Five-hour Drives and Four-hour Dinners

The last two days have been wunderbar. Marcus picked me up from the hotel just before 10:00a on Sunday. He said that we would meet Daniel and Björn at a rest stop. I'm pretty sure we spent a whole five minutes conversing auf Deutsch before I got hung up and we switched to English so Marcus could prepare for speaking English at all of these meetings. I swear he knows more English words than I do! During our five-hour drive, we talked about everything--dogs, books, dystopian societies, cooking (he cooked octopus for his boys and they loved it!), Facebook, and silly names of towns. I believe this was only my second time on the Autobahn and it was a smooth ride. Marcus is a very good driver and I was only semi nervous at 180 kph. We met up with our caravan at a Burger King. I was actually a little dumbfounded when it came to the menu because I don't really go to BK, so I settled on a plain cheeseburger.

After arriving at the castle, we wandered around a bit. There's a very nice (and very tight) golf course and some rose gardens. We started seeing some of our colleagues and it was so nice to finally put some faces to names. After our legs were thoroughly stretched after sitting in a car, we all retired to our rooms for some rest. I sat down in my octagonal room with hopes of finishing up my book (I'm at that part where it's all coming together), but I was struck with the desire to iron my clothes. I am not really a person who irons, but I knew my clothes has been rolled (with motherly love) for over a week and I didn't want to make my international debut with wrinkled pants. It turns out that I really like ironing. Perhaps because I didn't have to lug the board out and instead just had to make a phone call. I ironed all of my clothes, even the ones that will be packed up again when we move hotels for the fair. And even ironed my leggings. My favorite part of the room is the vanity. I always wanted one, so it's fun to play princess for the day.

Pre-dinner drinks were tangled with more introductions. We had a strong showing of various nationalities and countries of residence -- 13 of us in total. Dinner started at 7:30 at the biggest round table I have ever seen. With only 3 of the 13 guests being female, we decided to triangulate our locations at the table. We started with a toast and I even received a round of applause for joining the team. We ordered right away--not knowing that we were headed for a four-hour dinner! I chose the white tomato soup and the lamb. Amazing. Next came dessert and I was one of the first people to receive my dessert...at 11:04. I ordered a chocolate parfait/pistachio/berry concoction along with the four people sitting nearest me. One crepe of sorts that was made table side. And then came the cheese cart. It seemed everyone else ordered cheese and it...took...forever to dole out everyone's portions. Meanwhile, the rest of us are sitting there waiting until everyone had been served. Now there's a running joke about cheese. Dinner officially ended at 11:30 with a decision to move up Monday night's dinner to 7p.

Post breakfast, we started our first International Summit/International Sales Conference at 8:30 on the dot. We ran a bit long with the last presentation ending at 6pm. We had two snack breaks and a lovely duck lunch. I was one of the last ones to present, but it went just fine! It was really fascinating to hear about each of the different offices. It's interesting how similar and different they are. It was great to share ideas and helpful tips to make each branch even stronger.

I had planned on having the duck for dinner tonight, but since lunch foiled that plan I went with the halibut and the mushroom soup. We had both dinner and lunch in the same "blue" room today. It had a nice long table which made talking a bit easier. I had some lovely conversations with Daniel today. He spent his senior year of high-school in North Carolina, so he had some great stories to share. Smartly, in addition to moving up the start time, we also preordered so the chef could get a head start. We ended dinner promptly at 10p--despite the ordering of more cheese plates.

Tomorrow we check out and head right over to the fair to set up the stand.