Last day! *sniffle*

So for the last final time, we wake up in this wonderful city. Day 5!12200875_1068236653209642_1408352848_n 12200967_1068236646542976_216661746_n

After much hard work throughout our stay, we were treated to a visit to the Mercedes museum.

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A bit excited, are we?

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I’ll let the fabulously stylish, timeline-style museum tell you its own story! Enjoy the cars 🙂

Museum Collage 1
The older cars
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Even the building itself was awesome to look at

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Museum Collage 2
old models v. new ones- which do you prefer?

12200750_1068195803213727_598300448_nIt’s important to remember the old guys which took us around for so long before we had the very first car.

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12197294_503941389765156_695477971_o The unlimited supply of cool displays and of course, the authentic logo.

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Okay I may go back on my word, I really don’t think just those pictures alone do that magnificent museum justice. Even for someone who isn’t that into cars, I still found that this was a good walk through history. You started your tour from the top of this building and moved your way down through all that’s been. Starting the journey right back to the times of horse and carriage and then all the way to an inside views of the  modern race car’s highly complex engine.

Not only a fine history lesson, but also a great life lesson. The struggles that the company faced after WWII were very real and they dealt with the issues incredibly well.

All good things must come to an end, all aboard for back to Cardiff!

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To round up this wonderfully eye-opening trip, I think it’s fair to say everyone had given their 100% effort throughout the trip, evident in the many sleepy heads on our journey back.12188778_843879255730912_282987973_n

And there are a few people we must thank for this trip – our lovely youth workers and Michael for organising this trip, for keeping us fed and entertained, for showing us life in a different light in the 5 short days we spent together.

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We wore you out! Thanks Lee’s!!

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Thank you Lee, Lee and Dayle for being so patient, working with us and looking after each and every one of us so well, truly guys, thank you.

12185666_503941636431798_1583663476_oPerks of traveling at dusk, you always get the great sunset!

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Now safe and sound, and back from London, there’s only one thing left to say…

12193150_503941683098460_1275000857_o…peace out guys.

3 Days down, 2 more to go!

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We’ve grown fond of our adoptive pet “Ze Pug” who will be missed

We’ve passed the halfway point and we are more than halfway through our Stuttgart venture!12179536_1067327799967194_995466318_n 12188387_1067327816633859_1194660302_n

Saturday, ’twas the dedicated day of business whilst all others in the city took a day off and rested we powered on, of course with lots of lovely members of Jugendrat Stuttgart!

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A few CYC members fangirling over this adorable model city

6

And so we say hello to this lovely building again! Not to bore you guys with details of the ‘top secret’ discussions that took place that day as there will be a blog with the report of our discussions coming soon – so watch this space! But the morning essentially consisted of various different members of our delegation giving varied styled presentations, whereupon these presentations were broken up by casual (but also highly productive) discussions, where we ventured into the comparisons of our two similar yet so different cities. We ended our ‘work session’ in true politics style and signed a really very symbolic flag which was signed last by the Cardiff delegation that visited Stuttgart many years ago.

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10 POINTS TO WHOEVER CAN TELL ME WHAT THESE ARE CALLED AND WHERE I CAN FIND THEM AGAIN! DELICIOUS!

After a few needed hours of free time within the city centre, with the entire selection of fabulously lustrous money spending opportunities at our fingertips, we regrouped and went back to the youth hostel to get ready for our final night in Stuttgart!

12197328_904995466256786_1472463642_oLet no man say we didn’t get a full view of the city; throughout the past few days we visited so many different ‘youth houses’ and experienced true life for a young German in Stuttgart, and this center was yet another fine example of how well Stuttgart’s ‘youth houses’ are working out. We enjoyed music from some close to home bands and it was a great, relaxing wind-down to the end of another busy-bee schedule!

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Must be said, it really was an AWESOME atmosphere!

But from here guys, we check out for one last time in Stuttgart! Our next post shall be the last leg of our highly educational, eye-opening trip and we’ll see you on the other side!

Xinyu and CYC ^.^

4 days down, 1 to go!