One of the best things you could ever hope for on a business trip happened today. We finished all of our work, early. That’s right, EARLY. That never happens. We’re usually working late on the last day trying to squeeze things in. When we’re stateside we’ve been known to race to the airport to catch our flight. But no, this has been one of the best business trips ever. AND we finished our work. Since we finished our work early enough we were able to pop back into town. I was able to get over to the wool shop and pick up five sets of needles. I think I have finally filled in all the gaps in my Addis collection so life is grand for me. Then, just because we could and because we had another 30 minutes or so on the parking meter my colleague and I decided to walk to Switzerland. For the uninformed, Konstanz sits on the Swiss border. So we walked across the locals’ border and hunted for a welcome to Switzerland sign to take our pictures next to. Alas, the best we could do was a sign for the town name.

I may even be a little sad to go home tom’w. I really have had such a splendid time on this trip!

Today is one of our German colleagues birthday. So after work we met up with her, her husband and some of her friends (many of whom I have met before). It was a grand time with lots of chattering. I was feeling super chatty at the beginning of the meal. We met at an Irish Pub and it was Bingo! night no less. Alas, I didn’t win at Bingo! but I came very close to being a come back kid. Anywho, here’s a nice photo of the birthday girl.

Oh and here’s a shot of the pub.

Today the most magnificient thing happened. I ordered something entirely in German, I got what I asked for and it tasted wonderful. Time for a happy dance.

Oftentimes I order in a pidgin German/English hand gesture manner and get something that tastes good but isn’t always what I was expecting.

It may not sound like a splendid idea but boy was it ever! As I mentioned the city I come to over here in Germany is on a very large lake so there is lots of local fresh fish. The three of us traveling on this trip are all big fans of sushi so we decided to head to the local sushi joint. I am always a bit leery when I go to a new sushi joint but this one was definitely bustling when we arrived. They have a fairly extensive non sushi menu so it’s a good place if people aren’t willing to eat sushi with you. As for the sushi, have you ever tried to order in 3 languages? It was funny because the menu was in Japanese and German and then we were trying to translate some of the German words back into English to make sure we were getting the fish we wanted. It all worked out in the end. I ordered some miso soup. It was a little cloudier than I am accustomed to but it was good.

The bit that surprised me the most though was the California roll. It was no where near the kind of hard and flavorless California rolls we get over here. Soo yummy! Too bad I didn’t get a picture of that. We were all stuffed by the end although I probably could have eaten more. Oh and here’s a pic of my colleague’s Pils.