How do you say, "is this fish?" in German?

Hello from cold and wet Germany. As you know (see the post below) we are away from our beautiful - green - Ireland for a bit. We are here in Germany for a series of meetings with our company. To be honest with you we are not getting to do any real sightseeing... unless you count the local restaurants. For this non-German speaking American it can be quite an adventure. Take tonight for instance... We went out to eat with a group of co-workers. The very very nice - but stern looking - waitress met us at the door and ushered us (the group of loud Americans) quickly to our table and told us to please sit down. She gave us our menus and left. We all sat there in silence trying to use the few pictures on the menu to decipher what each dish was... To be honest with you I really felt like just putting my finger on a random dish on a random page. It would not have made much of a difference - because I could not be sure what anything was... Why did I not buy a pocket dictionary and bring it with me? Mental note: Buy one... And bring it next time. I ended up settling on one of the dishes next to the picture of the fish. In the end- Success! Salmon! Dee and I are wrapping up a few things here in the office tonight & then we are headed back to watch CNN - our only English speaking TV channel. Until the next post...

Off Again...

Just a note to say that we are heading off again for a week of meetings. I'll try and keep everyone posted.

Bonjour

Hello from the road... We hope that all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We have had a blast! We spent Thanksgiving with 10 of our friends & colleagues in Brittany, France for meetings. Our week was a wonderful retreat that we both found refreshing and challenging. Two of our friends are moving to that area, and we were so excited to help them house hunt. Brittany is an interesting area of France that is truly Celtic. We saw standing stones, Celtic knots, and heard Celtic music that is distinct from Irish, Scottish, or Welsh. There is an ancient Celtic language still spoken there that is very much alive in the hills and villages of this ancient land.

Today's Random Pic...

Rae & Dee

On the road again...

Just a quick note to say that we are going to be on the road a lot over the next few weeks. We are going to keep updating the website (I hope)... So stay tuned.

Car Drama...

Well.... Our car drama is over! As you might have read in a previous post - our car "Nellie" has gone to a better place -i.e. a repair shop/car dealer.
Nellie was our Toyota 'people mover'... I love the term "people mover". In American terms - it was a van... But in this world of super small cars, roads, and extremely small parking places the term 'people mover' better describes the length, width, and height of Nellie. We named her Nellie because riding in her felt much like riding a horse (- a lot of ups and downs and side to side motions kinda like one of those springy horses at a playground). She was a good car - and we have a lot of fond memories in her. Friends and families that have visited... groups that have come to Ireland... road trips across country... I have spent many an hour sitting in her down by the ocean reading or working as the wind rocked the car back and forth. We have been able to help many friends move furniture in her, and we have even moved our own furniture in her... but I think most of all we will miss the ability to see over the rock walls into the fields and front gardens as we drive.

I wish that we could say that Nellie went out of our lives with dignity... but alas -in the end - the miles caught up with her. We were holding our breath hoping that she would survive her last trip with us as we took her to the car dealer that wanted to buy her.... and it was with almost a tear in our eyes that we said our last goodbye....

Slan leat a Nellie...!

Change is in the air...

Thanks for all of the feedback about the website. I've been working on changing it... and it still needs a lot of work - but here is the new version of the site.

For your enjoyment - Here is the picture that was the background:

A quick survey:

Just wanted to ask - Do you like the new setup for the website? Does having a picture in the background make it too hard to read? Drop me a note and let me know what you think. Thanks.

Today's Random Pic:

Today's random pic...

From our travels last week: