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 headed to Oktoberfest today with my neighbor Bernie.  I should have known Greg was going to bail on me when he said he would meet me there at 13:30.   The wether was perfect not too hot, not too cold, no rain and not too many people- just yet that is...  We got there and walked around before meeting the Munich International Ski Club with our Box section Hacker Tent.  The tents are amazing, huge and hold 9000 people.  It is crazy they take 2 months to build, 3 weeks of festivities and then another 2 months to take apart.  Over 8 million people will come to Munich and I think it is 6 million masses of beer and 3 million chickens are consumed in the 3 weeks of Oktoberfest.  We joined 80 of our closest ski buddies for Mass biers, 1/2 chickens, dancing and singing.  Greg finally shows up to make an appearance for 15 minutes and then said he was going on a quick walk and never came back.  Bernie joined me and we enjoyed the next 4 hours.  After feeling quite drunk we headed home so we can be productive at work tomorrow and not be too drunk. 

 

Let me give you a little history lesson on Oktoberfest-  Crown Prince Ludwig, later to become King Ludwig I, was married to Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen on 12 October 1810. The citizens of Munich were invited to attend the festivities held on the fields in front of the city gates to celebrate the happy royal event. The fields were renamed Theresienwiese ("Theres'a Fields") to honor the Crown Princess, although the locals have since abbreviated the name simply to "Wiesn". Horse races in the presence of the royal family marked the close of the event that was celebrated as a festival for the whole of Bavaria. The decision to repeat the horse races in subsequest years gave rise to the tradition of Oktoberfest.  In 1811, an added feature to the horse races was the first Agricultural Show, designed to boost Bavarian agriculture. The horse races, which were the oldest - and at one time - the most popular event of the festival are no longer held today. But the Agricultural Show is still held every three years during the Oktoberfest on the southern part of the festival grounds.  In the first few decades, the choices of amusements were sparse. In 1818, the first carousel and two swings were set up. Vistitors were able to quench their thirst at small beer stands, which grew rapidly in number. In 1896 the beer stands were replaced by the first beer tents and halls set up by the enterprising landlords with the backing of the breweries. The remainder of the festival site was taken up by a fun-fair. The range of carousels offered was already increasing rapidly in the 1870's as the fairground trade continued to grow and develope in Germany.  Enough history... Here are a few pictures from the day.

 

So I headed on Wed. from Moscow to the Windows Client BG Leads offsite in Milan.  To my suprise we headed straight to the Staium to see the Inter- Barcelona Game.  The downfall for me is arriving at the Stadium with 76,000 people and having a suitcase and backpack with it pouring rain.  I was then told to go against the traffic of all the people and head to the Metro to meet the bus to leave my bags and head to the game with the team.  After a 40 minute walk and 2 hour wait,  I finally found the bus-dropped off my bags and headed to the game.  The energy in the stadium was crazy but it was no Allianz stadium in Munich.  It was a tie 0-0 game and not much energy in the offense, mostly defensive game.  Expected a lot more from Barcelona.  We then headed to the Castle.  Yes, the offsite was in a Castle and we had the Castle to ourselves!  Our rooms were amazing and the faclities perfect!  The food was fabulous and the conference facilities great! Free internet access and anything you needed you got.  I felt bad for my leads as our offsite as always in Munich at the MS office. 

 

A little history of the castle for you.  Villa Gallarati Scotti is probably the most majestic of the many delightful villas constructed in the area. Of the Baroque structure, transformed into Neo-Classic shapes with a monumental entrance between the end of the 18th, beginning of the 19th century by the architect Simone Cantoni, there remain only the traditional U-shaped play and several interior spaces with 18th-century frescoes. The 19th-century modifications also involved the park, transformed into a typical English landscape, inside of which traces of the Baroque garden survive with a valuable nymphaeum of Neptune located on the northern edge of the landscaped area. In 2008, the restoration of the villa was completed and it currently houses a centre for conferences, seminars.  I would recommend staying here absolutely wonderful!  A few pictures from the 2 day offsite. 

 

 

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...

Okay, so I am 6 months late on this entry.  With finally graduating from my MBA, I now have a life again.  So I am doing my blog catch up.  So over the winter holiday's we had our annual Munich Holiday Party- this year we had about 45 packed into our tiny 3 room apartment.  We went through about 20 bottles of win and a case or two of beer.  Our crazy friends stayed till about 2:30AM and then headed out dancing till 6AM, crazy people!  The funniest was watching a bunch of expats (Spanish, British, Russian, Austrian, Croatian, Irish and Auzzies) and Germans trying to play Scene-IT with American Movies. 

 

After our party, Greg and I headed to Austria for Skiing and Snowboarding for the Christmas holiday.  Well, Greg's great idea in saving money got us a pension that had lovely pictures on the bathroom showing us how to clean the toliet and shower. (I Know..)  Also, the conditions were so great that it rained almost all of the trip and the most fun was sledding down the 3.5KM sledding trail (which was a lot of fun!).  The town was cute and we spent most evenings at a pub listening to a dutch band seeing covers.  We became friends with a dutch family for some reason folks from Netherlands love Soell.  Here are a few pictures of the fun event...  I give Greg points for trying to schedule a great skiing holiday but the location and hotel were a little lack luster. 

