So last week I headed to Warsaw, Poland to see how my team is doing.  They went through a big transition from moving from one team (Maggie, Kasha, Mariusz) in one division of the company to another team (Karol and DPE team) in a different division.  It was also difficult as the new team has a different execution model than how my team is use to executing.  I would say each team member has a great plan but now they need to come together to build a cohesive strategy.  Almost there...After long days of meetings, planning, revising and negotiating we headed out to fun dinners to see the town.  The first night we headed to the Praga area and had a very yummy international restaurant where both old teams and new teams came together.  The second night we headed to a fun local place that was very angelic.  The food was fabulous and we had traditional polish favorites.  The last night we started at the roof top lounge where you could see the entire city of Warsaw and then allowed my boss Csaba join the ladies night out.  We took a nice walk from the Marriott to old town Warsaw.  We had Polish Tapas and Vodka at an old time Communist Era Bar.  We then headed to this cute restaurant that had over 50 different types of pirogues and special polish honey drink that was hot, alcoholic and very sweet! 

 

Let me give you a little history of Warsaw.  Warsaw is the capital and the largest city in Poland.  It is located on the Vistula River (very beautiful) roughly 370 kilometers (230 mi) from both the Baltic Sea  and the Carpathian Mountains. Its population as of 2009 was estimated at 1,709,781, and the metro area is approximately 2,785,000.  Warsaw is the 8th largest city in the European Union.   On 9 November 1940 the City of Warsaw was awarded with the highest military decoration for courage in the face of the enemy.  Warsaw is also known as the "phoenix city," as it was completely destroyed during World War II, and rebuilt with the effort of Polish citizens.  It is an amazing town and the people are so very friendly.  I loved our taxi driver who had amazing customer service but was 3X the price of the regular taxi- oh-well.  Sometimes service is worth the extra charge.  I hope you decide to visit Warsaw.  A few pictures of the trip...

So I noticed I forgot to blog about MGX- Microsoft Global Exachange.  This is the one week a year that 17,000 Microsoft employees from around the world get together to understand the strategies for the new fiscal year.  This is my 7th MGX and I can't believe every year I get re-energized and chanting I LOVE THIS COMPANY!  Amazing Products, Amazing People, Amazing Research and Amazing impact in helping people around the world- makes me so proud to work for this company.  It is also great to catch up with co-workers you haven't seen for months- some for years.  I am amazed at our MACH ( Microsoft Academic College Hires), could you image what it would feel like starting Microsoft right out of college and then being in the Atlanta Dome and seeing flags from all over the world and people chanting I LOVE THIS COMPANY with Steve Ballmer runing around the dome.  Its pretty cool.  Here are a couple pictures from the week.

 

 

Well, we just got back from a long weekend in London and we want to share with you our latest adventures.  On the right you will see some pictures from our romps through London.  The first day we landed late and had dinner at this strange Pub called the Churchill Arms where we met my old boss and her husband but the pub was a Thai restaurant.  The next day we did a lot of walking must have been 12km, we went to Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, changing of the guard, St. James in the Field Cathedral, St. James park, Buckingham Palace, National Gallery and dinner at a Belgium Restaurant and met our friends’ boyfriend-Mike at a quirky little Pub in Notting Hill Neighborhood to listen to music. 

The third day it rained a lot so we spent most of the time using the underground.  The second picture is the millennium bridge that we took to the Tate Museum.  This bridge was over budget and did not open on its target date of 2000, it cost 10 million pounds to build!  We headed to  the Tate Museum and saw a play at the Shakespeare Globe and had lunch at a vegetarian restaurant called Neil's Yard.  The play was really cool, it is the top picture and it was open air and no roof.  The bad thing is it rained the whole time and the people standing in front of the stage got soaked.  Greg was smart and saw an area on the far right side of the stage where we had a good view and stayed dry.  My favorite part was our futbal game Chelsea versus Burnley.  The crazy thing is no beer drinking in your seats, only in the food area.  If that was the case in Germany no one would be at the futbal games. 

Greg’s favorite part of the trip was our ride on the London Eye.  The next 2 pictures.  Our friend in Munich, Steve Murphy help build it.   He told us that when they opened they did a big commemoration to breast cancer and he had to tied huge pink ribbons on top of each pod.  The view was amazing and it takes 30 minutes to go all the way around.  There is a cute kids 4D movie you watch before the trip-Greg liked the pictures of us in the funny glasses, we'll spare you from viewing.

Greg had not been to Prague, Czech Republic yet-so I took him for a long weekend.  I do love this city!  We did lots of walking, at least 18km a day- Greg wanted to kick my butt by the end of each day.  We saw Prague Castle, did a bike tour through the city, did a show, saw music, went to great restaurants, and investigated neighborhoods.  We love the great art structures around the city.  The FREEDOM wall was one of my favorites.  The Dancing Building is very cool!  We saw typical Praue flats, which are pretty cute.  We had dinner with one of my co-workers and his wife.  It was a jammed pack 5 days.  If you haven't been to Prague it is a must!

 

Some interesting facts of this Bohemian city- Prague history is an epic story. Inhabitants of the city have witnessed a declaration of independence, Nazi control, brain washing communism & capitalist democracy. And that was just the 20th century!  Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, Prague has become one of Europe's (and the world's) most popular tourist destinations. It is the sixth most-visited European city after London, Paris, Madrid, Rome and Berlin. Prague suffered considerably less damage during World War II than some other major cities in the region, allowing most of its historic architecture to stay true to form. It contains one of the world's most pristine and varied collections of architecture, from Art Noveau to Baroque, Renaissance, Cubist, Gothic, Neo-Classical and ultra-modern.  It was also Mozzart's favorite city and it's known that he had stayed with many citizens of Pargue when he was fired by the King in Austria. 

 

So with my MBA finished, I now have a life and my hope is to keep my blog up to date.  So Greg and I headed home to enjoy the great Oregon Summer.  Greg stayed home for a couple months and enjoyed fishing, camping and hanging with his boys.  We climbed South Sister, did my hooding ceremony, went to the Oregon Coast and saw whales, hiked the Oregon dunes, went wine tasting, went to soccer games, went camping, went deep sea fishing and headed to central Oregon for fly fishing, hiking and enjoying the warm sun.  Oregon is one of the most beautiful places in the world and being gone sure has made us appreacite it.   It was great to see family, friends and catch-up with co-workers in Seattle.  Good times, now its back to Munich...

Well, I am very behind in my blog so in November Greg's Mom and Dad came to visit us for 3 weeks.  We went to Istanbul and Alanya in Turkey for a week and then we ventured to Salzburg, Nurneburg, Ragensburg, to visit all the Christmas Markets in Germany and Austria.  We had many adventures in Turkey as we went with a German Tour Company so to the dismay of Pam, Gordon and I everything was in German.  Greg got to be the translator and I think we got about 20% of the story.  We visited all the attractions- many mosques, cistern, markets, leather shops, rug factories and were good little tourists and bought a lot of stuff we didn't need.  We saw many ruins and the vast amounts of history was the most amazing part of the trip.  Turkey was a great visit and glad we went but that was enough bartering for me for a few years- I felt like I was in Mexico.  A couple pictures of the trip there are more on my facebook page.  We enjoyed visiting all the Christmas markets with the family and Germany during the holidays is a very magical time.  I think I will miss the Christmas markets the most when we head back to the states. 

 

Well all I can say is I now have 48 new friends from around the world; twenty-five Spaniards/Portuguese from Madrid, Barcelona and Porto and another twenty-three Anglos from USA, Australia, South Africa, UK, New Zealand and Canada with a couple living in Madrid for fun.  So Greg sold me on this trip as, “WOW, honey we speak English 3 hours a day and get a free trip at a 4 star hotel in Spain near Madrid." I thought fabulous!  Well after over 100 hours of speaking English and only 1.5 hours of free time a day, I am still thinking fabulous of the amazing people I met but I am a little tired those Spaniards can wear you out!  Can you imagine eating lunch at 2pm and dinner at 9pm and then dancing and drinking all night and back to talking English at breakfast at 9am?  What a week!  I became known as the morning Yoga Master but pleased to have my dedicated 5 students daily with one day of 12 (that night the bar closed early). Greg being an English teacher in Germany made him a great fan of the Spaniards and easier to understand than most (I know show-off!). Jordi, one of my favorite Spaniard Pals, gave me his lovely cold and I was down for the count for 6 days.  I still love you Jordi...  We have invited everyone to come visit us in Munich and we already have our first visitors tonight our KIWI friends- Clemi and Simon will join us for dinner in our little Munich Flat.  We hope to see more of you soon.  Check out the pictures in the album, I have reached my monthly capacity so I can't add any below but will add a couple next month...

