My week: May 8 ed.

Work had been all-consuming. May is the month that we're launching our big project and some of our colleagues were out of the office so I worked on some aspects of the projects more heavily than I had before. I enjoy the work I do and I have great coworkers so it's not such a big deal to put in extra work, but it really left me wondering how people can bear working in stressful work environments and/or with unpleasant colleagues. I left work every day with my muscles in knots and that's in a good work environment!

During the weekend, I was able to undo some of the knots by visiting my regular place for Thai massage. Dang, can those ladies dig into sore muscles!

After losing some of the muscle knots, I tried a new Indian restaurant next door called Royal Aroma. It's a buffet place and for 10 euros, I sampled a bit of many dishes for a tasty lunch. I need to write a review later about the pleasant experience there. The owner chatted with me a bit and mentioned that 80% of the clientele are Americans. I asked him about German visitors and he said that many come in, see that it's a buffet, and don't stay. I wondered why they wouldn't like to try buffet food; he said that they're worried the food won't be hot (temperature) enough. For the record, when I tried the food, all was properly heated and tasted quite good. Americans love the buffet because they can try a little bit from various dishes in order to find a new favorite.

On Sunday I visited the Mannheim Maimarkt with my friend A. It is a trade show, animal fair, home show exhibition, and much more. My main goal this year was to find a good knife for the kitchen. I wanted to upgrade to a Wüsthof now that I'm starting to cook more and am tired of struggling with my cheap knives. A family member had kindly offered to buy the knife as a birthday gift for me and I quickly picked out one. It's impressive how much better it cuts!

We went on a search for Waldmeister soft serve ice cream, something I buy every year when I go. Unfortunately, we didn't find any but we did enjoy the various travel destination booths and had a good laugh watching people stand on vibrating boards that jiggled them. I'm not sure the point of such appliances but that's the fun of the Maimarkt: there are many interesting things to see and do.