Au Pair of Adventures: Halt die Fresse!

Friday we all went over to M and T's for Fabio's goodbye dinner. He left Saturday to go back home. We had my favorite German meal - Schnitzel with french fries and Krautsalat. We ended up discussing Thanksgiving this year. I had mentioned how I wanted to cook Thanksgiving dinner when my parents come to visit me in early December. Somehow it was also decided that we're going to cook a dinner on actual Thanksgiving Day. It appears that the first time I'll cook Thanksgiving dinner will be in Germany, for about 10 people. No pressure, huh?

Saturday was a very successful day! I drove all by myself to and from Stuttgart. It was about a 2 hour 15 minute drive each way. I was kind of dreading it before I left, but the drive ended up being a lot better than I anticipated. I hit a decent amount of construction. When the lanes narrowed for construction, I swear they were only 2 feet wider than my car. I was white knuckling the whole time, swearing that I was going to scrape the railing or the car beside me. I got lost twice but I never stalled! I also wanted to try my hand at taking advantage of the unrestricted sections of the Autobahn. I got up to a cool 200 km/h at one point. For those of you confused by that last sentence, not all parts of the Autobahn are without a speed limit. I'd say that maybe 1/2 of my drive yesterday was on restricted sections. Anyways, I went to Stuttgart to meet up with Cindy (she's my sister-in-law's best friend and therefore we became friends) and her friend, Lisa. They were in Munich for Oktoberfest and had decided that they wanted to go to Stuttgart too. Since I got a little lost, I ended up meeting up with them around 2. We then went to the Mercedes-Benz Museum. The museum was a lot better than I anticipated. It was 7 stories tall! You started at the top with the invention of the motorized vehicle and then wound your way all the way down, seeing the progression of the mechanics of vehicles, as well as the outer aesthetics. I was pleasantly surprised by how interesting it was. Afterwards we headed to Cannstatter Volksfest, Stuttgart's version of Oktoberfest. As you may have guessed, it was remarkably similar to the actual Oktoberfest. We walked around for a few hours, eating and drinking along the way. It was nice to talk to people with a similar background, who understand things like the American university system and organized high school sports. It's hard to make real connections with people who you share almost nothing in common with except a language (and even so, my German still leaves something to be desired). I guess I hadn't realized this until I spent the day with Cindy and Lisa. I'd be lying if I said that I didn't leave Stuttgart feeling a certain kind of refreshed.