Germany Part 2

Its the end of day 3 here in Germany and the trip has steadily improved day by day. Yesterday (Monday) was a lighter workout and work day. I did strength training in my unairconditioned room to start the day (thank heavens the mornings have been in the low 60s) and started work at a leisurely 9:30 am. Work went smoothly and my presentation to a large group of company employees, while relatively unrehearsed, went well. However, if I plan to return here often, I need to at least learn some basic German. The meetings got less interesting when everyone switched back to German.

Dinner last night was local in Fellbach. Our meals were relatively simple, but very good . . . other than my taste of my hosts' appetizer - a small bite of very thinly sliced ox tongue that I was dared to try. It looked a lot like proscuitto, but definitely didn't taste anywhere as good. On a positive note, I love how the Europeans seem to cook with the seasons - my salad was made of the freshest vegetables and dessert was amazing berries with homemade rasberry ice cream. After a post dinner glass of wine while we waited for the rain storm to pass, I was ready to call it a night.

At 1 am, my body decided it would rather be on east coast time and I was wide awake for the next hour an a half. When my alarm went off the last thing I wanted to do was get up and put in a hard run. But I did. And it was hard. My US legs still haven't arrived. My workout was 2 twenty minute threshold repeats with a warm up, warm down and a 5 minute rest between repeats. I ran in the vineyards near the hotel -- beautiful scenery but also some hills. My legs weren't happy with me for the first set but by the second set, I was feeling good and ended the run strong.

After a long 11 hour day at work, we were treated to an amazing dinner tonight at Dal Sardo's in Ludwigsburg. If you ever visit Ludwigsburg, you must put this restaurant on your list. I let our host pick my menu and I can't tell you how happy I was to hear that this Italian restaurant in Germany made its own homemade gluten free pasta. It was to die for! We started with seasonal mushrooms sauteed in olive oil. Our next course was black truffles shaved over pasta tossed with olive oil and for the main course, a white flaky fish that was baked whole encrusted in salt and then fileted at the table much like a dover sole. It was surprisingly moist and not salty at all. To top it off we had homemade vanilla ice cream with fresh berries for dessert and wonderful wines throughout dinner. Definitely a dinner at the top of my best ever list.

So far its been a productive yet fun trip but I miss home and Bart, Lulu and Maverick. A couple more days and then I'm back in the states (and air conditioning)! Hope everyone's taper is starting to feel good.