Heidelberg revisited (again...)

Two weeks ago Thursday I went to dinner with Helmut after work.  We hadn’t been out together, just him and I, for some time now.  We went to an Indian restaurant in Gross Umstadt near where KPo and I used to live.  I had taken Steve from Detroit there about a month ago, but Helmi and I had been talking about going there since the end of summer.  The couple that runs the place makes you feel right at home, and the food is excellent.  We talked about a lot of different things and were very relaxed.

I had seen Marek and the guys from Honda, Steve and Dean, earlier in the week in a conference room near where I was working.  I met them in the Lobby at about five-thirty to give them their company gifts and to discuss when I would pick them up.  I still had a couple of things to do at that point, so they walked back to their hotel to wait for me.  I picked them up at about seven and we headed to Sachsenhausen, in Ffm.  On the ride there, all of them were full of questions about what it is like to live here.  We managed to get a table at Germania and had some ebbelwoi and some traditional German food.  We left there and went back to DA to the Grohe for some beers. Steve ended up somehow talking to some really drunk people at the next table.  One of the guys at the table wanted Steve to trade pants with him and was relatively persistent about it.  Trade pants?  That is mildly disturbing and very bizarre at the same time.  We closed that place and I drove them back to their hotel, where we had Hefeweizens.  Marek went to bed at about 1am, but Steve and I stayed up drinking and bullshitting until 4am.  I was supposed to pick them up at ten.  Shit!

I got up at 9:30 and tried to bring myself to function.  I arrived at their hotel at 10:30.  Not bad, since I felt as if I were going to die.  The mixture of ebbelwoi, pils, and Hefe was a very, very, very bad idea.  Dean was checking his email in the lobby when I got there.  Steve hadn’t come down yet.  Dean went up to get him and we were off to Heidelberg.  Hangovers really suck.  I was determined to follow through with my commitment to Marek however.  We arrived in my favorite park house finally, and I lost my cookies in the bathroom.  I felt like I was going to pass out.  I sat down for a couple of minutes when we got outside.  We went over to the bridge and then to the mountain train to go up to the castle.  Of course the train was having technical difficulties, so we took the stairs, all 370 some odd.  Half way up I broke out in a cold sweat, not good.  We saw the castle and the wine cask, blah, blah, blah…

I drove us back to DA and dropped them at their hotel so I could go home and relax a bit and take a nap.  Marek called and we set up a time to meet later for dinner.  I slept for a bit and then went to pick them up again.  They wanted to go to Bochshaut, another traditional german restaurant.  One can only eat so much traditional german food.  I suffered through it, and then Marek wanted to take them to the Darmstadter brewery.  Darmstadter beer is like rolling rock, migraine headache beer.  I still felt like shit and desperately needed sleep.  I took them back to their hotel, which by the way I can see from my apartment.  I stupidly agreed to take them to the airport, which meant two trips.  I really have to learn how to say no.

I arrived home after playing taxi and decided to take Linda for a drive through the Odenwald.  I picked her up at about twelve thirty and we headed south.  It was a nice day for a drive, sunny and cool.  I took her to the roman stone chairs in Haingrund.  She enjoyed that very much.  She had never been in the Odenwald before.  We finished the day at Burger King stuffing our faces with junk food.

On Monday, I had to deal with the two freaks in my office constantly drilling me with questions.  Doris ran interference for me by asking me to come up to her office to work on our presentations for the next week.  She is the best.  I left work early to go home and change to go to see my shrink in Ffm.  I was changed, and sufficiently feminized in less than an hour.  I got to my appointment on time, which is miraculous.  Jerry opened the door and I could tell at first he thought I was someone else.  He recovered nicely though.  That was the first time he has seen me in female mode.  I had a good session, as I spent the fifty minutes telling him how good I was feeling despite my job.  I left him and was off to meet Linda at Hauptwache to do some shopping.

I met Linda and we went to the Bemble store.  They have all traditional German stoneware which is come to find out quite expensive.  Linda and I picked out four Bembles for Sandi and had them packed for shipment.  The place is a family joint and apparently has been so for about fifty years.  The two old ladies that ran the place were really nice and cute.  We then went to a plus size clothing store so Linda could buy some new duds.  I was uninspired by the clothes because they didn’t have anything small enough to fit me.  I saw a lot of bras that I could fit my head into the cup.  That finished, Linda drove me back to DA.  We went to eat at Haso Kebap house, but the suave waiter guy wasn’t working that night.  At first I was a little hesitant to go in there, but quickly got my nerve and we stayed to eat.  Some drunken Turk kept staring at me and Linda.  He kept inching closer to her on the bench along the wall.  We left there and walked to my house.  Lindy Lou went home and I went to bed.

The post previous to this one actually chronologically comes before this post.  I’m sorry to have made this so complicated.  After posting the previous post, I received a call from Jason from my Detroit office.  He warned me that I was being slated to go to Renault in France to work on a machine.  Somehow the guys in Detroit got the funny idea that I can remove shaft flanges better than anyone else in our worldwide organization.  Plus Renault requested we send an engineer from the states.  I was relatively close and seemed like a good patsy.  I could hardly wait…I’ll write about the last week and a half tomorrow.