A nice Sunday afternoon:

After church at IBC on Sunday, I went over to have dinner with Wolfgang Schmidt and family. It was quite nice to have some home-cooked food and conversation. After dinner, Wolfgang took me on a walking tour of a nearby part of Stuttgart where he grew up. Stuttgart is surrounded by hills which yield nice vistas of the city, and our tour took us up and down several. We descended into Stuttgart on a cogged (geared) railcar down the steep slope, then proceeded through several small suburbs connected by Stäffele, or staircases over the hills.

Stuttgart panorama: TV tower visible at right

Along the way, Wolfgang pointed out such things as the house he grew up in, his kindergarten, the family garden up on one of the hills, etc. It was quite interesting to hear and see what had changed over the years and what was the same. We re-ascended the large perimeter hill of Stuttgart on a cable-drawn railway to complete the loop. It was a nice long walk which took a good portion of the afternoon, and we went back to the Schmidt house for supper.

Somewhere along the way I mentioned missing having a guitar here in Europe. As it turns out, Monica (Wolfgang's wife) had one I could borrow that had been just sitting in a closet for years. It was in good shape, and with some restringing it was good to go! So now I feel much more at home, having a voice for my itching fingers... I must have played for at least 2 hours last night. It was beautiful!