Day Forty-One: Fast Cars At Stuttgart High

7/26/15, 10:39 PM CET

We visited the German Department of Motor Vehicles today. And let me tell you, it is faaaaancy.

But you already know.

It's not in the fast lane from LA to Tokyo though, it's kinda stuck in Germany.

It's an eight-story structure, and the whole thing, surprisingly, has no stairs that you're supposed to climb. The first thing that happens when you enter the museum is that you take an elevator to the very top floor. Then, you slowly make your way to the bottom one story at a time by walking down really nice, long ramps. So even though the museum was HUGE, we didn't feel tired after it because there were no steps to climb.

It was a neat format too. The top floor started with the origins of the steam (and later diesel) engine, then went to the history of the first automobiles, then to the origins (and merging) of the Benz name, all the way to modern day.

A lot of it was just informative text to read, but they also had some very cool cars on display.

Kinda looks like a paintless version of Sam's car.

A classic kind of cool.

Mercedes. It means rise grace.

Double decker buses were way cooler when they had spiral steps.

Joby likes his classic cars. He doesn't like being focused on camera though.

Fun fact: These gullwing doors were a last-resort design necessity because
of the awkward shape of the car, not because of style.

The school bus that Christina, Angela, Kayla and I rode in kindergarten.

Mercedes-Benz also made a few specially-designed cars. I only took a picture of these two because they were my favorite.

The Popemobile, with bulletproof windows and everything.

DINOCAR AWWWW YEAH.

Later on, we got horribly, HORRIBLY lost in the city. We misread a map and tried to walk to a bus station that we thought was only a five minute walk away that ended up taking THIRTY MINUTES. And then we made a few wrong turns, ended up in a suuuuper sketchy German neighborhood where no one was out, not a creature was stirring, not even sauerkraut.

Eventually, we did stumble upon a subway station and from there we reoriented and found the beautiful city square.

Fountains in the left third of photos in front of fancy buildings always make
for nice photos.

The fancy building I referenced earlier, now with 200% more overexposure!

Our timing was incredible though. We're only in Stuttgart for a single full day, and you know what happened to be here today, for one day only?

A gay pride festival.

You know, if the rainbow flags weren't there, it would just look like a normal
festival. That's mostly because gay people are basically normal people. But gay.

I don't think my parents realized what it was though until they saw the billboards of large muscular men with even larger, more muscular packages.

They had a really funny performer too. I just found his flamboyantness funny, but if anyone could translate German, could you kindly tell us what he's singing in the comments?

Thanks, readers. I knew I could count on at least one of you guys.




RFotD: We went to Stuttgart for a single day just to visit the Mercedes-Benz Museum.