I had the opportunity to accompany my colleague Jonas Granberg and our students from HV 05 (the Handicraft programme) to Stuttgart and Basel. The journey was between 2 April to 6 April, and due to the airline, we had to wait 8 hours at Arlanda. Jonas and I went to Stockholm, and some of the students went to see their relatives in the area. It was a glorious spring day, and we saw some of the familiar sights in Stockholm once again.

In Stuttgart on the morning of 3 April we had breakfast at Kamps, a really good bakery. We visited some shops before we took the train to the Mercedes Museum, and had a wonderful experience. This was my first visit to the new complex, and the exhibition was exceptionally good. Even if you do not like cars, you could read about history from around 1885 to the present... Everything was in both English and German. The staff was nice and took really good care of us.

In the afternoon the students were so exhausted from the day's walking at the museum that many went to the hotel and rested. I, on the other hand, took a long walk in the center of Stuttgart, and took photos of all sights.

The next day we had an appointment with the staff at the Castle of Ludwigsburg. The guide was exceptionally fluent in English, and the students understood him well. We saw the whole of the castle and the students were very pleased with it. The castle is from the beginning of the 18th Century but the style is approximately 100 years younger.

The afternoon was spent in Mineralbad Bad Cannstatt, and everyone enjoyed the relaxing atmosphere. It is different in German swimming halls compared to Swedish ones. You do not necessarily have to show yourself in your birthday suit if you do not want to.

In the evening one of my students and I went to the city of Esslingen some kilometres away from Stuttgart. We had thought it was a small town, but it was huge, with over 90,000 inhabitants. We saw the former city wall of Esslingen and the old city council.

Saturday 5 April was entirely devoted to Basel and the fair. It was interesting to see all the watches on display, and Jonas was a good guide. Later some of the students and I went to the city center of Basel and we had dinner for ca 16 EUR each, and it was the most expensive pizza in my whole life: 13 EUR. In Sweden they cost around 5 EUR... One particularly funny thing happened on the ferry over the Rhine before the dinner. One of my students thought he had to much Euro coins and wanted to get rid of them. The boat ride cost 1,20 EUR and he gave almost all his coins to the ferry man. He looked surprised and perhaps a little bit irritated, owing to the prospects of having to count them for my student. "Take them all!", the student said, having given away between 4 and 6 EUR, and we all laughed.

We were back in Stuttgart at 21 in the night, and we had covered a lot by train that day. Among other things we had seen Ulm, Friedrichhafen, Lake Constance, Freibourg, Baden-Baden and Karlsruhe. The day after we went back to Sweden.