Well our last four nights in Lake Konstanz had no internet access, too small of towns to update the blog.  We went over 345km this entire trip.  We saw the following towns at the end of our trip: Arbon, Horn, Romanshorn, Kruezlingen, Konstanz, Reinchnaue, Allensback, Radolfzell, Stein an Rein, Dingelsdorf, Lagenrain, Bodman, Ludwigshafen, Sipplingen, Oberlingen, Salem and then a bunch of small towns.  It was very pretty trip in the end but a little cold for summer time with some rain... All in all- Germany had the best paths and signs, then switzerland and least was Austria, seems like they don't see the investment for nike travelers as Germany and Switzerland do.  We feel our favorite of the trip was the Germany side.  We enjoyed most of the trip and Berger & Meer was a good company just a couple of the visits could have been better.  We saw a castle building festival, a string quartet concert, and several nights home in the hotel watching the Olympics!  We met a very nice couple from Norway that we plan to visit Lia and Martin.  A few pictures below from the remainder of our vacation and most of the trip pictures are in the album to the right. 

Today is Day 3 of our vacation.  We had a very very very long day as I accidentally took us the long scenic route instead of the direct route.  This meant instead of 72km we went 90km, I thought I was a good map reader, ops!  In one day we went through three countries- Germany- Austria-Switzerland.  A few of the villages we road our bikes through were Langenargen, Wasserburg, Lindau, Bregenz, Hard, Gaissau and finally our evening destination Rorschach.  Austria does not label roads as well as Germany, we were missing all of our road signs every .5km.  We had lunch a Lindau on the island- very cute and very tourist central.  We went through marsh land and endless farm lands until we got back on track to Rorschach.  Our hotel is Hotel Mozart and it is very plesant on the water with a view of the garden.  We have been lucky with three nice hotels, just one bad dinner last night but tonight's dinner made up for it.  We have had great wines and now we are ready for bed.   A few pictures from today and ready for 56km tomorrow to Konstanz, where we will be for two days. We also saw a volleyball tourney and a sand castle competition- they were very good, we added one below! Too bad Greg's Mom and Dad are not with us they would love this trip.  It is very nice with lots of great bike trails and very few areas that you must ride your bike next to cars.  Talk to you tomorrow with more details....

 

Today, was our first day biking around Bodensee.  We will do about 300km by the end of the trip.  It rained hard last night but lucky for us just cloudy and no rain today.  Today we only road 35km.  It was a very pleasant and pretty ride.  We went from Salem to Friedrichshafen.  Suprise, we are staying at a very nice Best Western- would never think a Best Western would be nice.  We have the penthouse room with great huge windows and views of the cute town and lake. 

 

Yesterday, we arrived in Salem and walked around the castle- Scholoss Salem.  Our hotel was very cute with views out to the castle and garden maze.  There was a very cool turn of the century wine press- see below.  We had some amazing white wines from the area and one very interesting Pinot Noir.  The Pinots in Europe are very different from Oregon, of-course we think Oregon's are better!  More pictures and stories to come later in the week.  A few pictures below:

 

We just spent a lovely week in Tuscany!  I AM A HUGE FAN!  We started last Saturday picking up our rental car from Avis, which did not go so well.  As we reserved a station wagon for our mountain bikes and all the junk we were taking to Tuscany-they had no station wagons!  What is the point of making a reservation if you don't get what you reserve.  Thankfully Greg is very good at loading a car and was able to fit both our bikes, both suitcases, backpacks, and of-course my laptop bag- me travel without my trusty computer- never!

 

We then headed on our 6 hour drive to Bologne. Wow, can I say Germans love to drive fast and Italians are crazy drivers that love to cut you off!  We drove through Germany, Austria and Italy.  It was a very pretty drive with lots of castles, check out the album to the side for more pictures of my lovely passenger pictures while Greg tries to drive.  Bologne was dead, everyone was on vacation and very few places were open.  We found a great little place for dinner.  We were using our starwood points with the Sheraton in Bologne.  Lets just say it was a little underwhelming, in the middle of no where by the airport.  Not your heavenly bed Sheraton....

 

When we arrive in Suvereto, it is a beautiful little medieval city.  We had a jammed pack schedule with three mountain bike trips with Thomas.  If you want to toodle and see the sites, mountain biking with Thomas is not for you.  He likes to go fast we did two trips at around 35km each, we gave up on the alst day due to rain.  We then rode our bikes to another medievel city and to the beach.  We did a few wine tastings, saw an olive oil press and did a trip with Fillipo- we highly suggest not to do Fillipos guided trip it is over priced and not very good.  We also did a wine tasting with our host Vital Dolce- which was awesome.  Christine and Stefano take very good care of you- we definely suggest working with them!  We met several wonderful couples from Austria, Germany and Italy.  You will see pictures of our new friends from Milano who will be heading to life in Dubai.  Greg and I both did a cooking class and now know how to make pasta!  We also were there for a night of stars and wine tasting and seeing a competition where they roll barrels through the town.  It was a lot of fun, very relaxing and we ate and drank way too much!!! 

