Tag Archives: work

Week 4 Half Marathon Update

Posted on by Renée
3

It was am incredibly stressful week last week. In my head I knew it would probably be like that, knowing that it was my last week before holiday (yay!) but I also knew I needed to go to the doctor care of some female stuff (don’t worry, everything is fine and I won’t go into detail) and that maybe I wouldn’t be feeling great but I really hoped going into the week I would still be able to do my runs and my cross training.

Well, sometimes we have to just accept what our bodies will or will not do and not get too wrapped up into thinking you’ve failed. Monday I was absolutely exhausted already and my body and brain were not having anything to do with a fartlek training session. I did try but I probably only ran maximum 20 minutes on the treadmill. It just wasn’t happening. I struggled to push myself past thinking what a failure I was but eventually I just let it go. Thankfully my husband was with me to remind me that even great athletes have bad days, but it doesn’t mean suddenly they are no longer athletes.

On Tuesday I had my doctor appointment and let’s just say I felt pretty bad physically. There was no way I was going to make my Les Mills GRIT class that evening.

Wednesday morning I decided I was going to try again. So I packed my bag for the gym in the morning , ready for another treadmill run. I also decided I was going to skip the fartlek training all together and move on to the next training run which was 65 min at D1 and 10 min at D2. This actually went quite well once I got started (seriously I really never thought I would enjoy the treadmill as much as I am lately!!).

Thursday the plan was to run at lunch with a colleague and the weather was not in our favour but we brought our stuff anyway. About 15 minutes before we were supposed to head out it started sleeting. We were supposed to do 6km (PP and I have a similar average pace) and to be perfectly honest I’m still amazed we did anything at all! The sleet combined with the wind was like little razors against our faces! In the end we did 5K which was a total win in my book!

Friday was a rest day thankfully- I was absolutely wrecked from finishing stuff up at work and not sleeping well. I did get to sleep in a bit Saturday, thankfully, but I had a 12.5K on the schedule and wasn’t exactly looking forward to it. Knowing that I wouldn’t get a chance to run again for a few days I finally got my head together and went out and did it. Once again, a great run once I got started. 75 minutes at D1 and 10 minutes at D2. It’s worth noting that as I was not on a treadmill it was still a challenge to do a faster continuous 10 min but I managed to stop only once and pick up again after only a few seconds. Progress!!

Week 4 was probably the hardest week so far and here I am now, blogging from my dad’s living room in Albuquerque already in Week 5. Dad’s arranged a week pass for me at his gym and I’ve gone this morning just to unstick the body and legs after 18 hours traveling. Feeling pretty good, just hanging out at home. I love it!

Week 3 Update

Posted on by Renée
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This week has been Cray Cray.

I mean seriously. Between work, running and gym I have zero time left over. I’m trying to make it work, you know, but I’m burning the candle at both ends!

For week 3 I needed 4 runs, 1 cross training day and 2 rest days.

Monday – this was a treadmill run at the gym again. I’m feeling pretty ok about treadmill runs, they are much easier when it comes to continuing at a certain speed (i.e. faster) than outside running. Who knew I would be less of a hater? Although I kind of messed this one up; I should have done 10 min at 10KPH and 4 Fartleks for 1 min at 12.5KPH but I only ended up doing 3 fartleks. I don’t know what happened except maybe I didn’t set the right time on the TM.

Tuesday – GRIT class and 20 min on the bike. I have been leaving work early just to get to this class and while I really like it and think it’s great for cross training, it’s also very frustrating. I am just not up to speed on proper pushups and while my burpees are getting better (I can do the three sets in the beginning of the class), nearer the end of the class I just tend to collapse instead of jumping back up out of the burpee. Not going to give up, just need to keep pushing through.

Wednesday – I worked from home so that I could either go outside to do my intervals, or go to the gym early. Well neither of those things happened, we ended up going to the gym fairly late and I had to cut my run short. It should have been 7 x 800 at D2-D3 and 3 min walking in between each interval, but I ended up with 5 x 800.

Thursday – RECOVERY RUN. AHHHHHHH… it feels good just to run normally. OUTSIDE. Went with my colleague and he was like the speed of light while I trudged along miles behind him. Still. Great run. 4.65 tiny little kilometres.

Friday – REST day! I did this on purpose so I could go out with friends Thursday after work. I was exhausted Friday. Going out kills me.