 

In December we also headed out with the Munich International Ski Club on several trips.  Our favorite trip to Solden occurred first weekend in December and was brilliant.  Great snow, gondola walking distance from our pension.  Our pension with sauna and great breakfast.  We also headed to Austria for several day trips that were fantastic.  The Alps are great over the winter!

 

 

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. 

 

So I feel very lucky to have spent the last three days with some brilliant folks across Europe in Microsoft's High Potential Program.  It is an interesting program where Microsoft selects a certain number of individuals across the company world-wide that they think are the future leaders of the company.  Then these folks go through some leadership training, peer coaching, networking and on the job experiential leadership training.  All in all it has been one of the best trainings I have attended.  As part of the training we did 360 reviews where your manager, co-workers and direct reports rate you in five major leadership areas: Modeling the way, Inspring a Vision, Challenging the Process, Enabling Others and Encouraging the Heart.  It is always humbling to read how other perceive you and to understand the areas in which you need to develop more.  One of the best areas of this training is the learning circle we created in which 6 other future leaders help coach you through challenges you are currently facing.  It was a very intense three days, jammed packing and in the end quite draining but invigorating. 

 

We did get to have some fun in the evenings (of-course we were in London with Brits!) and enjoy some British pubs and a few good laughs.  I do love that British dry humor.  I look forward to my future meetings with my new British, Irish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Dutch and Middle Eastern/African friends.  A few photos below and in the album to the right. 

So its not all work, I do love to play.  When I was working in Barcelona my husband did join me for a nice weekend.  We had the opportunity to catch up with our dear friend Fela and learn to eat at 11pm and have drinks and good times at the late hours for us Americans.  We then got to attend a futbol match except Barcelona killed there competition 6-0.  Was great to be with 120,000 of our closest friends.  Some pictures below of one of our favorite cities in Europe.  maybe someday we can live there!

It has been a very busy H1 for me at Microsoft.  I have visited my teams in Slovakia, Greece, Hungary, and Poland.  Additionally, attended Leads meetings in Zurich and Barcelona.  Then I head to Ukraine and Russia before the year ends.  The thing I find so amazing is how much folks accomplish with so few people.  I think in my career the folks I work with now are more creative, think out of the box, push the limits and challenge me to think differently.  To learn the historic stories of these countries, to see where they are today and in many cases their technology adoption and implementation is light years ahead of many of my American customers I use to work with.  The understanding of the needs of the IT Professional and IT Manager and to ensure we don't do the marketing BS but provide value and deep technical information to make them successful is very refreshing.  I hope our customers see the dedication and passion of these great folks!  From great viral digital marketing ideas to the best technical trainings, support of community activities and students to have the necessary training and skills to be competitive today. 

 

First, I headed to Slovakia to spend time with Peter.  He has a great pulse on his business and love what he is doing to launch a new training Portal where Peter from Hungary shared all his code for the original site.  Peter and his girlfriend (very beautiful) took me to this amazing restaurant on the top of a bridge over the Danube.

 

Next, I visited Martha in Greece.  I know how lucky I am to have Greece as a country I support.  You wouldn't believe how she built no community to a busting community over 2000.  To see the passion of folks for the Microsoft Platform who aren't even Microsoft employees is remarkable- GREAT JOB MARTHA!

 

I also had the opportunity to spend time with my counterparts around the world and I am amazed to hear the stories and the different approaches that we can all learn from.  Instead of working so hard, the need to work smart and share the great ideas with each other.  I think I found my long lost sister Jacqueline from Singapore, never thought two people could think so much alike.  Thanks to my Western Europe buddy Marcel who kept echoing the same challenges I face in Central Eastern Europe to our support teams in Redmond. 

 

Next, I headed to Poland.   Maggie is a brand new lead and has got off the ground at a running pace!  Her understanding of what IT Pros and IT Managers expect in Poland is great!  She is tweaking the programs and working with our different internal teams to show how much Microsoft cares and the value of our platform as no other company offers all the free training, free deployment guides, free whitepapers to help IT Pros and IT Managers to be successful in their jobs and try to make their jobs easier.  Right after Poland I got to visit Peter.  Peter is one of the veterans on the team and his insight and ideas have really helped me be more of a support for the team.  I appreciate him willing to share his ideas and now we have scaled several of his projects across the region!

 

I then headed off to TechEd in Barcelona, what a huge event all focused on deep technical content for IT Professionals and IT Managers.  So many sessions, so many topics, so many people.  It was also a time I got to meet with my team to tackle our hard issues and figure out how to solve them.  I love how Renat, Anton, Peter, Volo, Martha, Peter and Loredana keep pushing me to think differently and to take off my American lens.  (Sorry Radim and Maggie you do this too but you missed the meeting!)

 

See pictures of my amazing team and amazing colleagues below.  I feel very lucky to work for a great company that has such amazing teams, people who are passionate about the success of our customers and people!  Keep up the great work team!

