It's amazing to think that I've now been in Stuttgart for 4 and a half months. Only 6 more weeks and I can claim the 6 months mark. Four and a half months doesn't sound too long, but when I put it in terms years - half a year - it suddenly becomes a much bigger amount of time.

Four and a half months brings me to the middle of December, which means that there's only another week until Christmas. In the true spirit of Christmas, Rebecca and I went shopping for nearly the entire day. Hours later we end up spending a couple hundred Euros at Ikea. Rebecca has been stalking this giant living room rug at Ikea for months, and although Ikea's online inventory system showed that the rug was out of stock, we happened upon it at Ikea today. Of course we had to get it, which later turned out to be a mistake. So we ended up purchasing two rugs (one for the living room and another for the study), a Christmas tree stand, a bunch of plastic Christmas decoration balls, and a few small miscallaneous items. From Ikea we went straight to Patch for some groceries, and then finally we headed back downtown for one last stop before going home - the local Christmas tree seller. Rebecca and I ended up quickly picking a 20 Euro fir, and within 5 minutes had the tree wrapped up in my Jeep, and we were on our way home.

It only took us 3 up and down trips on the 6 flights of stairs to get all of our stuff up, and to our massive disappointment, the big living room rug that Rebecca had been wanting for weeks and big stains all over it. It was obvious that someone had purchased the rug, used it for some point of time, and then subsequently returned the rug - for us to today buy. It'll be a pain in the ass, but against our will, we'll have to bring the rug downstairs and drive it all the way back to the Sindelfingen Ikea next time we can find time.

Aside from the rug fiasco, the rest of the evening seemed to progress nicely. I put up our first Christmas tree, and it was also my duty to string the Christmas lights while Rebecca made garlands from cranberries and popcorn. After putting up some of the lights, the garlands, and all of the decorative balls from Ikea, the tree didn't look bad at all. So that was that...

I really wish I've been more diligent with keeping up with this site, not for anyone's sake but my own. I think it would be very interesting to read back over the entries later in life as a reminder of perspectives, even just entries from the past four and a half months. For this reason I'd like to be more active in my blogging (I hate the term), but the consequence of it is when I do sit down to write something, I get way too ambitious. All of a sudden, it is overwhelming how much I want to put down, and then it becomes a huge chore. I think the resolution is to write more often, because surely I'll run out of things to write about.

I was searching for food earlier this evening along Stuttgart’s Koenigstrasse, and as I was just congratulating myself for walking by McDonald’s without giving into the temptation of a quick, familiar meal, I saw a sign for the China Garden. The sign was right on Koenigstrasse, and it said to go up to the 2nd level to find the restaurant. I haven’t had good ol’ MSG-laden, sauce heavy, Chinese food in a while, so I walked right in without even glancing to see what was on their posted menu.

I must admit that as I walked up the stairs I wasn’t expecting anything beyond your average quick, cheap, and dirty chinese restaurant. At the top of the stairs, to my left was some sort of kitchen area (judging by the sounds coming from there) and so I deduced that the restaurant must be to my right since there was no other way to go.

I was completely surprised by how nice the interior was. There was a black baby grand player piano to my left, softly playing songs. The tabletops were light pink cloth, and every place setting had a perfectly folded pink cloth napkin flanked by perfectly arranged silverware. There were flower arrangements everywhere, including some flowers that ran along the ceiling, actually fitting in with the rest of the decor. Um, I may not be appropriately dressed, I instinctively thought, before I realized that I was in a Chinese restaurant, so of course I was appropriately dressed. I was instantly impressed, but maybe most so because I was expecting so much less.

After saying my best “eins” and holding up my index finger to the host, I was brought to a corner booth. The menu consisted of your standard Chinese dishes, slightly expanded, and was reasonably priced relative to the other restaurants on the Koenigstrasse. What really caught my curiosity was Shark Fin soup, and I was very tempted to order it, but then the bleeding heart liberal side of me thought about all the poor sharks that have to die for me to try this delicacy. I silently debated for a while, but probably my lack of German saved some sharks, because I just pointed to menu dinner #1, so that I didn’t have to really say much.