Saturday – sort of a rest day. We went ice skating with friends. It was HILARIOUS. I think between Tammy and I we must have tried 57 different pairs of skates until we found a pair that fit. The rink was GREAT, we all liked it more than the one we went to in January, but the skates were AWFUL. Time to buy our own skates I guess, but is that another sport I want to be participating in??? You kind of have to in this country.

I also cooked quite a bit this week – Wednesday I made a paleo chicken casserole, which was ok, but I’m going to play with the recipe a bit to pimp it up. Then I made paleo pumpkin pancakes. I did quite a few Kale salads. I made my paleo pumpkin courgette hummus. Oh and the larabars, which are delish. I also prepped quite a bit yesterday for the week – I have at least 3 lunches ready to go and lots of cut up veggies.

I am really loving the fitbit – not only the sleep data but how it’s actually keeping me on track with my food! I am now almost 100% convinced that I was not eating enough. I have been actually not eating enough for a long time and this is why it’s so hard to lose weight. It sounds crazy but honestly, at least for me, it’s true; don’t eat enough, don’t lose weight!!

I started Week 4 today with an 11K run – 65 min at D1 and 10 min at D2. Today we went outside. It snowed yesterday but it was perfect running weather today. I roped Hubs into doing the Bridge loop I was doing before I did the Bruggenloop in Rotterdam in December:
bridge loop

bridge run hubs

bridge run pinky

The run went really well. Except of course the last 10 minutes that I have to do faster which I just can’t do all in one go when not on the treadmill! I’m not unhappy with it, it was a gorgeous day for running, even if it was a wee bit cold and windy. I love my Sunday runs – I look forward to them all week!

I have some other news…

Thursday I was surprised with the news that I have been selected to go on this year’s Origin Trip! Each year a group of colleagues goes to one of the countries that we have the privilege to source our coffee from and this year the destination is Rwanda!! I don’t normally brag a lot but I actually believe when people say to me “You deserve this!”. I may be in financial administration for my “normal” job, but all of the stuff that I get to do outside of that is what makes me get up in the morning and go to work each day. I love where I work but more than that I love the coffee, the story of coffee, what love and hard work goes into getting those beans to our roasting plant, the care that goes into roasting and the delivery of that gorgeous cup of coffee to the customer. I spend a lot of extra time teaching others what passionate partners have taught me and to actually go to one of the coffee growing countries and see for myself what it’s all about is just an absolute dream come true. I don’t know many details except it’s likely happening around 15th of April. So, stay tuned. When I know more, I’ll post more.

How was your week? Are you training for anything?

How about this – have you ever been to Africa???

What an Odd Week

Posted on by Renée
5

This week was so strange. Good and bad it was just really all over the place. Most of the stress and “bad” came from work – I can’t say too much about it but I’ve gone through probably the hardest thing I’ve had to go through so far in my career, besides when I was made redundant and sent home only to not find work for 6 months. I have been a people manager for a little over 3 years and I’ve definitely learned a lot from the experience, so I guess what happened this week was just another thing to tick off my list.

Since I started off the month with goals, the bad was compensated with good – on Monday I went to the gym (this wasn’t even the most stressful day) and it helped me tremendously to have a release – the pain in my neck and shoulders from the tension was beyond anything I’d felt before and for a short period, it was gone.

Tuesday was the “worst” day. I was all over the place mentally. I just didn’t focus well at all (and I found out later that this had a big effect on my work) because I knew I had to handle something major. By the time I got home, luckily the hubs had made dinner and I was able to put together my Wednesday blog post (see? I’m trying!).

Wednesday was aftermath day at work. It felt so slow and I was quite discombobulated again. I was tired and stressed and knew I had to just make it through the day. Once it was over with I left the office with my gym bag again, this time with my running gear inside. I changed at the station and hopped on a train home. Hubs sent me a message “I don’t think you’ll want to run, it’s raining.” I sent one back “please bring me my pink Nike jacket and my black cap, rain won’t hurt me.” And so he did. When I arrived it was in fact raining but I really needed that run. I ran more than I’d planned (5K), 7.5KM in total and the rain felt so invigorating! Call me crazy but rain running is just so refreshing and as long as there is no lightening and I’m properly dressed then bring on the precipitation!

On Thursday I worked from home. I needed to do complete my team’s performance evals and with everything going on in the office I had to have some time on my own to do this. First thing I found out in the morning was that something I *didn’t* complete on Tuesday morning caused a HUGE problem and delay with our financial year-end close. I know it’s ok to make mistakes, but I remember bursting into tears thinking “How could I be so stupid!???” I am glad that 1) my boss wasn’t cross with me for it and 2) it was solvable and didn’t have an impact on the actual close itself. But still. I hate that I let stress get the better of me and that it caused a huge issue. I worked quite hard on the reviews, but didn’t eat properly and then ended up eating stuff I wouldn’t normally have and consuming way too many non value added calories.

