Guten Morgen!

I’m writing from Germany today, having landed yesterday. I would have hopped onto the ‘net yesterday to post, but the cost of internet access from the hotel is nearly 20 Euro a day, which is nearly $40 a day! It wasn’t worth the cost to me, when I could just wait one day and go into a German plant and get free internet access. So, here I am. 🙂

Our flight over was uneventful. The food wasn’t bad, the flight attendants weren’t overly friendly; overall, the flight was fairly neutral. We flew US Airways straight from Philadelphia to Munich and I think that the general concensus of associates who also flew US Airways is that British Airways does a better job, even if you can’t get a direct flight to Germany. So, if we have to do this again, we’ll see what we choose to do. We have a HUGE car from the rental company, having had to rent a full sized car in order to get an automatic transmission. I may have learned to drive on a manual transmission, but it’s been what 15 years since I’ve driven a manual? Too long ago for me to be comfortable picking up and driving in a foreign country. We have a Chrysler 300m which, and Carol will attest to, is a large car, so it’s been interesting for Terry to drive this bohemoth in a country where most cars are not that large. It has also drawn some comments and laughs from our colleagues.

We’re here for Terry to work this time, as opposed to Terry tagging along with me to Flagstaff in May. It’s a little strange for me because I don’t really know many German associates at our company and it’s also my first time visiting a country in which English is not the primary, native language. It was quite interesting getting from the airport to our hotel. All in all, we didn’t do too badly. We got going in the wrong direction on one highway and had to exit and turn around to the right direction. Finding the hotel was interesting, as we couldn’t find the road it was on the first time past, but we found it after making a u-turn and trying again. Mostly, it was just funny because I was navigating for Terry and the best I could say is “Look for exit number blah-blah to highway blah-blah towards a bunch of German words.” 😆 I really wish I spoke German, but all of the places we’ve been so far have employees that also speak English, so it hasn’t been too bad. I just wish I felt a little more in my element. It’s good to stretch yourself, it’s just not always comfortable.

We haven’t seen any of the sights, nor will we have much of a chance to before we leave here and head to the UK on Saturday morning. We’ve seen the roads between the airport and our hotel, the inside of our hotel and the company building. Exciting stuff.

The hotel is modern and expensive. Everything is extra. The garage is extra, but necessary because you can’t find a parking spot on the street; internet access is extra; breakfast is extra. Where do they think we are, America? 😉 It’s just much more painful with the US dollar being so weak right now. It’s hard to convince yourself mentally to accept the prices as if they were US dollars, without doing the exchange rates in your head, but it’s necessary in order to feel comfortable with the charges.

I’m struggling with a headache right now that is trying really hard to expand into a migraine and that I’m trying equally hard not to allow it to do so. It’s a little more challenging because I’m not at home with all of the normal accoutrements to help me overcome the headache. I do have Excedrin, Fioricet and my mega-migraine-killer medication with me, though. I just had a tough time getting through breakfast. I normally would have something dry, like granola bars or animal crackers, which helps to soak up the acid in my stomach without causing additional issues. But here, I had sausage and eggs, which went down okay, though the scrambled eggs were starting to push the limits of what I could handle, but the cereal I had afterwards was really difficult for me to choke down, for some reason. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to be home right now so I can curl up with a heating pad to relax my shoulder muscles in my nice, soft bed. The bed at the hotel is a bit hard and unforgiving, so I didn’t sleep well with the headache overnight. I’m just hoping that I don’t have to have Terry take me back to the hotel over lunch for me to try to sleep off the remainder of this headache. As it seems to be leaving me, I’m starting to get more and more tired. Or maybe it’s just the caffeine from the Excedrin wearing off. Oh well, it will all work out. 🙂

In the meantime, I have plenty of work to do today, so I’ll sign off for now.