Last Stuttgart Weekend

Saturday was a very late start. We didn't actually get out bed until noon. I was recovering from a late friday night and Saori was recovering from a week of working until midnight every day. We did a bit of shopping in the city center, where we ran into a friend, Pauline. Pauline dated Simone, a really good friend of Saori's when he was working at Behnisch. They later split after Simone left and it's been a long time since we actually saw her. She is a young French violinist and it so happened she was playing a mendelsohn concert the next day, so she invited us as her guests. We happily accepted.

Saturday night, Saori cooked the jumbo shrimp I picked up at the speciality seafood store with some ink spagetti pasta and sauteed zuchinni. Really good.

This morning, despite still carrying our respective sleep lags, we were both unable to sleep in much so we just got up at 8 and started our day a full four hours earlier than the day before. I cooked up some pear pancakes with coffee and then we went to the concert.

Pauline met us at the door and gave us the tickets, and we found seats inside. We were the youngest people there not accompanied by parents. The concert was a matinee performance of Hayden and Mendelsohn for the Sunday advent, and it a short but lively performance. The conductor was particularly animated, and the symphony played like Disney animated characters. There was a trumpet solist, which was new for Saori and I, and he was really, really good. After the concert, the reception hall was filled with the guests all eating pretzels and drinking coffee and wine. (Also note, that when I say "Pretzel" I do not mean the dried crunchy snack, nor the soft-breadstick-y thing, but a southern German pretzel, which tapers in thickness from the crunchy crossing to a fat, chewy belly sliced open and spread with butter). We met Pauline afterwards and went out for coffee together, and got caught up on how she has been doing for an hour or so.

Afterwards, we strolled through the christmas market, enjoying the sunny day and atmosphere, before heading back home.