Stuttgart

Hi All
Last weekend was one of the finest in last few days, barring the fact that the Sunday was a little too hectic.
Saturday: The best part of Saturday was that I got up as late as 10am. Though 10am may not be very late by the standards of many, for me it was quite a sleep after a long time. I made breakfast (kanda pohe and tea). I have got Sachin's laptop for some time.. so then I put on my fav music and started playing FIFA (RTWC). :) And it was amazing feeling to do so.. it felt really good to be doing things that you love so much.. wondered how long it lasted.. in evening went to Saturn. At night, made egg fried rice :).. wherein the rice was cooked without the cooker (in microwave).. was not really cooked all that well.. but with egg, everything tastes well..

On Sunday, Harshad and I went to Stuttgart. We were suppose to take the train at 6:07am. Harshad arrived at 6:35.. :(
so we took 7:07am train. The main plan was to visit the Mercedes Benz Museum ( http://www.mercedes-benz.com/com/d/home/heritage/museum/index.html ). We reached the museum at 11:30. There we saw the first automobile in this world. There were cars galore.. cars from 1900 to 2004.. some very royal cars.. the entire history of Mercedes Benz was unfolded. Amongst the notable few were

1. 1931 Mercedes-Benz 770 "Grand Mercedes" Cabriolet F - Used by German Emperor Wilhelm II
2. 1965 Mercedes-Benz 600 Landaulet - Used as Pope Paul VI
3. 1989 Mercedes-Benz C 9 Gruppe C - an amazing race car

But.. the one that stood out (for me) was the F1 car used by Kimi Reikkonen last year:) I got to actually see, touch an F1 car... it was awesome.. (though not a Ferrari).. It was a car that had challenged Schumacher for the championship.. I have taken a snap of me sitting in an F1 car.. :) Sounds unbelievable for me..

Some facts: It was earlier called Daimler Benz.. later renamed after Daimlers daughter - Mercedes. They have made, apart from cars, aircrafts and boats as well. Most of the German aircrafts in World War II were powered by Daimler engines.

Another thing I learnt there is that never go to a museum with a person who has bought a 10x optical zoom, 128MB space digital camera a week back. Harshad took avg 5 snaps per car. 128MB looked meagre.. It was the fact that the museum closes at 5pm that we had to leave. Otherwise Harshad would have found the entire day a little too less to satisfy his photographic curiosities.
The luch I had was pathetic.. the only veg thing that was available was some tomato sandwich type.. so i thought lets take a fruitcake.. the taste of it didnt do any justice to the effort that must have gone in the making of that cake (by the looks of it)
We didnt know what else was there to be seen in Stuttgart.. So we asked a person in the train and he suggested us a place called Schlossplatz, (http://www.stuttgart.de/sde/menu/frame/top_11089_11101.htm) which was in the centre of the city.. it was a very beautiful place with gardens, lots of beautiful fountains, lake, great old buildings and beautiful hill on the horizon. Crowded by lots of beautiful ppl as well.. Had a real nice time..

The return journey was pretty late. Reached Frankurt at midnight.

Today there is hardly any work. Its the first day of acceptance testing.. so enjoying :)

-Abhijeet