I’m on work travel this week, visiting Cologne, Germany. It’s my second visit to Cologne, which is a lovely European city. Random thoughts:

  • Jet lag is a weird thing. I’ve slept solidly the past two nights here in Germany but I’m still dog tired mid-morning and late afternoon. Coffee is only marginally helpful.
  • One thing I love about Cologne is the number of bakeries with fresh bread and rolls easily available. A croissant and coffee for breakfast is just my speed.
  • 18 people in my meeting today and only 4 women. Which, sadly, is still better representation than our industry overall. We should do better.
  • I’m astonished by the number of people out and about to very late hours. 10 pm and it’s just twilight, restaurants all still going strong, lots of people hanging out along the river.
  • Trips to Europe turn into opportunities to do two workdays - just as the workday here is ending, the one back home is cranking up. Lots of stuff popping back at the home office this week.
  • I wish they did air conditioning better over here. It’s HOT.
  • “Economy Comfort +” on an old Boeing 767-400 is kind of a joke. It’s still expensive and isn’t really comfortable.
  • They have an abundance of beer house restaurants over here that are remarkably the same - get your choice of bratwurst, wiener schnitzel, or schwein haxe (pork knuckle) with potatoes and sauerkraut. They only serve one kind of beer, the house brand. It’d be kinda like choosing between the Budweiser Restaurant, the Miller Restaurant, and the Coors Restaurant, all of which served similar burgers and fries.
  • So much beer, not enough water.
  • That all being said, it’s kinda fun to order 1/2 meter of bratwurst at the restaurant.
  • I just realized last night that I misplaced a meeting on my calendar for the fall, and since my wife has already scheduled around it, I’ll probably just need to miss the meeting. Oops.
  • On the other hand, if I could keep that trip I might just make it to gold status with Delta for the first time. Two international trips this year and a bunch of domestic travel…
  • Oof I’m tired. Where’s the coffee?