Hauswirtschaftsleiterin

Schlossplatz is the center of the city, where all the subway lines merge. The Times Square of Stuttgart. And when it rains, and everyone crowds into the small overhangs of the store fronts, it feels like Times Square.

When we first arrived, we grabbed a pretzel. This was meant to be a challenge, since the word pretzel is “brezel”, and is pronounced “buweh-tzel”. And if you want butter on that, “boo-teh-buweh-tzel”. Luckily, I didn’t see any butter anywhere. I jumped right in.

“Brezel, bitte.”

“Eins?” she asked, holding up her thumb.

“Ja”.

She gave me a pretzel. “Danke schoen!”

“Tschüss!”

And then we ate the pretzel. It was pretty good, but that sparked a discussion. There really wasn’t anything specific that we could identify about the pretzel. It was fairly normal. It didn’t even have butter on it, like the Auntie Anne’s you buy in Penn Station, or your local mall. It just had the proper amount of salt on it, had some crunch on the shell, and a moist center. Success!

The train brought us somewhere near the Schloßplatz, or Palace Square. I didn’t recognize it. Why would I?

We walked on. This is a pretty typical area.

We walked on. Eventually, we got hungry. But instead of eating, we kept going.

After near starvation, we stuffed some currywurst in our faces.

The only real redeeming feature of currywurst is the wurst itself. Delicious stuff. The actual curry used here wasn’t particularly amazing. Good enough for starving children, however. And the fries were good.

And then we walked right into this:

And something triggered in my head. I’ve seen this before! I was here for Cannstatter Volksfest (an Oktoberfest for Stuttgart) four years ago. I went with my brother and his friend John, and we threw an American football around in the square in front of the palace! That was a night that deserves a story all on it’s own. It was neat to see again.

In an effort to eat every popular German food in less than a week, we also got a doner kabab. This went significantly less smoothly than ordering the pretzel.

“Hallo. Eins, bitte,” I said, ordering Menu Item Number One. I forgot to add the word “nummer” to that sentence, but it worked out.

“Blarg blarg blarg” the cashier said. The only thing I caught was something that might have been roll, and since the kebabs were sold either on a roll or a wrap. I wanted a wrap, but the previous person ordered on a roll. So, assuming the cashier was asking which one I wanted, I pointed to the roll.

“Was ist das?” I said. Even though I am clearly a native German speaker, I had no idea what a “roll” was.

“Blarg.” said the cashier. He seemed to understand my situation, and pointed to the wrap. “Oder blarg.”

I pointed to the wrap. “Dies”.

He said some other things, but the only word I caught was “trink”, which means “drink”. Ha ha! I know what he’s asking!

“Nein, danke!”

That was not a proper response, because he paused, looked at me strangely, “blarg”ed a few times, and the order was complete. I handed him too much money, he made change, and I took my food to Alissa, who was waiting outside.

Neither of us was hungry enough to eat the whole thing.

On the way home, we picked up some absoutly disgusting looking meat product. I want to test the limits. It’s probably going to be delicious.