Freude, schöner Götterfunken

So, earlier this week I was in Strasbourg for work. It seemed a pretty town, although I didn't get to see much of it as my new boss is a bit of a workaholic. But I like her anyway, because she doesn't pull any punches. And she seems to think I'm doing a good job, so it's all good.

Strasbourg is where the European Parliament sits when it's not in Brussels, and so work was a model of European harmony and I felt no guilt whatsoever about only using 10 words of French whilst I was there. ( I was not as bad as an American at breakfast who, after looking at the waiter's badge, said 'M-a-r-c. How do you pronounce that? Oh, Mark?'. What do they feed them??!!)

I did draw the line at telling a colleague I was having difficulty understanding him because of his heavily accented French though. I'm not that insensitive. I also love a French accent, so tried not to stare dreamily at him too much. It was quite ironic to be working with some Russians, a Pole, some Germans, a Japanese and some French, especially considering just over 60 years ago we would have been tearing each other limb from limb.

One of the differences I did notice was absolutely no-one was in the office before 9:00 and everyone left at 17:00. (except for me and my boss of course - I had to drag her out at 18:30, after a 10.5 hour day) And everyone had lunch in the (delicious and heavily-subsidised) canteen for an hour. Which is a million miles away from the eat-lunch-at-your-desk and maybe take 30 minutes for it culture here. And don't start me on the coffee breaks.....

My self-control went out the window, it was all french pastries for breakfast and wine (Pinot! Shiraz! Syrah!) and steak at dinner. I even ate at a cheese restaurant one night (La Cloche à Fromages), where, as you'd expect, cheese featured heavily on the menu and I could feel myself piling on the weight with every mouthful.

I had to fly into and out of Stuttgart airport (look at this - why can't Heathrow be like this?). The taxi to Strasbourg sped down the autobahn at 180kmh in driving rain. Even though I was safely ensconced in the back of a big Mercedes, it didn't stop me praying all the way to St Diana of Windsor.

My train to Heathrow took 50 minutes instead of 15, because someone had jumped at Southall... people nowadays are so inconsiderate. I blame Tony Blair.

I had a little time to spare at Stuttgart Airport, so took the opportunity to have a nice cold German lager in the cockpit bar. It was nice.