New Years in Stuttgart

After celebrating New Year's Eve with my host family and friends, I left New Year's Day for Stuttgart to visit my Oma, aunts, uncles, and cousins. The train ride was about 5 hours, but I’ve grown fond of simply listening to music and looking out the window.

When I finally arrived in Stuttgart, one of my aunts and her family were waiting for me. They drove me to Tübingen, which is where my Oma and aunt still live. My dad grew up in Tübingen, so it was nice to see his home town again.

I explored Tübingen a bit with my aunt and one of my cousins the next day. The city is a university town, so there are a lot of college students. Tübingen sits on the Neckar River, which means there’s a lot of lovely scenery.

The next day, I went to Stuttgart with my Oma. We popped in and out of stores, went to a really cool glass museum, ate lunch at a steakhouse, and then watched Swan Lake (the ballet). It was a really fun day; Stuttgart is a very pretty city. It snowed most of the day, which was cold but beautiful.

I spent the rest of the week in Tübingen with my family. I usually don’t get to see them that often because they live so far from the US. My other aunt and her family live near Frankfurt, but they came to Tübingen for a few days to see everyone. It was really cool to be able to speak German with my family; before we could only speak simple English with each other or my dad would have to translate everything.