When there's a trade fair in Stuttgart, I notice it on the phone first. In the early years of PURE, those were weeks of total chaos: inquiries by the minute and drive times out to the fairgrounds on the Fildern plateau that you should never underestimate. I was exhausted. And I was endlessly grateful.
Because the fair brought gentlemen I would never have met otherwise. People from out of town, a few days in an unfamiliar city. Halls and handshakes by day, a hotel room at night that looks lovelier than it feels.
Some of them were completely inexperienced. They called, cleared their throats and apologised in the very first sentence, before I had even asked anything. Roughly, I heard it like this, again and again: I don't even know if one is allowed to. I really just want to go out for dinner. And not be alone.
I never smiled at that, at least never from above. A table for two sounds like very little. But anyone who has sat alone in front of a plate after a long day at the fair knows how loud such an evening can be.
What my ladies told me afterwards was often surprising, and almost always quiet: that a gentleman only stopped explaining himself with the second glass. That the evening went differently than planned, and that this was perfectly fine. How it ended stays, as it should, at the table.
If you don't want another drive after the halls, dine at the Mövenpick Hotel Stuttgart Airport & Messe. If you'd like to see a bit of the city, head to the area around the Schlossgarten, for instance to Le Méridien Stuttgart, Steigenberger Graf Zeppelin Stuttgart or one of the many Hotels around the main station.
In November, Stuttgart fills up with unfamiliar faces again. If you arrive then and have no idea how this works: you don't have to. One honest line to us is enough. If you only want to go out for dinner, simply say so. Everything else is decided at the table.
Discreetly yours, Lena