could grow them at home, so far none of them have died but its only a matter of time I think! I'm pretty sure Stuttgart air isn't the best thing for them! we finally arrived at the car very dirty, sweaty and tired but we all had a smile on our faces. In spite of all the rain, it hasn't put me off Hiking, lets just hope that next time we get better weather!
After we had changed out of our filthy clothes at the car, we stopped in a small Bavarian pub to have a coffee, I'll tell you what happened another day because its a story in itself. Right now I'm bored of typing and I'm off to visit a friend in Hospital.
Hope you enjoyed reading!

Our little group

Welcome to my Ghetto

On Saturday night, I was walking home after work, with a massive plant in my arms when I noticed that actually Philipp and I live in the Ghetto! One wouldn't think it because mostly the streets are clean and you don't see many broken windows around, I have also never seen anyone pushing drugs on the corner but one little thing gave it away for me...

Yes, the shoes! They may not be hanging on the telephone wires, and may not look as old as the 'Traditional' Converse shoes on wires but they are hanging there and to me, that says Ghetto!!
Now, who wants to come and visit??

The Elephant Mouse

For Hannah...

Black Adder

Its raining today, not just a little bit, I mean Buckets! and its not the kind of day I would like to take my beloved camera out for a walk, so instead I was browsing the Information Superhighway. I'm not even sure how I got to it but I found myself watching clips from Black Adder on YouTube, when I came across a total classic.

A poem about war by Baldrick

'Hear the words I sing,
War's a horrid thing.
So I sing, sing, sing
Ding-a-ling-a-ling.'

I'm not even gonna start on the poem he told about the German Guns!