Europe Tour 2019: Stuttgart and Heilbronn

[tcpip]

A journey to the other side of the world involves some time which, despite the best efforts of carriers (Etihad in this instance), is always a little hard on the body, even with a short stop-over in Abu Dhabi. Of course, it's a first-world problem at worst. At least one has the opportunity to catch up on movies and readings, and this trip was no exception in that regard. Having found a couple of Norman Spinrad books I re-read my rather battered second copy of Bug Jack Barron, which I thoroughly enjoyed, again. I then watched a few disappointing episodes of Family Guy, a show I normally enjoy for being a bit edgy and dank, followed by the decidely average horror film, The Curse of La Llorona, before concluding on a few excellent episodes of season 2 of Westworld, which continues its conflict-laden exploration of complex androids turning on their creators who have abused them for years.

Arriving in Frankfurt we were waved through customs and passport in a matter of minutes and was lucky enough to have trains waiting for us at both the airport and at Frankfurt HBh to take us to Stuttgart. Due to pure luck we had arrived on German Unity Day, which was utterly devoid of nationalistic nonsense, at least where we were. It was a public holiday and long-weekend, which primarily means family activities and staying with die familie in Stuttgart, we provided our usual bag of gifts which the growing Kinder always enjoy, along with some wines and a bottle of Vantage, an interesting lemon myrtle liquor for the adults. The agenda has been quite busy already; on the first day we went to the Heilbronn Bundesgartenschau, which is basically an open-air botanical museum and festival along the banks of the Necker, which also paraded various environmental and urban renewal of former industrial sites. The following day we returned to Heilbronn for Experimenta, a multi-story interactive workshop and science show, again aimed for kids, but also highly educational as well.

Comments

[warriorsavant]

Concur about "First World Problems." Last time I took a long flight (to Japan), spent 28 hours in transit, including multiple forms of transportation (walk, taxi, subway, bus, flights, shuttle van). I was totally wasted at the end of it, and complaining to myself about it. Then stopped and reflected that in 28 hours, I had gone entirely to the other side of the world. Door-to-door from my condo in a large city in the middle of America to a hotel in a small city on the southern-most island in Japan in only 28 hours!

[tcpip]

Yes, exactly. It is taxing on the body, and sometimes even the mind, but with the benefits one receives it is hard to complain too much.

(I think of my friend, Q, who I had dinner with last night. He was a refugee from the Syrian Civil War and is now settled in Belgium. The stories of what he had to go through to get here are quite extraordinary)

[warriorsavant]

Yes, definitely puts "first world problems" in perspective.