Trip to Germany - May 21 - 26

I had the chance to go over to Germany recently for a work trip - we are working on a project in Giessen, which is about 40 minutes North of Frankfurt. I left from Chicago at Sunday at 6:00 p.m., flew to Manchester, England, then to Frankfurt. I arrived at noon Monday Frankfurt time, and we went up to the site at 1:30. So I was a bit tired after the first long day, but luckily there was a GameBoy in the plane headrest, so I get to get caught up on my GameBoy Tennis - a true favorite. That and I got to watch Doom. It was actually pretty decent.

This is me at work at the end of the first day. I was just plain beat by the time we left, but it was definitely interesting to see life across the pond.
This is our rental car. You'd never guess it, but it's a Mercedes. We actually broke 100 mph on the Autobahn in this mini-minivan-type thing. It was surprisingly roomy, and impressively ugly.

This is me and Michael and Sybille's kids (Lennard, Marvin, and Yannick) at the Maikammer Wine Festival.

Note - the pictures got out of order, but basically it went like this:

Monday - work at the Miebach office and at the jobsite - spent the night at the office (top-floor apartment, never too far from the work:)
Tuesday - work at the jobsite, spent the night at the office
Wednesday - kickoff meeting with the client, spent the night at Michael and Sybille's house in Maikammer, South of Frankfurt.
Thursday - went to France in the morning (about 45 minutes South of Michael's house) for breakfast, went to the Maikammer Wine Festival, to Heidelberg Schloss (castle), then to the Miebach annual meeting in Bensheim, then got lost driving back to Frankfurt in the rain.
Friday - got on a plane and came back to Chicago. The time change is great coming home - I left at 8:00 a.m. and got to Chicago at noon, 12 hours later.

Michael and Lennard in Wissembourg, France. We went there for breakfast, and of course we had to have a croissant (it's French!). Unfortunately, I couldn't find any Freedom, ...er... French Fries.
This is me and my colleague Jochen having a Frankfurter in Frankfurt. This was at the Frankfurt Opera-Fest. It seems like there's always something going on in Germany, but then again, it is summer, so maybe that's no surprise.
This is the view of the city of Heidelberg from the front of the castle. The Neccar River can be seen below :) Rudiger Overkamp, former Miebach guy and resident of Heidelberg, said it was very important to remember this river, so I remembered it.
After only a week I was really starting to blend in.