Editor’s Note: Ben is busy. Like… We can’t quite describe how busy Ben is, with this whole “Master’s Program” aside from pointing to the lack of updates, hiking, climbing, and even gym time. In short – Thank you, dear readers, for bearing with him while he get’s his world in order.
I live in Europe!
And, if you haven’t heard, Europe has a tendency to be a bit beautiful.
From fancy dinners with farmers market mushrooms, to the River Liffey at night, to brunch dates with friends, and everything in between… Europe has been lovely, and is treating me quite well. I haven’t had as much time for pure photography, throughout this MBA program, but I’ve taken what time I can to appreciate these amazing new views as best I can.
After making my way to Dublin, I set about getting used to town. Finding an apartment, adventures, climbing gyms and lifting weights… all of those revolve around good food. And hey – If I’m going to be settling into a city, I’ve got to know where the good food is, right?
And so, I started exploring.
I went with my Dad’s suggestion for finding the best restaurants in the North End, from when I first moved to Boston to start working on my Undergrad degree – “Wander around, follow your nose, and trust in what smells good.”
I wandered, I kept my senses open, and found quite a few good spots!
I’ll actually avoid listing them all out here, unlike the other cities I’ve wandered, simply because there were too many and I wasn’t keeping as tight a set of records as I was while on the Grand Adventure – but that’s fine. I’m settled down here, right? I don’t need to enumerate every little spot… I’ll be here for a while, and I can always find the good places again when I need.
Wednesday, 24-July-2024, through Monday, 29-July-2024
Coming from Zermatt, Stuttgart was about as different as you could get.
No mountains soaring above the skyline, warmer air, and cars all around – it was lovely, but definitely a slight shock to the system as I stepped off the train and started to get my bearings. Thankfully the first part of the walk to my hostel was through a park, which was a nice reminder of the mountains and hills I’d just spent a week exploring… it tempered the abruptness nicely, and I was quite grateful for it.
Now, the walk to the hotel… well, I’d get to know that walk quite well over the next few days, and it never got any less steep over that time. Carrying all my bags, it was definitely more of an effort than I’d expected – challenging even after all the time at elevation I’d spent hiking.
Still, though, Stuttgart was lovely and incredibly welcoming. Murals, green spaces, bustling people and delicious food, I couldn’t complain about any of it. And speaking of food, lets dive right in!
Bistro Einstein – A lovely cafe, which served my lovely favorite – Schnitzel! Simple, efficient, and delicious.
Lib-room – A fun cafe right on a school campus, from what I could tell. Simple and tasty; not something I’d say is a must-visit, but… good, with some nice vegetarian options
Restaurant Tauberquelle – A really fun regional restaurant, with great local options. Kinda touristy… but that’s not a bad thing when you’re a tourist!
Manufactum Brot & Butter – Excellent breakfast, but a bit slow… which was a problem, since it meant we very nearly missed our train since paying took so long! Also, the only spot that credit cards had trouble… yeah, great food, but there was a blood price to pay.
Wasserfallhütte – This is so European… similar to Zermatt, at the top of a hike by a waterfall there’s a small restaurant serving coffee and cakes, ice cream and souvenirs. Ridiculous, but also kind of awesome.
Bäckerhaus Veit – Nice snack after a hike… simple and easy!
Ragazzi – Delicious pizza! This place was a fun adventure; took a bit of getting there, and then they were out of pizza… which feels weird, but okay… but then they found some extra dough and were able to make two final pizzas, we got the last two! Ignore all the people who came in afterward, who also got pizza… Hey, you know what? If it’s true, then cool. If it was a gimmick, then also cool!
Petra’s – Out in Baden-Baden, near the Friedrichsbad hot springs… delicious Cesar salad, excellent coffee… what more could we want?
Cafe König – I was in (or right next to, I guess) the Black Forest. How could I not get Black Forest Cake? Turns out – really hard to find. Which seems strange, but it was later in the day so… maybe that’s normal? I don’t know, but Cafe König had it, and had excellent iced lattes, so I was happy.
Poffers – Ohh. Emm. Gee. Getting a seat here was a challenge, and then getting service was an equal epic. The food was glorious, but seriously. Needed a reservation, couldn’t get it in person, had to go online to a quite circuitous reservation system, then wait for 20min AFTER the reservation time, THEN wait 20min for service… seriously, we used google translate on the German menus, figured out what we wanted, and had a solid long chat before the waitress even showed up to offer us English menus. Great food, but holy crap.
Taraba
Udo Snack
Now, those especially astute readers of mine may have noticed something in the above list that hasn’t really been seen before, except maybe in Iceland and France… I wrote in the plural. That’s not an accident, but a fun extra part from Stuttgart!
You see, dear readers, I wasn’t adventuring alone in Germany! Instead, in a switch up from History, Poland and the United States combined forces and invaded Germany together – my friend Kika came to visit from Warsaw! I picked her up from the airport on Thursday morning, and she flew home on Sunday evening, so I had a buddy to explore and adventure with! Definitely a nice change of pace – Details of our adventures will be their own posts, of course, but the change of pace was very nice… between family visiting in France, and a friend with me in Germany, it was an absolutely excellent way to ease into settling into a more static and social life in Ireland.
I also mentioned that Stuttgart had a lot of murals – I’ll separate them out, here, for simplicity:
