Exhale

So, it's almost the end of May. It's also almost the end of a conference here in Stuttgart that I was responsible for organizing. I purposely avoid work issues on my blog, but this is nothing negative, definitely very positive and I will intentionally write generically......we have an annual conference where the colleagues from all over the world gather in one location. Last year was in Vienna directly after my move to Germany. I had to pay really close attention, knowing that the responsibility for the conference would be transferred to me. So this year it was my turn. And I was so nervous that something would go terribly wrong or that I forgot to think about something. All of the preparations have been totally stressing me out for the last couple of weeks. Well, the conference started on Sunday and it will end tomorrow morning. And with the exception of the problem of the beamer going out during the presentation of a senior engineering VP, it has run extremely well. There have been very good discussions. And the dinners have also gone very well. Yesterday we toured a winery and then had a wine tasting. And tonight we had dinner at a cafe in the middle of a big park in Stuttgart. It's been really nice. So I'm happy to report that barring any totally unforeseeable dramatic events in tomorrow morning's 1.5 hour session, the conference has been a success! Tomorrow afternoon, it's back to the normal workday. But only for a couple of days, because Monday is a holiday and Tuesday I have the day off to go to Lego Land with the Dressler clan. Should be really, really fun, especially because the adult to child ratio is 1:1. :o)

Also, if it didn't make the international news, the soccer team in Stuttgart won the German Championship (Meister) on Saturday. I have never seen anything like it.....they put up a big screen in the middle of Stuttgart on the square in front of the castle (Schlossplatz). So Melissa, Rene, David and I wanted to take the train to the city to meet Marc and watch the game. Melissa and Rene live a few stops further out from the city than I do and Melissa called to say that there were about 400 people at the train station and she didn't think they would make the train. As I was standing at the train station in my town and talking to her, another train drove through without stopping, because it was so full. So they got in the car and drove to David and I. We drove together into the city (we had to park pretty far away - actually not in the city center (Mitte), but in the West) and went to the Schlossplatz. But it was so full, they had already closed it, 1 hour before the game even started. We looked for a place to watch the game (on TV, it was only being shown on a premium channel or satellite, which we don't have), but everything was so full. I have never seen Stuttgart such a mess - bottles laying everywhere. And another "odd" thing, the police were filming the crowd, so that if anything happened, they would have record of it. Anyways, we ended up driving to a whole other part of Stuttgart (Bad Canstatt) and saw only about the last 7 minutes of the game. (Live and learn. Next time we'll go 3-4 hours beforehand to the Schlossplatz.) But anyway, they won and the whole city celebrated until the wee hours of the morning (I was in bed by 12, no worries....). On Sunday, we were in the city again and it was absolutely disgusting....McDonald's bags everywhere, broken glass from bottles. (I bet the rats had a field day! Yuck....) But they won, which no one was expecting at all at the beginning of the season, so I guess it was worth the clean up.

In other news, I got my first ticket ever. No points, but I was caught by one of the "Blitzers", going 15 over the speed limit. A blitzer is a radar detector, which takes your picture when you are over the speed limit. So, I got to pay the city of Stuttgart 25 Euro for speeding. First time in my life that I got a speeding ticket.....