Germany!

It is my last day in Germany; I decided to blog before I get home and forget all that I have done. This is my trip report.

The purpose of my trip is to provide training to our US Army customers working in the Army bases here in Europe. We had about 40 customers from about 18 different facilities in Germany, Belgium, France, Italy... Typically our customers travel to out annual users conferences for this training, but it is not cost effective to send so many users from over sees to the US, so they planned this conference to allow those customers to get some the training they missed. For a regular conference, we send 20 or so people from our company to put it on. For this training conference, I travelled with one other colleague named Paul. Paul and I have known each other since 2000. He was one of my star students, so I hired him as a trainer and I used to be his boss. When I left the training position, he took my position. We have been friends all along. He and his family live in Warner Robins Georgia. Paul has been to Germany several times, so I was very glad he was coming with me; it was like having a free driver and tour guide.
I arrived in Heidelberg Germany on Monday morning after a full day of exhausting travel. My hotel was in the countryside right outside of Heidelberg. All of the leaves are in full color change, and the hillsides were gorgeous with changing leaves, old farm houses, and castles. The weather was perfect. It was comfortable outside in a sweater. It is very strange to be in Germany. It is not something I had ever considered before. I cant stop looking out of my window.

Tuesday morning - Ate a lot of free breakfast consisting of fresh breads, cheeses, yogurt, fruit, and juice. (I will miss this bread). We went to the room where the conference would take place. We tested our Internet connections, and made sure all of the final touches on our presentations were ready. Then we went to Heidelberg to see the sites. We went to the castle and crossed the bridge over the Neckar river. I took about 150 pictures of all the cool architecture. I think I might have enough to make a book of pictures of the doors and windows of Heidelberg. We ate at a great little German restaurant. I ordered a dish that was translated into English as: spicy vegetarian flat bread served with goat cheese and Mediterranean vegetables. When it came out, I couldn't stop laughing. I had managed to order pizza off of a German menu.

I also had fun in the Christmas store and bought a few souvenirs. We met Juliet, our point of contact in Europe, for dinner. She lives in Mannheim, and took us to her city. She took us to a Turkish restaurant in the "Turk Town" area of the city. The menu was in German with no translation. Juliet tried to translate, but was having a hard time explaining, so she had us look at the pictures inside the restaurant. I learned a very important German word that night, chicken. It helped me on several later menus when I could not figure out what to order.

Wednesday - Our training conference started. I had 3 50-minute presentations. Paul taught a 3 hour class on report writing. For dinner, we went with the Army Headquarters contact, Pete, to a Greek restaurant. It was the funniest restaurant of the trip. Each booth had sheep skins stapled to the wood. There was one old Greek man running the whole show. He had one cook. It was packed. He basically yelled at us in German to order. Luckily, Pete speaks Greek, none of us speak German. Pete was able to order us chicken :) in Greek and that is all we knew. He tried to order himself a Greek item and ended up with a German lasagna with gravy. Our chicken was excellent - grilled with yummy Greek spices and served with french fries and a really yucky German salad. At the end to make up for the horrible treatment he gave us all a free shot of Oso. Neither Paul nor I drink, so sadly it went to waste. Pete did take a nip of his before leaving. We took his word that it was very good. He wouldn't take my credit card and yelled at me to pay with Euros. I don't know how I am going to sort out my expense report.

Thursday - 2nd day of training conference. I had 5 50-minute presentations. Paul had 2 50-minute presentations. Juliet arranged for all that wanted to participate to go to a Spanish restaurant in Mannheim. This restaurant has flamenco dancers who perform on a small stage. About 2o of us participated. The menu was in Spanish with German subtitles. I could figure out the foods in Spanish. I ordered an amazing grilled salmon dish. The Europeans are so laid back. We were at the restaurant for 4 hours. They just drank a little, ate a little, and talked and laughed and enjoyed the dancing. I was dying! I had to pack, and work, and talk to my family. I thought about how little time we spend eating our dinner. I decided that I am in too much of a hurry and it would be good if I slowed down every once in a while. I really enjoyed visiting with our foreign customers. They asked us a lot of interesting questions about the US government, geography, schools, etc. You could tell they were trying to make sense of things they had read or heard about the US. They are such generous, laid back, and kind people. I loved learning a bit about them. They did not share much though, because they kept asking us question. The funniest was asking us to explain different US phrases like "pulling your leg" and "your name is mud".

Friday - last day of conference. We had a wrap up, but ended early. Our customers presented with the most beautiful handmade rose leis. Paul and I drove to Frankfurt. That is where I am right now. We are staying in a high rise hotel right in down town. This is an amazing city. Very big, and modern. After we checked in, we walked to the down town shopping area. We found a urban fusion restaurant. We have a policy about only eating at a restaurant where the menu has English subtitles if there is no one with us to translate, but we were hungry and this place looked good. There were enough words that we could pick out by now like pizza, pita, chicken!, curry, etc. I ordered a chicken curry dish and it was amazing. I did accidentally eat a mushroom instead of a piece of chicken, but I didn't die. :) We are taking it easy tonight and eating at the hotel. My flight leaves in the morning. I am ready to get home to my kids. My in laws were nice enough to stay with them, so Tyler could work. I got to talk to them on the phone today and they seem to be in good spirits.

***I arrived home safely on Saturday afternoon. I am finally feeling back to normal. I had to wait and post this in the US, because my spell check was in German and I was too embarrassed to post without it. After running it this morning, I am glad that I didn't post!

Conclusion:

• I actually like Germany. I am pleasantly surprised by this, and it makes me want to see more of Europe. My instincts are much better than when I travelled overseas back in 2000. I guess I grew up a bit in the last 10 years.

• I cannot read, understand, or speak German. I should not even try to say the words I see written on signs. It feels like my brain can pronounce them, but when I speak them it sounds ridiculous.


• I am an American! I enjoy quick and convenient things. I like alarm clocks in my hotel rooms, and TV that I can understand. I will try to slow down when I eat, but 4 hours is way too long for a dinner out!