After spending a few days in the small town of Grotzingen with the fam jam, it was time for Ryan and I to become tourists again...well, kind of. David and Katrina were the first to head back to Scotland and so for their final day in Germany, Ryan, David, Catriona, Sara and I went into the town of Stuttgart with Sara as our tour guide.

The town of Stuttgart is almost in a valley and so we began the day at the very top looking down on the city. It was quite beautiful as all of the hills leading down to the main area are filled with vineyards. Once we made it into town, Sara took us up a tower at the main train station which gave a 360deg view of the entire city. We then strolled down the main streets which were filled with designer stores that only the rich and elite are allowed to enter. I peered through the window displays and chuckled to myself about the ostrich leather handbags at Louis Vuitton which sold for over 2500 euro...more than I paid for my car. There was a really cool knife store which has several swords in their window display...I had to convince Ryan that we might have trouble getting back into Canada with a sword named Excalibur that was about the same size as me. We stopped for lunch and then took the bus to the Mercedes-Benz Museum. Note for European travelers, ALL museums are closed on Mondays. Ryan and I might head back here because it seemed really interesting. The building is actually modelled after the DNA double helix and tells the history of both passenger and commercial vehicles...Shaun and Greg would love it. We then walked past the Mercedes-Benz arena which would be pretty cool if you are a football fan.

After dropping David and Catriona off at the airport, it was back to Grotzingen for dinner. A small language misunderstanding happened to Ryan and I at the local bakery as we thought we were buying a giant loaf of pretzel bread for dinner which turned out to be a sweet raisin bread (the giant flakes of 'salt' on top of the loaf were actually sugar lol). Let's just say it didn't taste that good with the meat and cheese Ryan just bought but it will make a fantastic breakfast with Nutella.

Last night we ended up at a local bar with the uncles. I felt bad for the bartender as she had to deal with 5 extremely stubborn men all fighting to pay for the next round. At one point Jim even ended up behind the bar for a while so that he could prevent the others from paying. I really love spending time with these people because even though it is the first time I have met some of them, it feels like I have always been part of the family. I know Ryan had a great time as they were all able to tell stories of his Grandpa Allen. I know if Allen was there last night, he would have been very proud of Ryan...we will leave it at that.