Bathrooms and Toilets

I had an enoyable weekend with my sister. Took her around my neighborhood, introduced her to my local and did some shopping. One of my favorite purchases was a new toilet paper holder for the bathroom. After buying it I was disappointed that it wasn't going to work since you can't put it on paint only ceramic tile. Then I realized that I could put it on the sink pedestal! Next up is a mirror for over the sink.

At the train station today I had to pay to use the toilet. At first I couldn't figure out why there were turnstiles at the toilets. Then I realized it cost 20p to enter. I suppose it's a way to cover the costs of cleaning and to keep out vagrants.

It's been interesting in my travels over the last few weeks to see the different ways that showers operate. In some instances there are separate mechanisms to run the shower or to run a tub.

I bet you all thought I was joking when you saw the title and didn't really think I was going to talk about toilets and bathrooms.

Weekend Festivities

Well my weekend visitor gets off the hook and doesn't have to help me unpack. I heard from the moving company today that my belongings have cleared custom and are ready for delivery on Tuesday of next week. Of course I am not available until Friday of next week but at least my stuff has arrived.

It was quite an adventure tracking my shipment down. There was a tracking mechanism on the web site but I didn't have the correct number to pull up my records. I was able to find the number of the agents in the UK and they informed me that my things had just cleared customs and could be delivered starting on Tuesday.

Next weekend will be spent unpacking. If there are any volunteers who want to spend a fun weekend unpacking boxes I'd be happy to accomodate your strange desire to unpack my junk.

One Month Down

I realized today when I got home from the airport that I have officially been here for 1 month. Time has sure gone quickly. Being so busy will do that to you. The tour seemed more hectic this week than last and I didn't get a chance to get on-line which explains the absence of my postings this week.

I have decided I really like southern Europe. All the stops this week included wine and beer with lunch. Luckily I presented in the morning. I also received a bottle of wine when I checked in to my room in Madrid. I stashed that in my suitcase and it is now the lone bottle on my wine rack (at least until Saturday).

On Tuesday night we went to a tapas bar in Madrid and had some amazing food. I also learned that paella is a dish that is only eaten at lunch. If you see people having it for dinner they are most likely tourists. I had a little free time yesterday afternoon before we left so I got to wander around the city a little, it's definitely a place I want to go back to and spend some more time.

Lazy Weekend

I spent the weekend lounging around enjoying the fact that I didn't have anything to do. On Saturday I took a walk into town, went to the farmers market and took a stroll along the Thames. The farmer's market was not what I was expecting. Only 1 stall had vegetables the rest were all prepared foods, cheeses, pies, desserts and meat. It was quite nice.

Sunday I wandered down to the home improvement store. It was much more than a Home Depot or Lowes. There was a linens section, electronics, small kitchen appliances, storage and of course all the home improvement stuff. I'm looking forward to checking out the garden department and getting some plants and flowers around my house.

I also made a little discovery on Saturday while I was cleaning the house. I just realized that my couch is actually a sofa bed. That makes my decision to get rid of the bed in the upstairs bedroom a little easier. I'm also going to invest in an aero bed in case the sofa bed isn't that comfortable. But then again if the bed isn't comfortable guests won't want to stay that long :) My first guest arrives on Saturday morning. Maybe if she's lucky my stuff will have arrived and we can spend the weekend unpacking.

It's finally here

In case you're not sure what I'm referring to my telly finally arrived today. This of course was after the fiasco earlier this week with the delivery service. I was told when I placed my order that I would be called to arrange delivery. I was quite surprised on Monday from the delivery agency. They were outside my house trying to deliver the television and were quite upset that I wasn't at home. When I informed them that I was in Germany and was not able to come home later in the day to receive the item they hung up on me!

After a quick call to the company I ordered the TV from they took care of everything and arranged delivery today. It's only been 3 weeks that I've been without any television. Luckily the Internet has provided me all the news I need to know.

New feature to the blog - I will be tracking the number of flights I have taken this year

As of 15 February 2007 I have taken 16 flights.

Back Home

I survived my first week on the road. Made a minor mistake going through immigration when I got back to Heathrow but corrected it 5 minutes later. Initially I got in the wrong line -oops I mean queue. There are actually 4 queues at Heathrow but not all are very clearly marked. There are queues for EU citizens, non-EU citizens, IRIS and UK visa holders.

At first I thought that the line for visa holders was not open because there was nobody in it, but after 5 minutes I saw somebody walk into that line and immediately bypass all the non-EU citizens.

IRIS is also a way to speed up immigration at Heathrow. They implemented this project in 2005 which utilizes biometric technology to look at iris patterns to identify an individual. This along with passport information is scanned into a computer. When going through immigration you walk into this little booth it scans your retinas and if the computer recognizes you you're through. I'm not sure it makes sense to sign up for this program since that had a longer queue than the visa holder line. We'll see how it goes.

I ran into an interesting blogging situation while in Germany. I logged in to the admin console to post and the entire site was in German. Since I didn't understand German I wasn't sure what link I should click on to change the language. Luckily I've posted enough that I knew what buttons to hit to publish my post. In talking with one of my colleagues we think that one of our company's products is actually being used to direct users to different language sites depending on what country they are in.

Munchen (Munich)

I arrived in Munich yesterday for the start of the road show tour. The majority of the day was spent reviewing the presentations and preparing for the upcoming sessions. The fun began in the evening. We went into town for dinner with a co-worker via the autobahn. I think at one point I checked the speedometer and we were going almost 200km/hour!

My presentation wasn't until the afternoon so I spent the morning walking around the city center with a co-worker. The picture on the left is from the new city hall building. Walking through the marketplace I found it surprising that there were 4 or 5 butcher shops in a row. The sausages all looked very good howeverI have no place to cook sausages in my hotel room. Maybe tomorrow for lunch I'll find a good brat.

On my excursion into the city we popped into a church. Turns out it was a catholic church that Pope Benedict was cardinal-priest from 1977-1982.

In talking with different people over the last two days I was slightly confused as to the differences between Bavaria and Germany and how they wre related. I was given Bavarian beer and ate at a German restaurant. When I asked a colleague what the differences were he replied "What's the difference between Texas and the United States?" Turns out Bavaria is a free state of Germany.