In the meantime

I have been devoting a lot of writing space to genealogical travels. I want you to know that I am seeing things in Europe other than farmland and small obscure towns.

Last Saturday morning, I left my hostel in Heilbronn (Slauenwhite country) at 7:45 in the morning. I had looked in my big timetable book the night before and plotted a full day of transit and sightseeing.

I spent the better part of the morning in Stutgart, about an hour train ride from Heilbronn. Stuttgart is the major industrial centre in the state of Baden-Würtenburg, which is the most prosperous state in the country. A German guy in my dorm room in Heidelberg said not to go there. He said it is big and dirty and nothing there. I would agree with the big and dirty part, but there are things to see. Both Porshe and Daimler-Chrysler-Mercedes are from Stuttgart, and both have free museums.

I first went to the Porshe Museum, mostly because the S-bahn train there arrived before the Mercedes train. The museum was a bit of a disappointment (a beautiful brand new one is under construction). But I did get to see the first car to bear the Porshe name. I believe only a few were made, before a later production model was produced en mass.



This smaller car is a child's version of one of the early Porshes that is being made in a limited addition of a couple hundred for the low price of around 5000€.



There were a number of other cars in the museum including an F1 car that used a Porshe engine before they decided that developing F1 engines made no sense as the technology couldn't be used in their production models. Making engines for the Le Mans 24 hours endurance race must have made sense to them, as a few modern race cars from that race were on display.

Over at the Mercedes Benz museum, I found a notice stating that the museum was closed and a new one would open in a month. The new museum looked beautiful, from the outside, and I would recommend anyone in the region to visit it (for free!). Luckily about 30 cars or the regular 90 were still on the display in the old museum building. I had to be shuttled to in by a special car to make sure I didn't escape inside the grounds and steal company secrets.

This museum was a lot more entertaining than the Porshe one. I saw the first motorcycle which Daimler used to test out one of his new engines. It went 12 km/h and, as you can see, looks like a rocking horse with wheels and an engine attached.



The early cars showed a clear evolution from a simple wagon with a motor on it to something that resembles a modern automobile. The early cars didn't have fans and radiators. The second car down with the bonnet got 5 km per litre, went 35 km/h, and required 160 liters of cooling water for every 100km driven.





This car is the first Mercedes. They hadn't developed their circular logo by then.



This big black car was my favorite in the museum. It was huge, seating two passengers in the back for parades and state occasions. I could imagine a lot of third Reich officials getting chauffeured in one of these.



I find the older F1 cars a lot more fun looking than the modern ones. I believe this car was raced in the 50s. They had an F1 race car from the 30s there as well.



After Stuttgart, I trained two house to Bavaria, to enter the most tourist place I have been yet. I stopped at Füssen to see Schloß Neuschwanstein, that famous castle in every one's pictures (including mine). I only had 3 hours to see it. so I walked 3 km there (rather than waiting for the bus). The next available English tour was far too late for me to catch my onward train, so I was contented with walking up the mountain and walking around the beautiful structure. I've seen pictures of the inside already, and the outside is what is famous anyhow.




The other tourists were entertaining in and of themselves. I was there on the Saturday of Easter weekend (brave), and I heard a number of European languages as well as Chinese and Japanese. There were moms getting mad at bratty kids, and people waiting for the mini bus at the bottom of the mountain for a shuttle bus that didn't seem to be coming. I climbed myself and didn't see a shuttle but the whole time.

After admiring the crazy architectural project of a King with hi head in the clouds, I descended the mountain and walked back to the station where I caught a train for Munich and then boarded an overnight train to Amsterdam.



Back in Holland, there were still no tulips. They are weeks late compared to most years. I could have gone to a touristy flower place, but I have no desire to see that. I did, however stay at a nice hostel at the beach where I saw a nice sunset at a I drew a full scale floor plan of a house I've been designing on the road. I realized where I had too much space, and where I need more.



My first night on the beach, I ate at a Greek restaurant. I asked if the 50 euro cent washroom charge applied to me, which it didn't. A lady then came to my table and told me that I had to bay because the kitchen closed at 10 (a true fact). She didn't work there, and the owner came and said she was a little crazy and I could stay as long as I wanted. It was two late though, I had somehow commit ed myself to having coffee with this lady, who was extremely interesting, but somehow made me feel unsettled.

She claimed everyone knew her in town. I believed her from the faces of every waiter we talked to (so many were closing and turned us away.) There were certain questions she would deflect, like whether people knowing here was good or bad. I asked how she knew there were cameras watching us up and down the beach-- "Well that's a stupid question!" she remarked. I told her I thought it was a reasonable one to ask. I asked it again. No response.

I discovered that she had lived all over the world, with and without her now dead husband. She gave no details about how or why she lived in Bolivia or Nicaragua. She did, however, talk a little bit about living in Greece. I was looking for an escape route when she declared that she had to go home to put her 90+ year old mother to bed. Wishing me well on my cycling in the bulb fields the next day, she left me with her number to call for dinner the next night. I had a great day in the fields, but then hid out in my hostel hoping she wouldn't try to track me down, which she didn't do to my knowledge.




Although the Tulips weren't there yet, I enjoyed the addition of pink white and purple hyacinth, which hadn't been in bloom on my first visit.I left Holland for the second time on Wednesday, and have been staying with friends of the family, Dieter and Brigitte in Kassel, Germany for the last two days.