In certain quarters and company, I'd assume a visit to Berlin would transport one to a world of avant-garde minimalist/nihilist/abstract art and urbanity. For me, it felt like visiting a friend in college in Boston: lots of 90s clothes, smoking allowed in bars, accented but fluent English speakers, some industrial grit, and a gal pal host finding her way in her newly adopted town. We even went to a club, well after midnight, which I did approximately one time in college -- and took molly, which I did zero times in college. (For those of you keeping score, that's yet another drug that had absolutely no effect on me; thanks, I think?, liver.) It was lovely to see Cleo and talk about Alaska and gossip about Coldfoot coworkers.
Next, I visited Heidelberg and got to talk with a fellow trekker about Bhutan, which already feels like it was three years ago instead of three months. The cold gray skies and damp hilly woods surrounding the city reminded me strongly of northern Michigan. Vineyards stretch along slopes north of the city, and you can walk from tidy, quiet village to tidy, quiet village alongside backyard-cum-garden plots.
A sort of fairytale atmosphere carried on in Ludwigsburg. The former was an archetypal European city, with old palace, town square with market, good train connections, small university, and blend of old and young families. I visited a nice couple I met in India, born and bred Swabians who were pleasantly surprised I was familiar with pretzels and spatzle. Fabian took it upon himself to make sure I ate a wide variety of tasty, weird meat, including bologna studded with pieces of vegetables and nuts; a white veal sausage you painstakingly dislodge from its casing; maultaschen -- pasta stuffed with ground meat, then sautéed; and to finish out the day, Burger King vegetable-protein-chicken. We had just seen "Hansel and Gretel" at the Stuttgart Opera, so I guess all the talk of sweetmeats made us hungry.