 

We then left Suvereto and headed to Padova for a night before going back to Munich.  Love Podova, its a much bigger city than I expected with great food.  We were there a night of a concert of the most famous Italian rapper and fireworks.  We have a two day break in Munich where we saw Eric Clapton in Konigsplatz, catching up in laundry and head out tomorrow to Lake Constance for 6 days roadbike ride around the lake.  Stay tuned for more stories and pictures....

 

I had the opportunity to do my FY09 planning with my boss and friend Leila in London.  I have always not been to keen on living in London but after my four days there, I am ready to make the jump.  It is a very fun and easy city.  Lots to do, so much history and sites.  I still would say it is a little too spendy but check out a couple of the fun sites and the album on the side for more.  Too bad Leila is leaving me to work full-time in London and soon I will have a new boss, but now we can hang-out more and enjoy Europe together. 

We had an opportunity to go home for a week during 4th of July.  It was great to spend time with our niece and nephew-Lily & Gordy, Bryan & Christina and Pam & Gordon.  We had a fun walk to the park and chilling in the backyard.  Check out the pictures in the album.  Great fireworks this year and nice blues.  We spent time at the typical 4th of July barbecue at Mikele's and Dan did a great brisket 9 hour roast-YUM YUM!!  It was a different party instead of it full of thirty-somethings and dogs it was now late thirty-somethings and babies!  I guess we have grown up and now are adults! I also got to see my brother's kids- so cute!  See Claudia and Trevor below.

 

After my crazy travel through the US, the next day home Greg took me skiing.  To our suprise several folks from the Munich Ski Club joined us.  We went to the highest point in Munich-Zugspitze it also crosses the Austrian boarder at the very top.  Check out these views and pictures in the Album.  THe views were amazing and the cinditions perfect Spring Skiing, it just stinks becuase everything is T-bars and on a snowboard that is a real pain.  At least for me, all I did was embarrass Greg falling off the T-bar.  We finally gave up and just did the boring run that was near the big lift.  Sorry honey, I don't think I will ever figure out the T-bar! 

 

After being abroad for 7 months it is always good to see family.  I had a chance to see my Mom, Greg's parents, my brother and my nieces and nephews.  Here are just a couple from my few days home.  They are so cute... 

So I had the opportunity to celebrate my 32nd birthday while I was back in the states with my buddies in Seattle and Portland.  Thanks to everyone who made it out to visit me.  I am truly loving life in Munich but it is always great to see family and friends.  Thanks to Dave, Daisy, Mary and Nicki for spending several evenings wih me in good old Bellevue and Kirkland, so I wasn't bored. Special thanks to Greg's Mom and Dad who had to nurse me back to health as I bragged about not being sick in 5 months and then the next day getting my worse cold!  A few pictures of the festivities below and more in the albums. 

Well today I coaxed two of my co-workers to join me on the mountain in Washington State.  We headed to Crystal Mountain which is very close to Mt. Rainer.  Today, was perfect!  It was sunny, must have been close to 45 degrees and the mountain was almost empty!  Lift lines were very short and the mountain was pretty vast.  We enjoyed a day full of sunshine and great snow.  We then had a lovely lunch with a view of Mt. Rainer on the top of the mountain.  We do warn that the Lattes and Cappuccinos are a little pathetic but the view is worth the bad coffee.  It was the first time I had a barista ask how do you make a cappuccino???  Check out the album for great pictures of Arnon, Rajiv and I and the mountain of course!

Well we headed off to another 6:45AM trip to AUstria with the Munich SKi Club. THe conditions were amazing!  It was Spring time, sunny, slushes, great mountain with vast trails.  Now if I could only remember the name of the resort.  Below is a picture of the gang at the end of the day enjoying some spirits!  See my photo album for my photos.  We are enjoying the snow on the Alps, but have to say we need more snow, we saw lots of grass and mud today.  Now I am off to the USA and some great snowboarding with more than 120 inches of snow at the base of mountains in the Pacific Northwest...

 

Last weekend we had a fun trip to Radstadt with the Munich Ski Club.  Our friends Mairead and Steve joined us (Good Irish and Brits always make a weekend fun)!  Austria ski resorts are wonderfully huge and never a wait in the lift-which was grand!  Saturday the condistions were great for a  snowboard- sunny, warm and slushy.  Unfortuantely, Sunday I spent the time at the bar while Greg joined up with Werner, Dave, and Gang skiing.  Icy conditions are no fun with the snowboard.  Here are a couple pictures from the weekend.  Check out the photo album for more.   So far we have been to two Austrian resorts and two German and I have to admit so far the Austrian resorts are much better!  We hope to get some cross country skiing in soon and will let you know where are the places to go...