Deutschland Part One: First Week in Leipzig

My View of Leipzig

So, due to the supreme lack of time to compile pictures or even check my e-mail thoroughly, I have neglected to post anything in the blog about my trip to Germany. For those who don't know, my company held a huge training event in Leipzig, Germany for two weeks, after which I had the opportunity to travel to Berlin for the weekend, and then to Stade (outside of Hamburg) to attend a meeting with my co-workers that work there and tour their chemical plant. The trip as a whole oscillated from extremely exciting to mind-numbingly dull, but overall the awesome outweighed the boring and it was way fun. So, I have decided to do this post in parts, as there are a lot of pictures, and lots to tell.

Leipzig Week 1

So, truth be told, I didn't really know what the first week of training was all about until it started, and apparently that was just the way that Dow wanted it, they let us have information as we needed it all week. Basically, the first week of training had a three fold reason: To get us excited about our careers at Dow, to network with other new engineers as well as multiple levels of company leadership, and to give us training and guidance that is much needed and very helpful to new employees in a large and confusing multi-national corporation. So, there was a lot of gettting to know people, a lot of speeches, a lot of interviews, and a lot of activities. The following are some of the activities we participated in:

Organ Concert at The Neues Gewandhaus

The Neues Gewandhaus and Fountain

While I prefer a full orchestra, this was a sweet awesome performance. The Neues Gewandhaus is one of the few cultural land marks that was reconstructed in East Germany behind the iron curtain. The recital included some Bach, some arrangements of Bach, and some Schumann that was out of this word. We also had dinner there afterward.

Inside the Gewandhaus and in concert. Check out those pipes!

The jazz band that played during dinner at the Gewandhaus

Around Town

So, in the little free time that I did have, I walked around Leipzig with some friends, here are a few of the cool places we saw:

This was a way cool building, there is a lot of architecture like this in Leipzig, and a lot of construction, so more is to come.

This is just me at the park in downtown Leipzig. It is kind of like Washington park in Portland, the Zoo borders the park on one side, and the city borders it on the other three.

I believe this is the old Thomas church, but this picture can give you an idea of what the streets are like. All of the side walks were cool cobblestone designs.

A few of my group members and I out to dinner a swanky restaurant.

Bowling and Futball
We had a fun activity mid week to watch the German National team play their quarter-final game in the Euro-cup tournament at a bowling alley. It was a lot of fun, and I lost horribly to guys that were a bit tipsy. I really am a horrible bowler.

Germany won their game on Wednesday, and so did everyone I bowled against . . .

So, that is about it for week one, I met some cool people, saw the sights, and was pretty much exhausted 24-7. Next post, the really fun stuff, there will be danger, daring and reckless driving!

Safe and Sound

I was going to put a German phrase as the title of this post, but then I realized that I don't know a single German word! How sad is that. I know at least "hello" and "goodbye" in most major languages, but I have just recently realized my absolute ignorance when it comes to German. For the last few seconds I've been contemplating why this one language has been overlooked. My pondering has resulted in no answers, so when Luke gets back, I'm going to make sure I at least learn a few words -- just to even it out with the rest of the handful of foreign words in my pathetically small foreign vocabulary. Anyway, I digress...this post is about Luke making it Germany...
The trip started out a bit rough, but has since gotten better. When he went to check-in at the airport for his long flight to Frankfurt, the desk attendant couldn't pull up his information. Apparently a manager in Germany had locked the file for the flight right as he was trying to check in, so after a few minutes of struggling with the flight information, the desk clerk got him checked in, but was concerned that his luggage wouldn't be arriving at the same time. So, she upgraded him to First Class just in case there were problems. I tell you what, a 10 hour flight is a great time to be upgraded! Well, the desk attendant was correct in assuming that his luggage would be held up. When he finally got to Leipzig, his luggage was still in Frankfurt. They finally got his luggage to him by noon Monday morning, but thank goodness he chose to dress "business casual" for the flight instead of in shorts and a T-shirt. Luke said he might adopt the habit of putting some clean underwear in his carry-on for future flights... ;) I'll let him tell about the rest of the trip when he gets home in a few weeks, but so far he's really enjoying the conference and he's pretty much over the jet-lag by now, so the "nodding off" during the presentations is being kept to a minimum.

Take Me Out To The Ball Game...

We love having friends that score us great tickets to things...

Some friends of ours regularly get to see Houston Astros games because her parents have season tickets and so they invited us to come with them last night to see them play the Milwaukee Brewers. I'm not one to sit down and watch a baseball game on T.V. -- unless I'm in need of a nap -- but actually going to the game is a great fun. I think I'm good luck too -- every game I've been to, the home team has won. ;) They should keep me around a bit more, eh? So, needless to say, the Astros stomped the Brewers 6-1. Like I said, I'm good luck!