Schwäbisches Toast

So, Stuttgart. I bequeath unto you the whole story, because it's hot and I can't fall asleep.

First: Apparently one of the other 3 students had a deadline on Friday morning, so he threw a small hissyfit about spending the night in Stuttgart. So our plans changed (much to my dismay, because I had packed a day's worth of clothing in my backpack before I went to class - not enough time to go home between the end of class and the last possible train to arrive in Stuttgart on time.) Instead of riding the train, spending the night in a hostel, and then riding the train back the next day, we rented a car, drove there and drove back all in one grand evening. The change of plans gave me a chance to run home, dump out all of the unnecessary crap from my bag, run back into town, and hitch a ride in the rented automobile.

So, we drove in a "mini-van," which was nothing bigger than my grandmother's Buick Lucerne. It was very awkward - 4 real Germans and a German-looking American who still has trouble discerning syllables in this god-awful Franconian dialect by which I am surrounded. We got to drive on the Autobahn, which, thanks to rush-hour, many stalled vehicles, and construction, was not the exhilarating experience it could have been. We arrived in Stuttgart about 2.5 hours before the show began, so the professor drove us to a part of the city he enjoyed when HE went to school (in Stuttgart). Turns out it was actually very interesting - it was an entire section of between-the-wars modern architecture rebuilt after being blown to smithereens by the Allies. It was actually very cool to see all of these bauhaus-inspired designs in real life. As the spirit moved me, I reached into my backpack to discover that I left my camera at home. Ugh.

Well, we walked around for about 30 minutes, decided we were hungry but not "big meal" hungry, so we stopped at a little cafe (also very bauhaus.) I had a buttered pretzel and a bottle of water (gosh it's so hot....). Somebody had hot milk with white chocolate and a scone, the professor had a coke and croissant, and the other two had some cappuccino. All of us were finished with our drinks and snacks, all ready to go, when somebody spoke up and said "wait, I haven't gotten my toast yet." At first I was like "we're waiting for some toast? OMG, let's just ditch your whimpy pieces of crusty bread." Of course, I didn't want to be the jerk, so I sat there and tried to understand the partially-understandable sentences being thrown about. Something about Carrie Bradshaw and Neil Patrick Harris. Who knows.

And then out comes the toast. It's a panini. I was like "that is not toast. that's a panini." I received the most confused looks ever, only to be followed by "no, it's toast." I then had to describe that toast is a piece of toasted bread alone - you can put some butter, jam, or whatever sorted variety of spread you wish. But once you take two grill-toasted pieces of bread and smack lettuce, tomato, mustard, cheese, and deli meats between them, it becomes a panini. Remove the toasted bread and replace with lightly-toasted or "straight-out-of-the-bag" slices of bread, then you have simply a sandwich. This was apparently completely novel to them. "Americans must come from a bread culture, because you have so many different names for toast. You know some Canadians have many different words for snow." It took all of my inner strenght to resist rolling my eyes and to say "but it's not toast." After this short episode, the three students realized that I could both understand what they said and come up with reasonably intelligent responses, so I was no longer that tag-along American: I was a partially-fledged speaking partner (I still spent many conversation topics staring across the table trying to figure out whether they are talking smack about me). It was very liberating and rewarding. But I still refuse to call what was on that plate "toast."

Anyway, afterward we made our way to the un-air-conditioned Opera House, which was all fun and dandy. We had nosebleed seats and the person next to me smelled of halitosis. The performance was good - nothing particularly notable, but better than what I've seen in Austin. It would have been more pleasant if I had about 3 inches more legroom to avoid cramping and/or a 20 degree cooler environment to avoid the perpetual flow of perspiration. Afterward, it was still light outside and we were for real hungry (or at least I was.) It was almost 10pm and dusk was just arriving, so we made our way to the main square. At this time the one who ordered "toast" did something that made me laugh because of the irony: he pulled out his iPhone and looked up the closest fast-food restaurants. He suggested Burger King (you have to pronounce it the way a German would - Bohrguhr Keeng) and started talking about this big-bacon-ranch-something cheeseburger and how delicious it was. I wanted to laugh, because I'm pretty sure they expected that from me. Or maybe it was a joke - but I'm pretty sure it was serious from this kid.

Anyway, majority ruled it out (mostly because we were starving and there were other places to eat within a closer radius), so I partook in my usual "oh my god I can't believe how high the prices are on these menus" meal - a 9 euro bowl of pasta.

When we were done, we hopped back in the car and went crazy on the autobahn. Without the traffic or the daytime construction (the Germans would never be caught doing nighttime road construction), we could just fly by. It was very liberating to drive 180km/hr for some stretches and pass those slowpokes. It makes me want to take my car onto I-40 between Amarillo and the Oklahoma border and just go super-fast. The need for speed consumed me momentarily.

So I didn't have the opportunity to explore Stuttgart at my leisure, but it's OK. I think I saw the really important things: We drove by the Mercedes-Benz world headquarters, saw some super-modern and super-sleek buildings (very similar in style to those built in downtown Austin after the Frost building). I kicked myself a little because I forgot my camera. But it's OK, even if I had my camera I probably would have refrained from going super-tourist because I had to act all calm and cool in front of people whom I would actually have to see again (one of whom will give me a grade at the end of the semester.)

So now I'm here. Tomorrow I will pack (hopefully my camera, too) and get ready for some Berlin.