First order of business after arriving: food. The last two times I was there as a poor student, we never splurged on food, but now as working professionals, I can! Frog legs? Okay.

With the Eurocup games being hosted in France and the terrorist attacks that happened in Paris, there were soldiers on the street in just about every place with crowds. If any terrorist attacks were to happen in Paris, it wouldn’t be during the Eurocup games.

Later that night, we met up with one of our friend’s coworkers for dinner. Time for more food. Escargot? Okay.

Beef tartare? Okay. We all had one for ourselves, and if anything bad were to happen, there was only one washroom in our AirBnB. Would have been game over.

The next day, we went to Versailles. Instead of taking pictures of things, I played Pokemon Go instead. It had just launched in USA, and since I had an account from that launch, I got to play. Everywhere I went, there was Pokemon. Never mind that it was a blazing hot day without much shade in the palace gardens. Gotta catch’em all. It was Pokemon Go everywhere I went – there’s even an arena at the Arc de Triomphe.

Make Napoleon great again!

After all the walking around, it was time for more food. Foie gras this time.

The next day was a trip to the catacombs and saw the skeletal remains of a lot of dead people.

And also visited a famous dead guy: Napoleon.

After that, it was time to go to the fan zone at the Eiffel Tower to watch France VS Portugal. All these people are trying to get in through the many entrances. The police guarding the gate were letting women and children go in without lining out while everyone else had to. Chivalry is alive and well in France.

After a long while of waiting we got in. There were so many people walking on the gravel road that it kicked up so much dust everywhere and it was hard to breathe and I was coughing every few minutes. It wasn’t comfortable at all. There were long lineups everywhere and nowhere to sit. But the atmosphere was really good. Lots of cheering and anticipation for a France win.

A friend of ours, who was coming from another location came too late and couldn’t get into the fan zone to meet up with us. After a grueling ordeal of deciding whether or not to stay or go, we left and watched the game from a small restaurant near our AirBnB.

After Portugal won, people still cheered in the streets and set up firecrackers and stuff. I couldn’t have imagined what it would have been like if France won. All the France fans would have lost their shits and the streets would have been even more rowdy.

The next day, it was time to fly back home, thus ending my 3rd European adventure.

Link to photo album: here

Here, I visited the places that I used to frequent and I still have very fond memories here. It’s like going home again after a long time, but the difference here is that this was never my real home, but a temporary one. It’s really hard to explain. I definitely still have an emotional attachment here.

Of course, I went back to probably Stuttgart’s most recognizable landmark: Schlossplatz. I spent a lot of time here just chilling with my intern friends after work.

As I walked around the city, all the streets looked pretty much the same as I remembered. There wasn’t anything super different. I guess that was to be expected.

I remembered that we always bought donairs from the same shop and so when I went back, I did the same. It tasted just like I remembered.

I also went to Schlosspark to see if the people camping there were still there. When I was in Stuttgart in 2011, there was a huge group of people camping there in protest against clearing the trees in the area for a railway station construction project (Stuttgart 21). But I guess these people were kicked out – and the trees are gone too.

Before, everyone had their tents set up here. They even strapped teddy bears around trees to prevent people from cutting them down. This was probably the biggest change that I saw in the city.

Later that day, I had dinner with one of my intern friends that I met while at Bosch, and we ate at our group of friends’ favourite place: Sophie’s Brauhaus. The most unique thing about this restaurant that is really different from what people do in North America is that this restaurant brews their own beer. They have the best Hefeweizen I’ve ever had and of course, that’s what I ordered.

For dinner, I had Spätzle with Lentils, something I ate all the time when I was living here. The Bosch cafeteria often had this for lunch. My friend had Maultaschen, which can be thought of as a giant dumpling, but German style or very large ravioli. All of this was quite nostalgic for me.

After dinner, we walked around the city some more to see what had changed until my train arrived. After waiting for a train that was delayed for about an hour, I managed to finally make my way to Mannheim, just in time to meet my friends for the RoboCup Workshop we would have with the other two German teams in the international RoboCup competition.

Link to photo album here