Dear Clemmie,

Nearly every day I walk through Schlossgarten and I am struck by the amount of statues, memorials and figures atop columns, not just in the park but all around this fine city.  I don’t know what Neptune has to do with the duck pond but there he is, each time I walk by, corralling that fish.  A golden Hermes watches over Schlossplatz from above on his column; Venus and Diana join a conga line of classic marble statues on a path near the palace.  Meanwhile, Kaiser Wilhelm sits astride his horse, with lions leading the way in the Karlsplatz.  The most immediately recognizable of all of these would have to be the stunning statue of Concordia, high on a pillar and flanked by two (currently under renovation) equally breathtaking fountains in the Schlossplatz.  There’s even a slightly exhausted looking but still fearsome stone lion that’s been co-opted by a children’s play area.  I mean, they are everywhere – including a bust of Franz Liszt hiding in the bushes.

My favorite of all of them sits between the theatre and the opera house – it is the Destiny Fountain or Fountain of Fate.  Designed in 1914, it features the goddess of destiny seated in the center, with an embracing couple on each side of her; on her left, the allegory of joy and on her right the allegory of suffering.  The inscription basically refers to how quickly our fortune can change from one to the other.  Naturally, I was drawn to the Allegory of Joy.

There are many more statues throughout the city to explore and I have learned of the Strümpfelbach sculpture trail; 39 sculptures in bronze and stone line a trail leading through Struempfelbach’s vineyards.  Sound perfect!  Watch this space…

Dear Clemmie,

So a little bit about our host city.  It’s a bustling city of more than 600,000 people, but ancient enough to date back to the Roman era.  Stuttgart came into its own around the 10th century, the medieval town being granted city status in the 13th century.  Forged by many wars, Stuttgart emerged as the seat of government for the State of Baden-Wurttemberg in the early 1950’s.  It is the birthplace of Bosch and Daimler (Mercedes Benz) and the Stuttgarter Hofbrau, to name a few homegrown companies.

I am impressed by the amount of construction happening all around; the renovation of old buildings and the nearly overwhelming amount of new construction.  Every time I walk through the garden or the plaza, there is a new crane or scaffolding – or road block – signaling a new project.  The city is an intriguing blend of new and ancient.

Finally, Stuttgart is the official/unofficial capital of Swabia, one of the five great tribal duchies of earlier, medieval Germany.  There are more than eight million Swabians living in Germany and they are playfully referred to as the ‘Scots of Germany”.  All I can say is if Stuttgart is the product of hard work and thrift, then, bravo!

Dear Clemmie,

This is the first time, in many times as you may remember, that I have been able to join the LTC on his deployment; the final weeks of his final deployment to be exact.  I am what the army likes to refer to as a “trailing spouse”.  I find this term as slightly off putting, and as funny as my previous title “dependent”.  Considering I took the risk of leaving my job before embarking on this mission, I do now believe that “dependent trailing spouse” is an apropos term for my situation.   I’m not here long enough to qualify for a job, so my plan is to see as much and do as much as any eager, motivated trailing spouse can do in three months or less.

Despite the strange rumor that I was actually headed to Iraq, I can report that I am presently in Stuttgart, Germany.  We have a delightful little apartment on the corner of Hauptstatter Strasse, which is very convenient to museums, the opera house and the Schlossgarten, where I walk and explore daily.  My German language skills are somewhere between horrible and awful, but everyone is kind and I muddle through.

I’m off to catch a train but one last observation is the roses that have suddenly exploded in the city in the past few days – they are everywhere, in all colors and perfume the air around them.  Stuttgart could give Portland (Oregon) a run for the title of “Rose City”.