Day 7 (30 April) - Cousins!

We have to get up early, grab breakfast at the Hotel Hansablick and then drag our luggage over to the S Bahn in order to catch an 8:30 train out of the Hauptbahnhof for Stuttgart.  There’s a catch.  We have to run from Gleis 4 to Gleis 5 in Mannheim to change trains for Stuttgart.  Unfortunately, we didn’t realize that the first train ends up in Karlsruhe, which would have actually been more convenient. 

The trip down is smooth and comfortable, with the countryside green and inviting.  We are also traveling through an industrialized area, the most notable of which is apparent from the tracks as we pass through Wolfsburg, with its huge VW plant.  The old factory is in the same theme as Templehof.  It is a set of very engaging buildings.  All through the trip, a young German (of Turkish descent) sits across from us, and listens to endless recordings of Strauss on his Walkman. 

I again experience what I experienced with my mother when I drove her from Straubenhardt to Aachen in 2008.  The autobahn floats on the tops of mountains (high hills really) and then flies over fantastic valleys, filled with villages and small cities.

Stuttgart is nothing like I had imagined it.  Previously I had only been to the airport, and to an ancestral village (Nabern) to the south of the city.  We had arranged to pick up a car at the Haupbahnhof, and now I had to navigate us out of a city built on a series of peaks and valleys – really quite beautiful.  We get the car, but it is not the one we ordered.  A German man waiting in line behind us says, “Take it, they never have the one you ordered.”  Loaded up and anxious to get to Rotensol, we wend our way around the irregular streets of Stuttgart, until I notice a sign for Tübingen.  “Take that one,” I cry – praying that it will take us to the A8.

It does, and soon we are involved in a huge traffic stall, that lasts several kilometers.  We speed toward Pforzheim, and from this point on I am operating on memory.  The map is no good.  We do well, arrive in Schwann, and make our way to the Hotel Lamm in Rotensol.  Günter is there to greet us, and soon we are meeting relatives who express a great deal of joy that we are there.

Gimter

This evening is a reunion of cousins.  Some I have met, but most I have not.  I only have to say, “Ich bin Michael Hiller” and I’m in.  The guest of honor is Maria Hiller Ortlieb, Günter’s mother, and she is delighted at all who have gathered to honor her. There is wine and appetizers in the Weinstubbe, and then we all go upstairs for dinner.  In the midst of dinner I get a huge sinus headache and proceed to bed.  All will have to wait for the morrow.

Maria mit Philipp

Tobias und Arthur