Friday was another day of fun. All those reviews I wrote? Now it was time to deliver. I admit that this is not my favourite part of the job, although some go very well and it’s good to have a dialogue, the ones that don’t go well are too close to confrontation and defensiveness. The thing is, I know it helps me grow, each time I get through it, it’s just, well, hard. I had my gym bag and I went again to the gym after work. It felt very good once again to get rid of some stress.

On Saturday I finally got some seriously needed sleep and eventually I went into town, alone, to attempt to go shopping. One thing I really would like is to stop looking like such a raggamuffin all the time. I just don’t like shopping, I do it terribly alone and I end up being really frustrated about the whole thing. I don’t understand sizing or styles at all. I don’t think that we as curvy girls should be stuck with the trends of the non-curvy girls. I ranted a bit about it:

I felt a bit better when the responses came in, especially that others know how this feels and that it has an emotional impact. I did end up with a few things and I may give it another shot next weekend. We’ll see. I want to say though, I don’t normally have a lot of hate for my body anymore, I HAVE come a long way from that, but seriously, I wish I could just have a better experience and I don’t think that any store out there will be catering to my body type, at least not a shop I can afford (and, I am sorry, but I don’t want to shop at the Fat City type shops. I spent years and years in those clothes and I feel like I deserve to have more choice right now – for those of you in North America, you have so much more choice; we have like 3 shops and that’s it!)

Today again I was able to sleep in, yay! I love it when I get to sleep on the weekends, it really makes up for the 6 hours per night I get during the week! I decided at 12 I was going for a run, and in true “It’s Me vs. Me” fashion it took me forever to finally get everything together to go and do it (2 hours):

Because we all know that a 30 minute run actually takes about 3 hours once you talk yourself into, change, check twitter, retalk yourself into it, strap on your electronics, check twitter, fill your water bottle, warmup, run, cooldown, check twitter, pass out, stretch, check twitter, shower and change.

(go see Thea if you haven’t yet, she is über-cool)

At 2pm I left with about 10KM in mind. It was a glorious day with the exception of two girls in a bus at the bus stop staring at me while I was getting sattelite on my Garmin and then basically sticking their tongue out at me when the bus finally departed, I felt good. (But really, WTAF was their problem??? No idea!) I wanted to run along the dyke and the farmland near my apartment and then go up to Velp (a couple KM away) near my old gym, then loop back around to my house (which is about 3.5KM from the gym). Somehow or another I took the wrong bike path which didn’t lead me to Velp at all… and I noticed I was already almost at 7KM so it was going to be at least 14KM total at that point (since, well, I’d have to turn around and go back). But the sun was shining and my legs felt great and breathing was good. The views were spectacular and I couldn’t help but just smile. I walked 1 kilometer at 7KM to take a few pics and drink some of my Fitmixer (which is amazing stuff you guys, and let me tell you I’m not getting anything for saying that and once mine is finished, it’s finished… I only have the sample given to me at Fitbloggin and I won’t be able to get any more here as they don’t ship internationally) before I headed back again. So basically my run was this:

1 KM walking / warm-up
6 KM running
1 KM walking
6 KM running
1 KM walking / cool down


I could have gone on with my energy level the way it was but my feet were actually starting to hurt (I think I need different socks) so it was good that I arrived home when I did.

It was my turn to cook dinner, so while I was doing that I did three lunches up in the oven (post on Weds) and started making the enchiladas I promised the hubs. Somewhere around 45 minutes into cooking, my stomach really started bothering me. I posted on twitter and was reminded about chocolate milk. Unfortunately I don’t have a lot of milk products ever in the house, but I did have Turkish Yoghurt so decided to try that. It did help a wee bit and then with dinner it eventually calmed down.

At the risk of making this post even longer, I’ll just say that food was all over the place this week. I’m not sure why it seems harder to keep it under control compared to a couple months ago, but I just need to keep working at it. It is my goal to log every day and close out my food journal daily at MFP, even if I’m over in numbers, just to that I’m accountable and I did accomplish that this week but look at this:

Mind you the 1st is wrong, I’ve no idea why that happened -

Monday was total 1573 with 364 cals burned from exercise

Basically my goal for each day should be 1440 calories. This can go up if I work out so, fair enough, some days are higher. But some days are just really high, regardless. I want to fix that. I eat when I’m hungry so I tend to eat exercise cals (at least some) but this week has just been, well, a bit outrageous. Time to fix that.

