Grant and I recently tried out Flixbus, a low cost bus transit system in Europe, to visit friends in southern Germany. We booked our trip between Christmas and New Year’s so it was a relatively busy time of the year. But even so, the booking and the trip there went very smoothly (we will be featuring Flixbus in a future post).
We transferred once in Munich but got to Stuttgart airport on time. Our friends J and T were there to pick us up, thus, beginning our fun New Year’s visit.
This time of year in Germany sees a lot of snow on the ground. Unfortunately for us, the temperature was just hovering above freezing so the snow was beginning to melt on our tobogganing day. Never-the-less, we were in the Black Forest and our surrounding snow landscape was beautiful and peaceful. On the rare occasion when we were silent, the only sounds were that of a quiet forest with the occasional tuft of snow melting and falling off of a looming pine tree.
This was my first time tobogganing/sledging so I didn’t know what to expect. We picked a pretty long hill that got steep towards the end. Since the snow was beginning to melt, the ice was very slushy. Using the plastic toboggan, I was able to gain a lot of speed which made me nervous at first, but because the slope straightened out at the end with plenty of space, my fears were allayed and it got really fun. And then the downside was realized…
You have to walk back UP the hill. And since the snow was very slushy, it was hard to find footing and get enough friction to pull yourself up. So it took a lot of time and effort to climb back up. I really noticed I needed to make “working out” a priority on my New Year’s resolutions list. Grant had the hardest work out because he wore his nice leather “work” shoes and had covered them up with plastic bags secured at the calf with rubber bands. This made his feet water proof but, for sure, not slip proof. I think we all averaged about 2 and a half toboggan runs before we decided to call it quits.
Afterwards, J had the idea to take us to Stuttgart and tour the TV tour there. The evening was still young so we figured that would be fun.
But first, we stopped to get dinner. All that snow-walking really made us hungry!
We got to the TV tower (Fernsehturm in German) just after sunset. We figured the view of the city would be amazing. And it was! What we didn’t anticipate was the winter wind that would be blowing around at that elevation. It was soooo cold and soooo windy, we felt we definitely deserved the cappuccino’s afterwards at the panoramic view cafe at the top (a rotating city view experience if one were inebriated).
Grant’s Latte looks strangely like a beer in that lighting. LOL. Glad you were both well enough to travel and have some fun.
Ha! Like a good old fashioned Buzz Beer from the Drew Carey Show. Either way, it warmed me up.