Day One in Germany

So this is my first full day in Germany and even though it is not over yet I wanted to share every thing I've done today. I woke up today at 9:30. For starters this was such a luxury, I have been getting up before 6:45 this whole trip so 9:30 made me feel like royalty.

When I came in to the kitchen for breakfast I had no idea what to expect. I walked in and saw that there was a bowl of breads ans a platter of meats and cheeses. As I'm helping my host parents finish up breakfast, they pull eggs out of what looked like a steamer. I was a little hesitant about that because I'm not one who usually likes eggs in other forms other than scrambled. However they ended up being delicious! It was kinda weird to scoop my eggs out of the shell with a spoon, but they tasted great! The other part of our meal that I just absolutely loved were the pretzels. I'm not talking about your standard Rold Gold or Snyder's, no we had
honest to good hand made pretzels from a little bakery not far from the house. They were absolutely amazing!
I learned that they are often eaten here with butter, but I tried mine with butter, jam, salami and a cheese that I don't know the name of (not all at once). I loved it so much I'm not sure I'll be able to enjoy a soft pretzel with nacho cheese ever again, that's probable for the better though.

After breakfast we took off to pick up Annika's (the girl that is hosting me and Dan) friend and Tim, Tim is staying with the friend. They took us to a tower in Stuttgart that was the equivalent of going to the observation deck of the Willis/Sears tower. The view from up there was absolutely amazing and pictures will never do it justice. At the base of the tower there seemed to be some sort of firefighter training thing going on that was turned into a public event, but the coolest part was from the top of the tower firefighters were repelling over the side of the tower all the way to the ground. I thought it looked fun, but it was easy to tell that some of the people up there were terrified for the lives of those firefighters. Once we were done at the top we went down (in an elevator, don't worry we did not repel down the side) to have lunch. I had no idea what anything on the menu was because it was all in German, so we had Annika order for us. She ended up getting us this dish that was cut up sausage chunks drowned in ketchup and sprinkled with curry powder. It was really tasty, and probably more ketchup than I've had in the last year.

After lunch we went went in to Stuttgart to walk around the main street there. Its a really cool area with lots of stores and restaurants. The one thing there that you wont be able find in Chicago is a castle, and they have two! Before we were able to get much sight seeing done we were rained on, hard. We took cover under a building I could have been a courthouse, but I think it was just a restaurant. Once the rain stopped we went and checked out a really neat car show, with some really cool cars!

So far I am having tons of fun here in Germany, and latter Annika is taking us bowling so that will a great time too! And the rumor is that we probably will be going to an amusement park tomorrow, the fun just never seems to end!

-Noah Tunney