Far Away From West Virginia

I am back in the states. I've been back for about two weeks but I've just found time to put up a new post. Hopefully all my readers are not totally kaput. I had a great summer spending 7 weeks in Germany/Europe. I can tell you that it was an amazing time. It isn't always easy being in an intercontinental long-distance relationship but we know that when we are together, we have a wonderful time and life is pretty much perfect. I can say without reservations that it was the best 7 weeks and the best summer I have ever had. We made lots of memories we will take with us for the rest of our lives. We did so much to include in one post, so I'll take the next couple of days to describe some of the experiences we had.

We spent the first 10 days or so in Pforzheim where she is in school. The OFOMOL doesn't think too highly of this city, but considering where I live, I had no problem with it. I flew into Frankfurt and had to take the train there. She met me in Karlsruhe and I had no idea where to find her. I got off the train and saw, out of the corner of my eye, someone running directly to me. What a great reunion it was.

I had a chance to meet most of her classmates. She is in an international business program so there are students from all over -- Germany (of course), Romania, USA, Belarus, Sudan, Taiwan, China, Mexico, Columbia, Turkey, and Lithuania. I think I got most of the countries. They are a nice group of people and I do appreciate being exposed to other cultures.

The first friday there I did do a 10K Race, the Citylauf Pforzheim. It has been quite awhile since I have run competitively and I thought I would be able to handle it but it kicked my ass. It was a 2K loop that we ran five times. I got passed by the top-guys during my 2nd loop (ie they were on their 3rd) and on my 3rd loop my legs were really starting to feel it. It became a battle of wanting to finish and keep my legs moving rather then try to do well. I finished with a stellar time of 52 minutes. Back in the day (18 months ago) I ran sub-36. But it was nice to get back into the running thing and I was treated to a very-tasty doner afterwards.

We also took a trip to the Daimler Benz Museum. That was pretty cool and I had a good time there. It is one of those interactive museums where you could spend hours in. There was a lot of history to the company. Some of the highlights include a Mercedes garbage truck in which I got to sit in and the Popemobile. As the Daimler Museum is in Stuttgart which is special in the fact that it has one of the American food places that the OFOMOL loves; that's right, Starbucks. Upon her insistence we stopped there for a coffee.

As Pforzheim is close to France, we did take a day trip to Strssbourg. The details of that trip will be addressed in the next post.