went on a day trip to Stuttgart yesterday. we visited the Mercedes Benz museum. the building's cool. you start at the top level and walk down. it's supposed to capture some historical stuff too, but i think it's like 95% on mercedes benz and the company history. and here and there, they throw in random bits of historical events. and that's only on the wall displays. i must have passed a thousand cars in there. all Merc. ya i was only interested in the early motors and the middle parts was kind of boring to someone who's not a car-enthusiast. but having said that, i must add it was okay enough to make me spend 2 hours plus in it.

i was totally not interested in the racing cars.

this one's cool man. it was made in 1991!!! it's so ahead of it's time.

well then we went to the Stadtmitte and walked around a bit. i had macs cheeseburger for lunch. costs 1 euro, so it's like double the price home. it tastes the same though. the Schlossplatz is cool..

i'm obsessed with toilets. this one cost me 30 cents. i'd say that although the idea of the all-automated toilet is cool, (and it looks cool) it's still kind of dirty.

ok it's actually still 6 June. it's 11.30 pm. i just came back from watching a local high-school theatre production with the other students, where i understood nearly zero. the play was called "Fruehlings Erwachen". after the intermission i totally blanked. the school was so far from the city centre.. and it was an upward slope all the way. (which fortunately made the return trip easy).

on the way back we passed by this cherry tree. and they all picked some so i did, too. well i picked ONE. lol. from the nearest branch. a friend helped me pick more cos i was too short to reach the other fruits. yes, and they are edible. i ate them without washing.

Erdbeeren!! from my Japanese classmate Emi, who got this from her friend. she must have thought i got depressed after not buying those strawbs at the market or something. haha anyway they are really nice. hm then i asked her how to pronounce my name in japanese and turned out it's "Ou Keishi". what kind of name is that??? lol.

my classroom. i sit where the blue bottle is.

i am so glad nothing's awry with my Lobelia. cos yesterday it looked... well, not promising. but maybe it was just the weather. cos today the sun finally shined again!! and it's warm (in a positive way). pretty weather.

so since the weather's friendly, i went to the post office and then to the general store to buy chocolates. and to walk around and take photos a bit.

the Goethe-Institut building. it was formerly a hospital.

St.Michael Kirche. the big staircase is also used as stage for outdoor theatre performances.

where i stay.

today was market day. the market days in this town are wednesdays and saturdays. so the teacher made us go to the market and interview people about their diet, health, organic and GM food, etc. i bought a small pot of mini blue-violet-ish flowers :) cos i have practically no friend here so i want SOMETHING to talk to. lol. nah i just like flowers a lot. i'm not good at this, though, i don't have green fingers [in sec2 i was the rep and all the plants freaking ROTTED and attracted a lot of ants :( ] so i hope this one has a better fate. it's called Lobelia. i didn't name it. lol. i mean that is the genus. i researched a bit on wikipedia and found out its english names include Asthma weed, Pukeweed and Vomitwort. some names.

and wth it means "malevolence" or "ill-will" in the victorian language of flowers. if i'd known i wouldn't have bought it. and for myself, too!! lol. but no matter. No wonder they were called Lotto and Lobelia in LOTR (Frodo and Bilbo's relatives).

i wanted to buy some strawbs too but i decided not to cos i didn't want to leave them overnight. i made soup for lunch and dinner. still not used to the amount i should put in, so i put in a lot of carrots (as with the previous tries) and i feel so sick of carrots now (as with the previous tries). and i'm eating more of this later. haha. but it's not so bad. at least i'd like to believe so.

[of red and yellow roses and which i should pick.]

my dear Lobelia:

today i went to the library. it's called Stadtbibliothek im Glashaus. as the name suggests, it's a glass building. it's quite nice from the outside, though it looks out of place considering the other buildings are like Fachwerkhaeuser and old houses. it has english, french and italian collection as well, though they're kind of limited. for a small town, i think it's not bad. and the ambience is great. i bought two thin books at 0,50 each. german, of course. lol. they were having a small book sale. i figured it's more sensible than getting the card that costs 8 euros for 3 months (since i'm only staying here for a month)

the counter:

here's a video from Bryan Adams, Rod Stewart and Sting. hope you like it:

the most rubbish thing here is that you need to pay to use the public washroom and it costs 0,50 E. that's terrible!! especially for people like me who need the washroom all the time. anyway yesterday i was "homeless" cos i reached Schwaebisch Hall and the hostel wasn't open so i had to stay in a dismal room in this dilapidated building. lol.

this is the corridor:
anyway i ate chips from this tube and now i think it's been tampered with! lol. no wonder the crisps were so weird. like very hard to bite. tsk.


so. now i'm staying at this hostel. this is my side of the room. my neighbour has yet to arrive. i hope she'll be a nice roommate. after the housekeepers came and cleaned up, the room's quite pleasant. the town is.. okay.. ytd when i arrived it was like a ghost town cos it was sunday. but it seems quite nice now that i see some semblance of life as monday breathes some vitality into the town.
and the shower: