Hattingen

I went to another new town last night. My friend thought it would be a nice change as it was a very small, very old town. The old town originates from the 14th-16th century and the town hall was built in 1576. It is amazing to think that these buildings have lasted as long as they have and are still standing. Maybe ze Germans are onto something with building their houses out of stone and not wood. Regardless it was interesting to wander around the old town thinking about how it would have been over 400 years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hattingen

It's always interesting to see pictures on wikipedia or elsewhere and know where they were taken from or accidentally taking the same picture myself.

During the day I got my money finally and met a colleague from China. He was in Heiligenhaus learning what he could for the Chinese production facility, much like I was learning for our Mexican facility. So it appears that after this adventure finishes I'll be spending some time in Puebla. At least there I know the weather will be nice. Plus it'll be good to see Cooter and Paola again. I'm not exactly sure when that will start, but preliminary indication is March-July time frame. The good news is that it'll only be 2 week trips at the most.
Other than that I've got the end of my trip finally scheduled. Next Wednesday I fly to the Czech Republic. I come back Sunday ;-) So this will be a decent work sponsored trip. Although I have to organize my own accommodations for Friday and Saturday night in Prague. At long last I'll finally make it to the city everyone has been telling me about. Now I just need to import a friend so I'm not wandering around by myself. When talking to my friend last night she was a bit jealous about the travelling I had done so far, but she has been to Africa and Egypt so we're about even. In the end though I'm getting tired of travelling here. These mini vacations are not necessarily relaxing... I'll have a count of the number of post travel red bull cans from just my car sometime next week... Chris McCandless was right though, 'Happiness only real when shared.'

After my Czech excursion I move out of my apartment and return to where it all began, at Der Club. It'll be interesting when they try to take my car away from me. But I think I got around that when I spoke to the gate man on my way out of the office yesterday. It's funny that at the beginning I had no idea what the guy was saying to me at any point in time. Now we had a decent conversation where I brokenly explained that I was leaving on the 3rd. I'd return the car full to the office and get a ride to the airport from a friend/colleague. He was kind enough to offer to have the office driver take me, but what fun is that? Being seen off by a total stranger... 19 days...
The stein being put to good use...