This was the summer of the long family (and very welcomed) visit. My son Luke and my grandson Masi came to stay with me for about six weeks, which was a great help in alleviating some of my occasional loneliness. His wife Brooke was only able to make it for the last two weeks due to work obligations. We mostly spent the first part of the visit just hanging out at home and seeing a few more of the sights around the area, but we also booked a trip to Stuttgart, Germany. Luke wanted to see Germany, but he didn’t want to go to a big city, so Stuttgart filled the bill. Plus, the name “Stuttgart” comes from the Old High German term “Stuotgarten,” meaning “stud garden” or “stud farm.” Since we’re three generations of studs, Stuttgart seemed like a perfect fit. And no, I didn’t even make any of that up.

I mean, that’s three generations of studliness right there.

I took them on a tour of one of my regular walking routes; it’s hard to beat that scenery. We also found a bee farm. Since Luke & Brooke have been beekeepers in the past, they enjoyed seeing how the Portuguese do it. On a related note, I once asked my Portuguese teacher if couples ever called each other “mel,” because “mel” means “honey” in Portuguese. It’s only a three letter word, but no matter how I said it, she couldn’t understand what I was asking, I think mostly because it had no context and my accent probably made it sound like “mal,” which means “bad” …like my Portuguese. Anyway, after sorting out the question, she said “nâo,” which means “no” but rhymes with cow, and you have to plug your nose when you say it.

We walked all around Lisbon, and watched in amazement as a tower grew out of Luke’s head. We had to pry it off before he could get back in the car; it’s a good thing I had a crowbar in the trunk.

I had a brief conversation with Cristiano Ronaldo, but he declined to reveal what kind of underwear he wears. In fact, he seemed a little annoyed at the exchange, he just crossed his arms and stood still, staring at me.

That’s Troia in the background in the middle picture, an upscale resort just a short ferry ride from Setúbal. And Praça do Comércio is a must-stop for anyone who needs to stop when they get musty.

We also visited the World War II-era cannons I’d discovered with my good friend Per a while back. It was such an unexpected sight since Portugal was neutral during that war. Masi also learned that the Portuguese use many of the same swear words that Americans use. I don’t think they use “doggonit” or “shucks” though. And boy howdy, I can now say I’ve stared down the barrel of a gun and didn’t even flinch.

So off we went to Stuttgart via Lufthansa with these promotional-catalog-quality photos. That’s me playing the grumpy old man in the background. Do you suppose I could make a career out of that?

Later on they conked out, only to be jolted awake when I started screaming, “Oh my God, we’re going to crash!” I told the police at the gate that I have Alzheimers, so I barely got arrested.

Stuttgart is a nice enough city, but other than some museums, there wasn’t a ton to see there. According to TripAdvisor, the two top things to do there are The Mercedes Benz museum and the Porsche museum. Luke’s a car guy, but he knew Masi and I would enjoy either about as much as a hair follicle museum, so we basically used Stuttgart as a launching pad for a multitude of other cities and countries. Besides, we weren’t in the market for any studs from their numerous stud farms.

Both Luke and Masi are pretty strict rule followers, just like most Germans, so if the Germans want us to be gross, by gum we’ll be gross!

One of our expeditions from Stuttgart was to visit the Deutches Museum in Munich, which is the largest museum of science and technology in the world. Here are just 7 of the 1,823 or so pictures we took, I doubt anyone wants to see a bunch of museum pictures so I didn’t include any more than that here. But I did experiment with an AI feature for the first time by asking AI to provide captions. It did a serviceable job, if a little repetitious, but I couldn’t get it to tell any jokes. You’ll always be able to tell that Bald Sasquatch wasn’t written by AI because of all the alternative facts and other nonsense that somehow worm their way in, especially if I’m writing after a day of snorting mushrooms. Perhaps humor will be the only way we can distinguish between what’s human and what’s computer in the future! Dad jokes may save humanity!

For example, AI will probably never understand why any of these pictures are humorous. I love the store name “Item Shop.” I suppose if you asked them what they are selling, they’d only need to reply, “items,” even if they have something dropped off by “I don’t give a Fuchs Transporte.” And I cracked up at what people did to the chewing gum sign. Even though not all of them were fresh, many of them still tasted fine.

Driving on the Autobahn was fun for Luke, I think 190 km/hr (118 MPH) was about as fast as he went, but he probably went faster when I wasn’t looking or after the G forces made me pass out. I took the photo on the right simply to compliment the Germans (they love it when I compliment them) for their consideration and insight. Near the entrance in a large underground parking lot are these parking spaces with a sign indicating that they’re for women drivers only. Since women generally have to be hyper aware of their surroundings at all times, it’s a thoughtful thing to allow them to have a close place to park instead of wandering around a gloomy dimly-lit underground floor where rapists, neo-Nazis, or Ted Bundies might be lurking around every corner. The next thing we need to do is make sure women have double the public toilet capacity; I feel so sorry for them when I walk past a line of about 50 females and am able to stroll right into the men’s room. I think we need more female architects.

We had an authentic German meal at an authentic German restaurant (“Is this an authentic German restaurant?” I asked). But later Masi was a bit confused as to why a trash can needed a solar panel. I have to admit I didn’t have a good answer for him, but if he wanted to stick his hand in the slot to find out, that was his business.

We started Masi down the road to alcoholism by letting him imbibe his first (or so he says) beer while in Munich. As long as you’re with an adult, anyone aged 14 and up can legally enjoy a beer at a restaurant in Germany. We did kinda cheat since he was only 13, so we penciled a mustache on him, but damn if the kid didn’t down the whole glass, even wiping the foam off his fake mustache with the back of his hand at the end (of course, the mustache came off too, but the beer was already gone at that point). But truly, I think it’s kinda cool that Masi will always be able to say he had his first beer in Munich, Germany, with his dad and granddad. That’s something I hope he always remembers. I won’t, because I wasn’t driving and so had eight of them. Or ten, or something. I can beerly remember anything anymore, even without alcohol.

I should mention here that Germany has significantly higher per capita alcohol consumption than the U.S., but lower rates of alcoholism and alcohol-related health issues. Simply put, the German approach to beer works better than trying to keep anyone under 21 from having any.

I will say that it was a good way to keep him quiet on the drive home!

Luke was on a different-beer-a-day regímen at the restaurant across from our apartment. When in Germany, you gotsta have lotsa beer, I think it’s a law there.

Anyway, we had a good time during this portion of the trip. More cities and countries to come! But probably no more beer, I still have a headache.