"Konigstrasse"

Sorry for the brief absence, but my husband recently returned from deployment, so we were busy catching up. The weather has finally acted a bit more normal this past weekend, rainy, so what better thing to do than to go shopping. It was actually my husband Jim’s idea to go to downtown. This is surprising. Usually it takes a bit of prodding on my part, then nagging, and finally whining. None of this happened this weekend, however. He must have been REALLY bored and thought it might be a good opportunity to earn a few brownie points.

Normally we would take public transportation because it’s a royal pain to drive there. Traffic is horrendous, but not so bad on Saturdays. Plus, after two years, I can proudly say that I can finally drive there, park in a parking garage and drive home without getting lost. A friend showed me this particular route and parking garage. I am prone to getting lost.

Downtown Stuttgart is shopper heaven, especially on “Konigstrasse” which is this several mile long pedestrian zone of shops, department stores, café’s and restaurants. I did mention a few blog entries ago that most stores are closed on Sundays. These establishments close around 7:00 pm on Saturdays, except for the restaurants and on certain occasions like the Holiday season and during the World Cup, when it would behoove these places to stay open longer because there are thousands of people visiting Germany at this time.

Not much shopping was done actually. We basically window shopped and looked for a place to eat lunch. It was still pretty crowded even though the weather was pretty cruddy. Weather is not a factor when going places in Germany. They have a saying here, there’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing. In other words, be prepared and dress accordingly.

We ran into a former colleague of my husband’s who happens to live a block or two from where we were shopping. I always think it’s so cool to run into people you know in a when you’re in foreign country. I saw someone I work with too. “Konigstrasse” (King’s street) is such a big place and the city is so international; it just never ceases to amaze me to run into someone like that. This former co-worker and his wife live in a beautiful penthouse right in the heart of the shopping district. Yes, a penthouse, huge.

Jim and I both said we would be broke, lushes, and overweight if we lived in that area. There are so many awesome clubs, bars, restaurants and shopping in that location. Luckily, it’s a bit inconvenient for us to go there frequently. If we are going there to meet friends and we know drinking will be involved, we always take the public transportation, which means taking a bus to the train station to the next town over, then hopping the train. It’s very easy and fairly cheap unless you miss the last train back, which is around midnight. It costs us about 40 Euro for a taxi home, which is about $50.00. Well worth the piece of mind. Drinking and driving is not tolerated here at all, and it's worse if you’re in the military because it affects your career as well if you're arrested on a DUI.

All in all, it was a pretty decent day. Funny thing is we ended up eating lunch at McDonald’s (FYI- I think that McDonald’s food in Europe is much less greasy) and then we stopped at Starbuck’s for a mocha cappuccino for the ride home.

A friend of mine sent me a quick pic and email from Kuwait today. Guess where he was? Starbuck's. So much for international living.