Flying back to Japan

My boss stayed longer in Germany, but I had to go straight back to Sapporo as soon as the research meeting was over, or I would have to pay the plane tickets myself. This meant that I had no lounge access on the way home, but I had quite a lot of fun.

There were some girls in German outfits singing and dancing in the airport. On the airplane I taught one of the cabin attendants how to make roses out of paper napkins after she spotted me doing that because I was bored. She then gave me a big bag with all kinds of snacks and postcards as a thank you gift when I left the plane.

Unlimited train travel

My university keeps asking me to fly through weird countries to save money on the business trips, but then they buy me train tickets that say "can go from the airport to anywhere in Germany", and a similar unlimited ticket for the return trip. This cannot be the cheapest way to get me to my destination, can it? Can we stop buying these weird things and just get me to Germany through a shorter and more convenient route instead? :-)

Sausage vending machine and surprisingly thin clothes

When I was walking back to my hotel I passed sausage vending machine. Very German, I guess.

I also passed a shop selling clothes that looked like they would be quite cold in the fairly bad autumn weather.

Turkish food

On the last day in Germany, my boss went with the other bosses to dinner at some expensive place and I found myself alone. I walked to the closest village and found a place serving Turkish food. The food was good. There was a very drunk German soccer supporter sitting nearby who kept talking very loudly to me in German despite me trying to explain that I do not actually speak German. I think there had been a soccer game nearby with some famous team and that he had been to see that game, but what he actually was asking me I never understood.

Working

Right before my presentation in front of the reviewing committee started

The main reason I was in Germany was to give a presentation at the final review of a big EU project on cancer treatment. Since we are not in the EU and we do not do cancer research, this is perhaps somewhat surprising. But I actually got one of the longer time slots of all the presenters. My laptop suddenly decided to do some heavy updates in the middle of the presentation, which was not great, but other than that it went well.

My boss asked me to take photos of him during his presentation, since the university would not believe that he was on a business trip otherwise. So maybe he actually got paid for his trip. I did not get paid, despite handing in photos of me giving my presentation, haha.

German food

The German business trip was full of stress (the people we cooperate with had not built the stuff they were supposed to have built, my boss decided we needed to build some new stuff with short notice, the presentations were long and not that relevant to me, etc. etc.) and it did not help that everyone back in Japan had a five day holiday and kept posting updates on how much fun they were having, haha.

Breakfast

One thing that was great in Germany was the food, though. The breakfast and lunch buffets were very good. Lots of food that you cannot find in Japan but that was similar to Swedish food. I ate way too much.

Lunch

Bread! Japanese "pan" (which is often translated as "bread") is good but it is not very similar to European bread.

This was some weird bone marrow ball soup that I was told was a local specialty.

The thing on the right was some form of wheat based porridge, perhaps? Some local specialty.

Chocolate banana cake, served at breakfast

More bread!

Sign design

I passed a business called Flick, but from a distance the font they chose for the L and I was not that great.

A room with a view

View in nice weather

View in bad weather

I got a hotel room in Germany that was larger than my apartment in Japan. The view was nice too. Except most of the days it was either raining so heavily that you could not see more than a few meter or so foggy that you could not see anything.

My balcony was nice the few moments it was not raining

The hotel was located on top of a hill and you had a good view but you also had a good walk to the closest convenience store or restaurant. And in the evening, the road was a bit dark and it was easy to get lost.

The road leading from the convenience store to the hotel