Guten Tag!

I have officially been in Germany for a little over day now and I have completed my first day of work as well.

Gotta love the stellar photo for my ID badge:

I was told to sit down but never when to smile, and I was definitely a bit jet-lagged.  And I now get to proudly wear that every day.  :)  I was also trying to decide whether to be insulted or not today when one of the German guys asked me when I got in, I responded with "last night" and he then commented that I looked tired.  I mean, is that just a polite way of telling me that I look like crap??

A few observations about the office:

• In the area where I am working, I am the only female.
• I got a huge kick out of the "DON'T MESS WITH TEXAS" license plate that one of the guys had hanging by his desk.  Apparently love for Texas truly is global.
• All of the smoking. There definitely seems to be appropriate areas for this. There are ashtrays or whatever outside every building. There are also ashtrays in the hallways.
• Beer.  It is EVERYWHERE.  This was sitting smack dab in the middle of the desk in my hotel room when I walked in yesterday:

• I must say that not only do I appreciate having windows in the office, but that the view is pretty awesome.  Of course seeing as I am pretty used to no windows, my standards for pretty awesome probably aren't all that high. 

The hotel is good.  The owners are super nice and I must say that I was pretty overwhelmed by the selection at breakfast.  It was SOOO much food!

I have taken a few pics of my room though so that you can have the grand two second tour.  Just inside the door, to the right there is a place to hang a couple of jackets, and then a wardrobe/closet of sorts.

To the right just inside the door is the bathroom:

All of the lights in the room have toggle switches:

Here are a few shots of the main part of the room with the desk, TV, bed and such:

That concludes the tour of my current home sweet home!