Day 1: Ludwigsburg, Bahnhof, Platzmarkt

Hallo Freunden! These initial updates are going to seem a bit mundane as we've thus far only done things that rate mundane at best at home but are rather challenging for us here in Germany. Here goes.

Yesterday began after a night of Sleep-of-the-Dead. This time change business is really goofing Roni and I up and we are making every attempt to keep "normal" hours. We didn't really have any food at our house so out to door we went. Incidentally, we live next door to a real place called Fight Club in Ludwigsburg. They may make soap there, too, but I'm not certain. See Fight Club Rules No. 1 and 2.

When we left, we had only some broken directions about a grocery being only a few blocks away. We later discovered that there is, in fact, a little normal-looking market a few blocks away and right next to the train station. Good to know. Meanwhile we roamed more than a few blocks away and found what looked like a mall and there was a grocery in there, too. This one was about a third the size of a normal Safeway and had everything we needed although we didn't know when we left that all the cool kids bring their own grocery bags. We scoured most of the store before Roni ran next door to the HM (there are lots of these here) and grabbed us some €10 reusable grocery bags and came back. As we checked out, we found some (albeit less high quality) for €.20. Lesson learned. When we got home, we napped. That was pretty tiring. 

After a nap, I practiced my upcoming recital music for a little while. I'm splitting the recital with Roni and I am playing Brahms Sonata No. 2, Mvt. 2, Mandat Folk Songs, a piece called Swing Suite by Wayne Jaeckel (3 movements of fun, stereotypical, unaccompanied jazz), and Schubert Der Hirt auf Dem Felsen. She's singing some Ned Rorem tunes and a few others, though I'm not 100% and she's sleeping. There are posters of us all over campus!

I'll post a program closer to the recital.

Later, I had a meeting with some folks from the University. We had a tour of campus and viewed some of the musical and educational facilities. Our new piano colleague drove us to there. This was very helpful as we could see at least part of the city. I'm going to head out for a run after writing this and see if I can learn a little more about the layout of the city. We have a map that shows some big parks but it's hard to tell if they are somewhere a person can run. The drivers seem to drive with an "all-in" mentality and really aren't watching for people on foot or even in other cars. We rode the S Bahn home with few major disasters. Despite buying our tickets at the kiosk (in English, mind you) one of ours was €1.20 and the other was €2.30. We have no idea why. No one checked our tickets. As we detrained, we headed back home with a minor miscalculation in navigation but got to see a little more of the city. I am hoping that we can see the castle today as I think it is just up the street from us and about halfway between our cozy little loft and school. More on this later. 

After returning from school, we walked to Robin and Kathy's future hotel and found that it's on our street and only about .59 miles away.

We came home and I started on a luxurious dinner of pasta with some fresh bread we grabbed near the train station. To turn off our brains a little before bed, we watched some Family Guys we have saved on our computers (in English). There's nothing mindless about watching TV in another language. Now for Day 2. Auf wiedersehen!