So I am very behind in my blog and missed my great adventure with my husband (Greg) and all of our Munich PHD friends.  Our Russian friend Yulia had this great idea to hike up a mountain in pitch black darkness to a hutte to listen to Irish music.  So it sounded like a great idea until we got there.  We believe she knew the way but after 3 hours going in several wrong directions we thought we may be sleeping on the rocks on the mountain side with no dinner for the night.  Thanks to our adventurous Peter finding our way to the hutte.  Once we got there- the hutte masters were amazing, the food great and music fabulous!  The whole town seemed to be in the tiny bar and later we found there was a paved road all the way to the hutte and we didn't need to scale the side of the rocky mountain.  For all the hard times we gave Yulia, when we awoke the next day it was absolutely amazing view and we could see Munich and the Alps and we all forgave her for our adventure and thanked her for such a great idea!  The hike the next day was great and I almost forgot the night before we met fellow American buddies working for GORE.  They were great and we hope they email us soon to hang-out.  To mine and Gregs suprise though when we headed down the hill was it should have only taken 45 minutes instead of 3 hours and there was a nice walking path trail all the way to the hutte instead of us taking the busy road the whole way and scaling the mountain side. We now will come back this summer to try the adventure again!  If you have time, we suggest you must take the DB to Brannenburg and hike up to the Brietenburghutte! follow the pedestrian path!  Great place, great people, great food and great music!  Couple pictures of the adventure.  We still love you Yulia and Alana we don't hate you for introducing us to Yulia-thanks for letting to Americans join the brilliant PHDs....

So I am a little behind in my blog.  Last week I was in Barcelona for our Microsoft TechEd Conference focused on delivering deep technical content to our IT Professionals and IT Managers to help ensure they are successful in their jobs and we are doing everything possible to help them with their careers on the Microsoft Platform.  During this week, we had many meetings in Central Eastern Europe with a IT Manager Security Roundtable, Community Event for all our MVPs and we had some side internal meetings.  While all this was happening our new President was elected- YEAH PRESIDENT OBAMA and the cheers cried out through out the city and through our event!  I am so proud to be an American again and my husband can remove the Canadian Flag off his backpack. 

 

Back to our meetings, offsites, and programs.  I am amazed at the creativity, solutions and activities our IT Pro Leads execute in our many countries in CEE.  The focus on how do we make our IT Professionals and IT Managers who made a bet on the Microsoft Platform succesful is so embodied by this team.  Below you will see them sharing best practices to help each other be better and our IT Manager Security Roundtable.  And of course some great team pictures of the IT Pro Team and also our CEE Headquarter Team.  I feel lucky to be part of such an energized group doing what is right for our customers and teams. 

 

Well folks its down to the wire now...  And one of my German friends, thanks Werner, shared this with me. I thought it was so funny-I had to share with everyone....  I have to hand one off to the Germans to be so witty!  Keep your fingers crossed and hopefully Tuesday will be President Obama. 

 

We've decided we're leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we're taking the other Blue States with us.  In case you aren't aware, that includes Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan,  Illinois and all the Northeast. We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country of New California.

 

To sum up briefly: You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states. We get stem cell research and the best beaches. You get Ken Lay.We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood. We get Intel, Apple and Microsoft. You get WorldCom. We get Harvard. You get Ole' Miss. We get 85 percent of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama. We get two-thirds of the tax revenue, you get to make the red states pay their fair share.  Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition's, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms.

Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro-choice and antiwar, and we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don't care if you don't show pictures of their children's caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq, and hope that the WMDs  turn up, but we're not willing to spend our resources in Bush's Quagmire.

With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80 percent of the country's fresh water, more than 90 percent of the pineapple and lettuce, 92 percent of the nation's fresh fruit, 95 percent of America's quality wines (you can serve French wines at state dinners), 90 percent of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech iindustry, most of the US low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools, plus Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT.

With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88 percent of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92 percent of all US mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90 percent of the hurricanes, 99 percent of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100 percent of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob  Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia.

We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.  Additionally, 38 percent of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62 percent believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the death penalty or gun laws,44 percent say that evolution is only a theory, 53 percent that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61 percent of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties.

By the way, we're taking the good pot, too. You can have that dirt weed they grow in Mexico .

            Peace out,   Blue States

So our first PuebloIngles Pals Clemi and Simon from New Zealand came for a visit.  Friday night we had a nice pleasant evening at our place with dinner and wine.  We can say the wine overflowed five bottles later and a couple bottles of Oktoberfest brew and Clemi and Simn had to make a made dash at 1:30AM for the last uBahn home.  The next day we all had nice hang-overs.  It seemed to be the coldest day of the year for our little bike tour.  Sunday we were a little more productive with breakfast at a local bakery and a bike ride to Odensplatz, the Royal Palace, Marienplatz, the English Garden, Chinese tower, surfers, the lake and a quick tour down the StreetLife Festival (sitting on the world's longest couch).  We had lunch at the Chinese tower when a bird tried to steal Clemi's lunch but nearby tourist decided to feed our little friend for us.  We ended the day with dome Grand Theft Auto on the Xbox before they headed to the airport to France.  A few pictures of the day will have to be posted at the end of the month as I have already reached my monthly allocation.

 

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.