Blogging from Germany! Day 1

I'm in Berlin on a business trip, training the Support staff here how our software works. So I thought I'd post frequently about my adventures!

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Arrived around 4pm yesterday, having left Portland at 12:40pm on Saturday. The 10 hour flight to Amsterdam went quickly. Even the 5 1/2 hour layover wasn't so bad. But by the time we got on the hour flight to Berlin, I was falling over exhausted.

Couldn't sleep, but wasn't cognizant enough to do anything else. Tried to play Scrabble on my iPhone, but spent more time staring at it blankly than anything else.

Made it to our hotel by 5pm and after Skying with the fam and ordering in room service, I fell fast asleep.

Woke up several times during the night, not wanting to oversleep.

Guess what?

I overslept. I must have dreamed that I called for a wake-up call. 'Cause the phone call I got was from my ride to the office.

Not the best way to start out my business trip. Oops!

My first training session went well. Much quicker than I anticipated. Now I'm waiting for Christian, leader of Support, to take me to lunch. Having eaten basically nothing for breakfast, I'm starved!

I would be working on Support emails right now but for the fact that I can't open the Support email folder. Emailed Scott for help, but being that it is a mere 4:32 am back home, I'm not expecting any answers for a while yet.

My impressions of Berlin so far? Historical and utilitarian. I've seen the remnants of the wall, 1 km. in one place, 2 km. in another. It's decorated with graffiti, but not the horrible kind. (Really, is there any other kind?) The artwork has been done by artists with someone to say. What, I'm not too sure.

I can see the partly iced over River Spree from where I'm sitting. (Part of the Berlin Wall followed/(s) the river.) There's several inches of snow on the ground. In fact, my flight in yesterday was diverted to a second airport in Berlin because the first one closed down to due to heavy snow.

More later...