First I was brought some standard egg drop soup, which I was wolfing down when they brought me the 2nd course of random fried foods. There was a mini eggroll, battered and fried strips of chicken breast, some sesame covered ball containing some dark paste, and those fried white crunchy things you find in all Asian restaurants. I was still pretty hungry at this point, so I quickly finished everything in front of me, drinking about half of my Hefeweizen Hell in the process.

They brought my main course in parts. First a metal hotplate was placed on my table with an empty plate sitting on top, and then a little later a covered metal bowl of rice was brought. Then finally after a little longer a plate was brought containing deep fried duck and chicken cooked in some sort of sauce. The empty plate was moved to in front of me, and the new meat plate took it’s place on the metal hotplate. They also brought some thick soup, which I wasn’t sure if it was actually soup or some sort of dressing for my duck. I already wasn’t hungry anymore, but I knew I had to push on, fighting the good fight. The chicken was decent, and the duck was pretty good. Occasionally I would have a spoonfull of the “soup,” but not too much in case they were laughing behind my back because it was dressing. After that was finished I was brought a bowl of assorted fruit for desert, which was actually quite nice.

It’s pretty hard to top the Super Buffet Chinese restaurant in West Ashley, South Carolina, so I think the China Garden will have to be my favorite European Chinese restaurant. Apparently I haven’t been the only person to be impressed by the place, because as I was leaving, so completely full it was hard for me to walk, I noticed there’s a wall covered in photographs of celebrities and dignitaries with signed messages thanking the China Garden. Well, I assumed they were German celebrities and dignitaries, because I didn’t recognize a single person, but there sure were a lot of them.

Tomorrow marks my first full week of living in Stuttgart. It has seemed much longer than a week, and I’m surprised as I write this that it has only been that short of a time period. It’s been quite a busy week with all of my admin stuff as well as trying to catch up to speed with everything going on at work.

I’ve been living in the Millenium Hotel for the last 6 nights, so I’ve got quite a ways to go. I reserved a full month, but from what others have been saying, it may be a long time before I find a suitable house or apartment. I think 30 days here at the Millenium won’t be too bad, but I don’t know how much longer I can stand it after that. It’s nice waking up to a breakfast consisting of basically whatever I want, and it’s nice always having a clean room. For 6 out of the 7 nights I’ve been in Stuttgart, I’ve had dinner at one of the handful of restaurants here at the Millenium complex, and that’s quickly becoming one of the major drags. Already I’m not digging having to eat out every night. The 189 Euro/month for 2Gbs of wireless internet is also a huge downer. Damn you Swiss Telecom.

Basically my routine for this week has been to wake up around 8-ish, shower, dressed, and then find my way downstairs to have breakfast. Normally I’m not a breakfast person, but when you’ve got nearly everything you could want for breakfast, neatly made out for you, it’s hard to resist. So I manage to gorge myself in the mornings and then walk to work, since it’s only 15 minutes. For most of the week I’ve done mostly admin stuff trying to get all my paperwork and ID/access cards in order so that I can actually begin real work. When lunch rolls around I haven’t been hungry (probably due to my huge breakfasts), but someone at work has volunteered to cook something 3-4 days out of this week. With no incentive to leave work early, I’ve been there until 6-7 most of the nights this week. So when I get home, I’ve been playing on the computer for a while, and then going downstairs to drink beer and eat dinner.

Alright, I’ve procrastinated enough. It’s time to go to bed.

Today marks the last week that I’ll be in Charleston before leaving for Germany.  In some ways I was glad that things were slightly delayed because I got to spend time with friends whom I won’t be seeing for a while.  This is going to be a hectic week as I have to start packing and finishing up a ton of stuff that I’ve been meaning to do (and putting off). 

Interesting times….

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