Day 34! (July 26)

Today was great fun :) but im ready for a good sleep too :)! I have officially been in Germany for one month now.. Its incredible as it noway feels that long! A wanna stay longer sooooo much!! Its great here ay!! My german is still reasonably basic, but i can communicate, and can follow almost everything thats going on.. And its improving.. But im leaving soon :(. Oh well..

Anyways, today I got up a little later and had a shower and some breakfast and all and then checked my emails and all that. Today I'm gonna go to Tübingen to visit a New Zealander I know a little, and who is studying there called Tanya. I was gonna go last week, but it worked out better this week as she was finished with exams and all that, so it was cool!!

Around 11ish me and Mrs Kirste headed off to do some stuff in Stuttgart and visit Mr Kirste at his work. First off we stopped at the petrol station to top up the air in Arianes bike tyres that I was gonna borrow for the day. And after that we headed off into the city and met Mr Kirste outside in the lobby of the MASSIVE complex that is the Landesbank Baden Wüttemberg. While waiting Tanya rang up to check when id arrive. It was so weird switching for german to english, communicate to her in english then to Mrs Kirste in german.. ha ha my brain got a little tied in a knot for a second or two :). Oh! Also while waiting we saw the boss of the whole massive bank come out and jump into a car that instantly drove off. He had an awesome navy blue suit on.. very cool :).

Once we had met up with Mr Kirste we walked to the office canteen which was huge! There were all kinds of things to eat, and you could pretty much mix and match whatever you wanted! It was cool! I had a fish steak, some wedges and some zucchinis and a glass of water with a tiramasu with strawberries for a dessert (phwoar!). Around the canteen were works of 'art' as were all over the bank. Most of these were pretty rubbish.. but a few were quite nice! After finshing up the meal we went to where Mr Kirste works. This place was amazing. A big open plan office and everyones got like at least 3 screens on the go and a few communal screens with news and stuff on them. There are graphs and stats and phone numbers and millions of telehpones and intercoms everywhere! Looks like when things were busy it would be absolutely crazy!! He deals with buying and selling bonds and stuff, and with that comes hedging and exchange rates and all that too. Must be reasonably stressful! But it was a very impressive place to behold (and that was just one room in a huge complex!!).

The cell phone I was using had died so after finishing at Mr Kirstes work we headed quickl home for a few minutes to top it up a little then Me and Mrs Kirste drove to Tübingen. We got some heavy traffic and pretty much every red light possible, so instead of getting there at 2 it was more like 2:15.. but that was ok. We drove to the trainstation where we had organised to meet, and after getting my bike outta the car and saying hi, Mrs Kirste left to go shopping for a bit (I hear she bought a small mountain of towels and washcloths and stuff on sale :D). Me and Tanya hopped on our bikes and headed out to a lake that she had found a few weeks ago that was 5 km outside Tübingen. First off we chatted in German, altho my German is ok but not very fluent, so I couldnt say everything and all but that was fine (her german is amazing! She went to primary school here and has citizenship.. so yeah :) she could pretty much speak as well as any old german could). After a while we switched over to English coz we could both speak that well, and chatted while riding out to the lake. The countryside that we rode through to get there was really pretty. First off a bit of the city, and then past a big swimming pool and some sports fields and parks, and then into the countryside through lotsa corn and grain fields and stuff. Ha ha my NZ riding instincts kept on kicking in and I often had to pull over a bit, or suddenly head back to the right when an oncoming vehicle or rider came along (or one who wanted to overtake). and 5km later we were there.

The lake was an artificial one made due to a quarry previously being there I think, but it was really beautiful! There were lots reed type plants around, and a bit of sludge in the water.. but it was pretty clean, although very green. Once we arrived we prretty much jumped straight into the water as it was pretty hot and we had just biked out there. There werent too many people at the lake either which was cool.. altho ALOT of the people who were there were stark naked :) ha ha Europeans.... You kinda didnt know where to look some of the time.. but it wasnt too bad really. I dunno if all lakes out in the country are like that, or if this one was a known naked hangout.. but anyway.. we kept our togs on and headed out into the water. In the water it was really pleasant, not cold at all. And we kinda treaded water for a while and chatted, then took a breather and floted around for a bit then talked some more. After a wee while we headed back to shore and lay down on some towels in the sun (it was reasonably overcast htho which was cool).

It was cool to be able to talk to someone from New Zealand again, it was really refreshing and nice to be able to talk about stuff without having to think how to put it in a way which I could express easily. We lay on the towels and had a chat, and also ate some fruit and biscuits that tanya had brought along with her. Time flew by, n soon it was 5:15, but we chatted some more and then after a while hopped back into the water for another swim. It was seriously a beautiful place ay!! I could spend many lazy days there :), bring a barbeque or something, lotsa fresh fruit and a chilly bin full of cold water and drinks and itd be totally awesome ay! I was so glad we went there. Later on we dried off and got back on our bikes and went a slightly different route home which was even more beautiful! On the was we saw a little (semi-natural?) dam that you could walk down to so we headed down for a while. It was really beautiful and there were some lovely reflections, and a little section of rapids where the water ran over the dam. There was another old guy there taking photos of a young girl who was all made up and wearing hardly any clothes.. but we left them to do their photo shoot thing, and after a few minutes enjoying the view and trying to take a few photos we headed back on our way.

Once back in Tübingen we were both pretty hungry (quite a few hours of biking and swimming) so after a little bike tour through the old-inner city (GORGEOUS!!) we stopped at a shop to buy some doner kebabs and drink. Oh! on the way we passed one of those streets where each house had its own little bridge over a little river to its doorway. Tanya pointed out a really cool little door with an equally little bridge. It was cute! I should have stopped and photgraphed it.. anyways. With our doner kebabs we walked our bikes a few meters and sat down on the stairs on the big main church in the old city. If you look at this photo at my flickr site http://www.flickr.com/photos/richardneill/194024307/ we woulda been sitting just below the person you can see in the right of the photo, on some stairs leading up to the church. Accross from where we were eating was a bookshop where Herman Hesse used to work (cool!!) we studied a couple of his poems in German.. so it was pretty amazing to see some little shop where he actually worked! The doner kebabs were great (and huge for only €2.50) and the cola-orange mix that I bought (made by coke) was really nice too! (they should really release that over in NZ!!). Naturally since we were eating doner kebabs it was a bit messy and I got some on my shorts, and the ground infront of tanya got some too.. but it was all good :)!! There were a few wasps flying around bothering us (probably coz there was an overflowing public bin nearby), but it was really nice. Around 8 we jumped back on our bikes and Tanya showed me how to get to the main train station. :) I said goodbye, and after making a fool of myself on the basket on the back of Arianes bike, headed off and bought my ticket for me and my bike (which didnt get checked.. again..) and hopped on the 8:15 train back to home.

On the trainride home I got to watch the sun set (totally breathtaking!!) The sun was this huge red globe lighting up the sky all pink.. it was amazing. I took quite a cool pic (the best I could from a speeding train). I was so tempted to get out and take lotsa photos and just catch a later train.. but Mr Kirste was gonna be waiting for this train, so I didnt. After a bit of stress caused my poor labelling on the trainstations I got off at Plochingen and loaded the bike up into the car and drove home. By then it was 9.30ish and after saying hi to Heidi and Andreas and Björn and Ariane I hopped on here and loaded up some photos and wrote out todays blog. Oh and at the moment Im talking to Louise, my swedish contact person on MSN which is cool too! Its getting late tho so ill prolly head off soon.

Later!