A foul stench. . .
Walking down the street in Frankfurt, a strange thing happened. A stranger offered me a car. A brand new smart car (one of those tiny go-cart things). It was a test drive session. I gave them my name and info (but no credit card) and they let us foreigners drive around town for 15 minutes to half an hour. We needed the 1/2 hour, as it took us that long to figure out where we were, and to get going in the general direction of where we started.
Later, as I opened my bag in Frankfurt, a foul stench exploded into my face.*
I’m not sure what was the cause, but as we’ve been travelling, our standards of what clean clothing is has definitely changed. So we decided to go somewhere nice and get clean. We traveled from Frankfurt down to the little picturesque town of Bad Wildbad. Don’t worry, it was actually quite tame and quiet, despite the name. Bad wildbad means something like “bath wild bath” and is known for its spas. We signed up for a package for lovers, which included two nights, two 4 course dinners, two breakfasts, and entrance to the Palais Thermal, which had 5 saunas, steam baths, and more pools than we could count. It was a nice relaxing break from the rest of the hectic traveling we’ve been doing. We also decided to take advantage of our hotel room, and washed most of our clothes in the shower. We now no longer stink!
Today we travelled to Stuttgart, eating a chocolate bombe on the train (think a softball sized dessert). We managed to get signed up for a tour of the Porsche factory tour at the last minute, and were able to go tour the factory. Once again, I was drooling at the production facilities, while Sarah laughed. It was quite a neat experience, being that close to so many Porsche cars and engines.
Now we’re sitting in a hostel writing this up, but the hostel hosed us into a more expensive room, saying that they were booked up and did not hold our reservation. However since we’ve been writing this, they let in another couple who just walked in off the street asking if rooms were available. So we’re gonna not recommend the Alex 30 Hostel in Stuttgart, even though its nice. They’re money grubbing $&#%heads! Tomorrow, however, we’re off to Münich and drown our sorrows at Oktoberfest!
* Note this is Eero’s bag. Sarah’s bag did not stink as much.