So yeah, stress, food, exercise, a lot happened but a lot still needs to be done. Let’s see what the new week brings!

How was your week? Do you like to run in the rain? Do you eat your exercise calories or activity points?

I told you it was crazy right?

Posted on by Renée
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sorry for the silence, especially after that huge rant!

after speaking to my PT, I did actually try the new diet again and was probably 90% successful from Saturday until Friday night when I had pizza. It wasn’t a breakdown it was actually just a choice that I made and enjoyed :)

It’s not super hard to eat this way, I think it’s mostly mental. Now that I know when and how I can eat it’s really fine.

I have to say though, I was away (well, away from the office, still in Amsterdam) for 3 days working at a huge leadership conference and it was fairly challenging to eat outside of your own realm of control so there were moments of carbs combined with protein. I did prepare by bringing loads of approved fruit and veggies and I even brought some coconut milk to replace the dairy. These three days were only at about a 70% success.

So I’m back at it again. Dinners are challenging, but maybe I’m going to pick up a cook book. I don’t like to be limited so I have to make the best of it to really give it a go and see if it works.

I did actually lose a kilo from the first time I weighed in at the gym, to the last time that I saw the PT. No idea if that was diet related or not. You know me, I don’t want to celebrate too quickly.

Tomorrow is another appointment. I’m exhausted otherwise I would share more with you.

It’s true, it’s a story

Posted on by Renée
6

So, Hey, how are you?

Sorry I haven’t really updated lately. Even the 11×11 post was not meant to be published yet. Bloody hell I am not so great with this stuff am I?

So a little update on the last couple of weeks:

Gym: I’m going to the gym! I realize now I may not have gone to my previous gym as much for more reasons than just the hours. Of course, that was my story – they had crap hours so I didn’t manage to go. Funnily enough though, I’m going to the new gym in the evenings, at 7:30 or 8:00 and even just doing a 45-60min workout and then going home. I think *maybe* I didn’t actually like my old gym very much. Maybe it wasn’t only the hours. Since joining my new gym, and even with the couple of hiccups the first few appointments I had, I’ve been going at least a couple of times a week.

Last week I went on Monday, then I went on Wednesday with my friend (which I will tell you about later) and then I went on Friday and met with a personal trainer.

This week I went on Monday, I went last night and I’m going to meet the personal trainer again tonight.

So that means, pretty much, I’ve decided to go for personal training.

Honestly, I know what to expect in a way. I know I will be pushed and challenged and I know it will cost me an incredible amount of money which I have but I don’t have if you know what I mean? I went to the “proefles” knowing full well that he was probably going to ask me to sign up with him – even at EUR 200 less a month than the original quote it’s still expensive. So I suppose I will definitely not putz around with the training and the food advice he’s going to be providing me. At the same time I’m feeling a little apprehensive about it, mostly the food stuff, because I made it clear I do not want to focus on weight loss, as strange as that may seem; frankly it depresses me and I know myself well enough that I can be quite obsessive about it, which, when loss doesn’t happen it then spins into the depression – frustration cycle. He mentioned that I will have to track my food (no biggie, I do that about 85% of the time anyway, including weighing and measuring and logging in on MFP) and he mentioned a “way of eating” that I am pretty sure is paleo. In general this is also fairly ok, but to be honest I don’t understand cutting out “good” grains and I appreciate them when I’m bulking up my salads for my lunch (for example). I don’t eat a lot of bread as it is and I focus a lot on getting more protein than carbs (though I do love my oatmeal breakfasts when I have them). Anyway, I feel this is going to be quite challenging to make these changes if I can have NO grains whatsoever; my husband cooks most of the time and already alters recipes to bulk up with vegetables, uses less oil, less meat than a recipe calls for and that sort of thing. I know part of my problem is eating too much for dinner, that’s a fact and I have slowly been making changes to the amount I consume (in rice or pasta for example), but now to ask him to change AGAIN or try to cook for us based on what I need, well, I’m not sure how that will work. 1) I don’t know think it’s fair to him – this is MY problem, not his and 2) If I have to cook in the evening there will not be gym time plain and simple. I don’t even get home most nights until 7pm and this is the very reason he does groceries and cooks!

I’m kind of judging all of this and jumping to conclusions before I even try it – I know. And I am reminded (by my own head) that “If you always do, what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got”.

