Dinner with Rudi Mahr and Silke Schau, both Mercedes employees, at a wonderful restaurant – Stuttgarter Staffele. The cozy, old eating establishment has small curtained windows, dark wooden tables and a bar covering a 1/3 of the restaurant. We met Rudi earlier in the year (31 January 1999) on our first leg through Germany. He’s a delightful man with a lively wit and even sharper mind. Silke, 29 years old, is an attractive bright woman who is based in the US and works in the marketing arena. We all ate wonderful Swabian food including wedding soup (a meat seasoned dark broth with small pieces of meat, meal dumpling and shredded ‘pancakes’), onion soup (served in an onion), green salad, grilled beef, cheese spaetzle, ‘farmer’s breakfast’ and variations of fillets – pork, beef and veal. Rudi, at our first dinner in January, made me rethink my views on German wine – Swabian wine can be quite delicious, but as he told me, ‘it just doesn’t travel well.’ So when in Swabia, enjoy the wine.