"Ich bin ein Berliner"

It's good to be back. After a long 10 days in Europe...it feels good to be back in my own bed. Don't get me wrong, I love Europe, but there is nothing like being back in your relm. Just thought I would give a re-cap of my trip to all my readers.

I left on a Saturday and headed to England. It's a non-stop from San Fran. The nice thing about travel with the company is that your travel in business class. British Air has the best Business class in the Bid-ness. I took upper deck and just kicked it. I watched the Movie "The Prestige" which was not bad. I also watched "A good day" which was ok. We arrived in England and I forced myself to stay up. So I took a walk along the Thames river and people watched. I enjoy just sitting and watching. The weather was actually really nice. That night we ate some grub...(which is not good at all anywhere in England). The next day we did all our presentations to the England folks and flew to Manchester to visit some of our agencies. We ended up in Preston England where I was bumped up to the President Suite and it was a treat.
The next day was pretty cold. We hit two more of our agencies and flew out of Manchester back to my motherland Germany. We landed in Berlin and hit Kurfasterdamn Strasse, found a nice place to eat, and had a big fat schitzel. Ahhhh...the real food. The next day we did our thing and it was a LONG day. We took a train from Berlin to Hamburg that night and got in really late. Now it begins to snow during the next few days as we wrap up all the other agencies tours. I choose to stay a few days later to hang out with my family in Ashcaffenburg. I took the train down and I finished the book "Fishers of Men" Vol 1. It was pretty good.
It was really nice to hang with Oma, Marina and Bernie. We ate at the Schlappe Seller which was VERY good grub and one of Tom's favorite..I can see why. We then went to the REAL to shop for some things to take back. I bought a ton which caused me to borrow a suitcase to take back.
Final day it rained and it was really nice to just hang and read and talked with family. I talked to Oma about my options to move to AZ or Salt Lake. I told her my concerns with both. One concern I have is that sometimes it can be a challenge to live too close to family for us. She says..."Yes, we loves our family......but not TOO much". It was classic. I will need to choose soon. Perhaps after we come back from our SKI trip we will know.
On the plane back I watched Employee of the month, Babel and Flags of our Fathers. All were not that great. Babel was horrible. I was hoping Flags would be better....but it seemed all over the place.
Now I am back to my family, bike, LOST, bed, juice and nice weather. Bikey weather.

I did the Sierra Rd King of the Mountain today with Scotty. We actually did not pay for it, we just joined the masses. It was a great ride. I can't wait to be up there on Wed when the Pro's come to town. I felt really good and at the top I crossed the finish line with the lead group....(I had a 10 min head start on the pelaton) It was great to try and keep up with these guys. It really put things into perspective on how strong they are....and weak I am. We rode down the back and headed back home. I felt really good and the weather was so nice, I stopped at home, filled up my bottles and went out for an additional 20. It was nice. My legs are killing right now but I need to get ready for Solvang or I am dead. I plan to ride on Monday and then watch the Tour de C on Wed.

Well...I need to do my taxes....hopefully we get a nice return so I can spend it....