So I see him again tonight and I’m supposed to see him after that twice a week. I also believe I will understand the food stuff more tonight and get some sort of intake booklet because he wants to see what I eat. Updates surely to follow.

So, what else?

Food: I looked into the paleo thing a bit this week and as I mentioned I think I already eat pretty natural and caveman like :) I love my veggies and protein, I eat nuts regularly, peanut butter, and I like meat so that’s not an issue. What I’ve read is somewhat confusing though – some plans say no caffeine (uh, this is going to really be hard – I WORK AT A COFFEE COMPANY!!!), some say paleo people are pro-caffiene. And no pulses? Really? I think beans, chickpeas, lentils, etc are all a great source of protein! Oh and seems like no quark either – I’ve been eating quark rather than yoghurt because it has more protein… no beer (!!!!!!) but wine is fine according to the trainer (???). So, yeah, but better to know what he wants me to do first rather than judge, right? So this week I actually ate no carbs (well, besides in veg and fruit) until dinner up to Thursday. And, to be honest, today I just lost it. I cut out my coffee when I arrive at the office (apparently it spikes cortisol production) and, well I really missed it. NOT physically. Mentally. I also had leftovers for lunch which were carbs (whole wheat pasta) and then it was all over, there was some stress and I ended up shoving some ridiculous piece of sugar bomb into my face. *sigh*

Sometimes I really think I’m a hopeless case!!

Social: Nothing social this week. Too tired. We’ve also had ridiculous disruptions with the trains because of the weather and it’s taken ages to get to and from work. This weekend I also have nothing planned and I haven’t made a new date to do the Sh’bam class with my friend again (I promise you will get the story on that). Last week was busy, then Saturday I was up early to go to the hairdresser, then we had a housewarming / birthday party to go to. This weekend is my stepdaughters birthday party, so up early tomorrow to get a couple of pressies for her and then I might just get to go on a date with my husband!!! We’ve had so little time together, just the two of us, so I’m really looking forward to that.

Running: Nothing happening there either.  On Sunday it will be two full weeks so actually my plan is to do just that. I have been riding my bike to the gym, even though we’ve had snow and ice and extremely cold temps (well, I’m sure it’s all relative). Last Sunday I walked a 5K round and took photos, mostly on the dyke where I run often. It was sunny and snowy and beautiful so I had to at least get out and walk, you know?

Work: crazy as usual. Stress stuff and nice stuff together. At least they balance each other. I have a couple of (fun) things to put together for the next two weeks and then the last week of Feb I’m going to be involved in an absolutely huge event, which I also have to prepare for on the “real job” front. Not that my “real job” isn’t fun, but, well, come on, fun is always better than the practicalities of work!!

That’s it. Did you make it this far? How was your week(s)? Have you been running? What are you eating these days? Have you ever been to a personal trainer?

Week In Review:: 20 Nov – 27 Nov

Posted on by Renée
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So, yeah. No idea what happened. Actually, yes I do know. Work happened. A LOT at work happened. It was a very stressful week.

I didn’t even get any photos for my Friday Foodie Post. That’s how bad it was.

I did prepare food again last Sunday for my lunches and that really came in handy. I can’t recommend planning enough! BUT, I also did the emotional/stress-eating again which pisses me off, but doesn’t seem to stop me doing it *rolls eyes into back of head*.

Plans were to run on Tuesday evening and go to the gym on Thursday evening. Neither of those things happened. I worked late Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday (I was really late Weds), Thursday I worked from home (thank God because I was exhausted), Friday I felt somewhat “normal” again. I actually rode my bike to the station Friday because I was going out with colleagues after work and thought it best to have transportation home rather than having to wait for a bus or take a taxi so late. (Remember, I’m two hours from home generally when I’m in Amsterdam; the plan was to leave at 10pm which would put me home at midnight – turned out there was a massive problem with the trains and I ended up leaving around 8:30pm, still only getting home around 11pm).

Good Old Frida

So at least I got some exercise in on Friday – though I’m sure that didn’t counteract the starters, burger, fries and cocktails I had at the Hard Rock Cafe :D … maybe the sprinting to the train helped that a bit as well (I spent a LOT of time sprinting for trams, trains and buses last week…)

Saturday morning I woke up late – 11am! WOW I needed that sleep!!! My first thought was “well, I guess I’m not going to the gym”, but then I immediately turned it around; “Why not?” I asked myself. “The gym is open until 1pm. Get yourself a sandwich, a coffee and get dressed and get yourself to the gym!” So I did :) And I rode my bike there as well.

