Most people privy to my travel plans have asked "Why Stuttgart?" Well, simply put, I promised I would go there. Very early in this trip, at a pub in Southwark London, I encountered a gang of 20-something German men. It turned out they were a roving bachelor party, in their second day of bachelor party adventures. I did a magic show for them, impromptu with what I had in my pockets and what was laying around. They loved it, and they laughed and laughed and laughed.

I asked about that. Hey you guys are laughing. I was told Germans don't have a sense of humor. No no no, they assured me. In BERLIN they do not laugh. But we are from STUTTGART and we love to laugh. You must come to Stuttgart with your traveling show and perform there. You will see that Stuttgarters (not the word he used but I can't remember) will enjoy your show and they will put euros in your hat. So I promised I would go there.

The city didn't really impress me, at first look. Apparently it got bombed pretty heavily in WWII and was rebuilt on the "A Celebration of Concrete" plan. And I was exhausted and in a foul mood from a very bad final night in Brussels. But the city had a main square and a long strip of pedestrian shopping street, so I resolved to give it a try the next day.

I had heard all the German cities required permits, but I figured my most likely bad scenario would be that I would be forced to play Dumb American for a cop and move along. But walking along the pedestrian row and the square, I saw musicians and balloon romani plying their trade unmolested. There was even a chess hustler right smack in the middle of the square, and I hadn't seen one of those all trip.

The balloon romani, well I don't like them. They are not artists. Their cheap costume shop one piece clown suits are always filthy. They are cynically unsmiling. They have premade flowers on a stick and swords, and that's it. They put the balloons in kids's hands and then stare down the adults for cash. They generally have a couple of thugs in visual range. But their presence meant one thing: street performing was permitted, or they'd have been run off.

So, I picked a spot, not on the square, but on the wide pedestrian street that runs off it, and I did my show. Twice. And it went down just as my friends the bachelors had promised.

ARE Stuttgartenfolkenblitzenherrsunddammen fun loving people with a great sense of humor? We'll never know. Because I told them all the story. I told them of the young men of Stuttgart who promised me that, unlike Berliners, those of Stuttgart were fun people who loved to laugh. And they agreed that that was the kind of people they are. And they laughed. A lot. I told them that the young men of Stuttgart promised me they would be generous and put lots of five euro notes in my hat. And they did. Mostly. But they laughed at that too. It was a good day.

To the Best Man, who tipped me £20 and said "Go to Stuttgart. You will see." I can only say, thank you, mein herr.

But, be warned: no busking on the subway cars: