Stuttgart? More like Awesome-gart!

I arrived in Stuttgart bright and early.  Since it is the middle of June, the weather is perfect at 21° C.  Stuttgart is located in southwest Germany.  It is the sixth largest city in Germany. 

Stuttgart on a map!!

View of Stuttgart

I was still stuffed from yesterday's bread, so I decided to start off by sightseeing.  Stuttgart is well known to car enthusiasts for having the headquarters of both Mercedes-Benz and Porsche.  Both companies also have highly regarded museums here.  I, however, am not a car enthusiast so I am not going to those.  Instead I opted for the Stuttgart State Museum of Natural History.  It has over 11 million scientific artifacts, the bulk of which are fossils and insects.  The museum was spread out into two buildings separated by a 15 minute walk. http://www.naturkundemuseum-bw.de/

This part of the museum houses the really old stuff.

This part of the museum houses the newer stuff.

The museum cost € 6.00 for admittance.  I learned a lot about the evolution of life on this planet and about the urgency to protect the life that still exists here. 

I saw dead dinosaurs.

And I saw fake alive dinosaurs.

I knew way more answers than most of these kids.

After the museum I felt like going somewhere a little less touristy. I decided that I wanted to go to a local record store.  This wasn't hard to do because Stuttgart has a very lively music scene.  It quickly became obvious that there was always something going on.  Many successful artists have come from Stuttgart.  One hip-hop group called Freundeskreis is actually made up of several separately successful musicians from Stuttgart.

Freundeskreis Music Video

I found about a great record store that specialized in punk a few miles down the road from the museum.  It was called called Cheap Trash Records.  http://www.cheaptrashrecords.de/

Their logo

Their selection was great.  They had everything from the US plus some interesting European punk bands. 

 I hadn't eaten all day so I decided to search out some food.  As a vegetarian I had grown tired of being surrounded by meat everywhere I went so I asked a very nice local named Gügel where I might go.  Thankfully he knew a lot about Stuttgart and pointed me to a restaurant called Coox & Candy just across a bridge from the Natural History Museum. 
http://www.coox-candy.de/

Outside of Coox & Candy

Dining Room of Coox & Candy

Coox & Candy is an entirely vegan restaurant.  This meant that I was free to choose anything off of the menu.  I decided on the Veggie "Chicken"" Ragout.  It costed € 9.80.  The interior was very stylish in an urban modern sort of way.  The atmosphere was a little more laid back than usual and everyone was super polite.  I saw this as a good thing as I needed a break from rushing around everywhere.

Hilda was a doll!

  On my way out I noticed a nice selection of pastries for sale.  I was full from dinner but I couldn't resist taking a few for the road.

Shazam!

 It was early evening now but I still had a lot of energy left in me.  I decided to take a bus west to Baden-Baden where I could get a chance to explore a new city's nightlife.  Good thing I got my cupcakes.