Whew! That was one heck of a week. I was responsible for a training event at work for our staff members from all over. I coordinated more than 12 different speakers for the event, found us a free place to have it, made the arrangements for everyone's travel documents and lodging, and basically took care of everything. The hardest thing about this wasn't any of that, though: it was the bureaucracy of just getting the event approved. I have been working on this for six months; no joke! It was astounding how many layers of requirements that must be met to pull this off. We even had the person in charge of our entire program worldwide come in for the training. Everyone was really happy with it; I am both relieved, pleased, and exhausted.
-I took our visiting colleague to Heidelberg this weekend and saw the castle ruins for the fifth time. It was too dang hot and I was still tired from the training so I tried not to droop too much. It's easy for me to take people to Heidelberg because I know the city well and it's atmospheric. I have to giggle, though; people who visit from the US talk about it reverently and get so excited about visiting it. For me, it's just where C lived and I like visiting it in an everyday type of way.
After our jaunt in Heidelberg, we met up with my friends C+K (a different C from the Heidelberg one) in Neustadt on the way home for dinner together. My colleague really enjoyed meeting them and commented on just how lovely they are. It's true; they're so sweet!
-On Sunday, I met up with C+K in Dahn for a hike along southern Germany, about 20 miles from the French border. It's a beautiful part of the Wasgau area with trails through the forest with random large sandstone formations jutting up. Along the way, we stopped at Burgruine Altdahn, the castle ruins. We climbed up the crumbling former castle as lizards scampered ahead of us.
The day was rather humid and as we completed the last third of the hike, things started to heat up. I usually don't have a problem keeping up but I was lagging that day with the heat and lots of ascents. Seeing the parking lot at the end was a relief!
We followed up the hike with Flammkuchen at Brauhaus Ehrstein in Hinterweidenthal and had a view of the Teufelstisch, which is a rock formation named for a "devil's table." I look forward to that hike in the future.
Congratulations on having that huge event behind you as well as having pulled it off successfully! I hear you on the humidity. Walking outside is undesirable. I walked to the butcher and back this afternoon, and plopped down for a nap on the floor in front of a fan afterwards. How appropriate that you saw the Teufelstisch, since it's hotter than the steaming bowels of hell this summer!
ReplyDeleteThank you! I thought that the ridiculous load of bureaucracy was going to do me in before the training even started! I will probably write up the metaphor that I developed for it because it describes it so aptly.
ReplyDeleteThis dang weather is just miserable. I have no idea how people can tolerate hot climates and it's not even that hot here, comparatively.