So here we are Sunday, I’ve made wentelteefjes (french toast/ eggy bread) (mostly) for the kids and I’m still deciding what to do the rest of the day. Probably some cleaning, maybe a run and definitely some planning for the week. I have to be serious about next week as I have a friend coming to visit from Sweden which means my whole weekend is dedicated to my guest (ie I have to go to the gym during the week!!!).

Not much of a weekly review, but honestly, I hardly had any time for myself that would be noteworthy to mention. Here’s to the new week!

That Little Berlin Trip

Posted on by Renée
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I mentioned that I was nominated to go to Berlin for a special event that was taking place there for our German Retail Market. The reason that I and a few others from my office had been selected was because the CEO of the company was unfortunately not going to be stopping off in Amsterdam on his “European Tour”. My Finance VP actually suggested to my bosses that I go as one of the four to represent our regional support center based on our passion and enthusiasm for the company. Of course I was totally honored and humbled to have been chosen! But I may have also mentioned that it was the busiest time of year for us?

The normal work challenges were enough during this period, but somehow I had to find a way to make it work. On the 20th I left the office and went directly from Amsterdam to Düsseldorf, where I would stay the night and in the morning very early take a flight from there to Berlin. I was completely stressed from work load, tired from working overtime and on top of everything run down and feeling like crap because I had been (stress) eating like crap. The hotel I was staying at was amazing, but kind of out in the middle of nowhere. I had very little cash (bad arrangements on my part and the taxi costing more than I’d planned) and very little food and the reception closed literally 15 minutes after I arrived so I couldn’t even inquire about a place to eat and was too tired to even bother anyway. Unfortunately I didn’t get a brilliant night’s sleep regardless of how comfy the bed and pillows were. I was up and out by 6am and on my way to the airport. Thankfully I was greeted by smiles and friendliness at Starbucks and had a delicious breakfast and eventually I was on my way to Berlin (oh yeah and sidenote: I was also visited by Aunt Flo in her Big Red Hat… had “supplies” with me but no pain tablets, which really, really sucked the full day I was in Germany).

The flight was uneventful (except for the fact that it was during Oktoberfest, so on the flight they gave us yummy fresh warm pretzels…) and once I arrived I met up with two of my colleagues who’d just flown in from Amsterdam. We thought it’d be pretty easy to get to the hotel where the event was happening, but as it was the Pope was also in town, AND staying at the same hotel so we had to take all kinds of detours through the city.

The event itself was really nice. In the beginning we just mingled, had coffee and sandwiches and I was so lucky to meet a load of people I’ve only had email correspondence with over the last 5 years. Everyone seemed to be in good spirits despite some news that had been delivered a few weeks before (the office is relocating quite far from where it is now) and soon it was time for us to go in for the Open Forum.

We watched inspirational videos made by partners in the Market themselves (and of course it was all in German so I had to crank up my language skills pretty hard to get most of it – the gist anyway) and then videos that had been shown to partners all over the world. Then the CEO spoke to us and shared a few of his stories as well and opened up the forum for questions. To generalize (which I hate doing but I don’t mean it negatively) the Germans are not as vocal or daring with their questions in these situations, at least not like the Dutch or the French who will just come out and say whatever it is on their minds. A few of my German colleagues asked a couple of questions, my American colleague (who works in Amsterdam) asked a question and then I asked a question last. I was kind of scared to ask what I wanted to know from him, but at the same time I’m familiar enough with how he is to know it would be ok. And… he said it was a very good and very brave question and he answered it honestly.

After the forum we chatted a bit with several people and then took a stroll through the Brandenburg Gate up and over to Potsdammer Platz where we finally decided to get some lunch. We ended up at an amazing restaurant with gorgeous food and sat and chatted for two hours before we headed back out to the airport. At this point I was in massive amounts of pain thanks to Auntie Flo, but I still have to say I had a brilliant day. At the airport I found the nearest pharmacy and the woman there was so incredibly helpful and even offered me water for the tablets I bought to ease the pain (that has never happened to me, regardless of country I’m in).

I arrived back at Düsseldorf and my lovely husband was there to pick me up (he rocks!!!). On the way home we stopped in a German town about 45 minutes from us for dinner. It’s always the little places in the middle of nowhere that have the best food and service and this place was no exception! The day was great but there was still stress involved in getting there – the dinner with my husband was exactly what I needed to feel more relaxed. A perfect end to the day!

Next up – Work Event and Social Event