Raining today

It rained all day today. I guess this is the weather the locals are used to. I was told I should carry umbrellas with me at all times because you never know. No wonder the europeans go on vacation in July & August when there are better chances of sunny days. Actually the weather here has been very nice. It has been mostly sunny and in the 70's. Now I understand why few places have air conditioning. I remember being worried when i discovered that my apt did not have ac, neither did our office, or the plant we visited or the hotel.... I am getting the trend! Emrah told me it does not get too hot in germany and if it does the time is very short, so ac is not needed. I keep the windows and the patio door open so it has been fine so far.

THis morning I walked to my favorite bakery down the street. Actually it's the only place opened on Sunday. It's so great to pick up fresh baked bread for the day. Let's forget about my carb intake since I've been here. I also ignored my goal to eat healthy and bought one of those yummy desert. The lady was nice and was explaining to me what each desert was. I thought she would have known my limited german by the way I bought the bread (by pointing to it and said zweit bitte which means two please). As she is explaining nicely what each desert was, I put her out of her misery by pointing to one in random. It turned out to be a sweet concoction of thick custard with peaches on a soft pie crust. OMG I ate the whole thing in 5 minutes! OK, I need to walk more that's all.

Let me just say that the ipad is the best thing ever! I am so glad I bought it and brought it with me on this trip. I have music playing most of the time and have my music library of 5000 songs. I can play scrabble on line with friends and family in the states (I'm totally addicted to Words with Friends). I can watch movies that I downloaded before I left. I can also download pictures into my photo library as I take them. Need to figure out shutterbug so I can post them on the blog. Stefan also has an ipad and convinced me to buy Flight Navigator so we can play against each other.

Did some research on my asia assignment in September. Since I'm leading that one it's up to me to coordinate the workload and also do the little things like choosing hotels and meetings and such. "Unfortunately" due to proximity of the assignment we will have to book a VERY nice hotel near Manila. It's reasonable for expense budget but high by Philippines standard, or so I'm told. I'm coordinating the asia assignment with another hkl colleague who lives in Hong Kong. It's tough with the time difference. I just tried to set up a conference call. My laptop is set to Scottsdale time so I had to make sure I understood it's the right time for where I am in germany and where she is in hong kong. It was confusing!
I already got a note on my assignment in France in October - colleagues from France asking me if I had any dietary requirements. Hello, french food, what's there not to like? I think I'm in bigger trouble there than here with the weight gain. Just remembered that I downloaded Turbo kickboxing on the ipad (have I said it's the best toy ever?!) and have to get into a daily routine. Who wants to diet with so much good food around?! I remember my friend H* saying that she excercises so she can eat whatever she wants. What a great motto.