I remember Starting this day with Asphy, my Apair friend from homburg. I had a week off and was spending it in Stuttgart with a friend, Asphy had decided to come for the weekend and was staying in this cool Hotel in Bad Canstatt, across from the Bad(hot springs.) It was on our way to Bad Canstatt that we first noticed Wilhemia...and the Mercades Factory! (Me and Asphy did that our first day together...a tour of the museum)
So that night I called my friend Tim, a old mate from the U of Ottawa. I met him on a International house tour and we were in some classes together.
While wating at Gleis(Train Track number) 11 for Tim, I asked Asphy if I would regonise him. And she said, 'Is it that guy right there?' I turn around, and its Tim, looking like Tim. How could I not reconise Tim.
He is not a guy you can easily forget, Tall, thin, shaves his head, wire framed glasses and wears this really cool silver ear cuff.
I'm so glad he came to me because I am famous for walking right past people and not even noticing them!
So, after introducing Tim to Asphy...we head out, or should I say Under. To get to the Stuttgart Ubahn from the Train Station, you take the stairs down to the basement level, them some more to the Ubahn level.
After finding the correct train, we hop on and head West to Wilhemia.
Being a lovely day- of course...we have to wait in a long, not too long, line.
The first thing that hits you when you enter is the Gardens, and with me and Asphy loving flowers, its only natural that we go left and make a beeline for the Greenhouses. What colours, textures, shapes and sizes. All these beautiful flowers from different hemispheres. We get to a greenhouse that houses flowers from South East Asia and Asphy is at home. She reconsises flowers from Indonesia, and exclames she feels right at home!
The greenhouse time flies by, and before we know it we are at the last one! Not to worry, there are these garden houses with Roman statues, I guess in the summer they are covered with flowers and vines...but not now. We follow the well trodden path, past a pond and up a hill to a enclosure, there are monkey's riding goats! How funny. I took a picture of that.
I was surprised that the monkeys wanted to go out when it was cold. I know the hippo's didn't. We had to go into the hippo house to see them, we wanted to take a Pic for 'C', she just loved Hippo's.
Next to see the Tigers, quite sleepy they were; the polar Bears (Asphy Fave by Far); the Lama's, Orangatans swinging on their jungle jim, screeching in delight...I swear they were really happy.
They had this aqarium building, and I love TURTLES! So I just skipped in there, and there were so many types of turtles...Giant Turtles, Snapping Turtles...you name a turtle and it was there...some sleeping, some eating and swimming. Fishes, all around...flashing lights in glass tanks...
There were crocs and gators, signs NOT TO FEED THEM...one of the crocs had died because toomany people fed it garbage..made me sad. Poor thing.
Now I do remember a room with Artic Ecosystems, and from the corner of my eye, there it was...A PUFFIN! From Newfoundland. I think I scared people...I ran over and was like, its a puffin! Forget the penguins people, Puffins are way cuter.
After my run in with the puffins, there were more ecosytems to discover. I love when they do that, recreate a ecosystem. The Biodome in Montreal, now thats a place to be seen.
They had a rain forest created, and as you entered, the heat surrounded you. Off came the glasses and the jackets...out comes the camera. Butterflies floating in the air, fish in the streams, insects, birds, the trees, rocks and dirt.
It was so nice, there were many other ecosystems, but this one sticks out in my mind. It was so cool. I love to visit a real rainforest.
I guess we spent most of the day there. We had a great time.