Last week in Hamburg

For a while at least (until July). I'm so excited!!! I can actually spend time in Switzerland and with Gene!!! It will be something totally new and wild. :)
I've been in Hamburg basically since January, except for most of my weekends as you can tell from the blog.
It's a nice place to visit (ask Gene), but instead I've basically been living at the Park Hyatt. Not that the hotel is shabby...quite the opposite...heated tile floors, rain shower, garden tub, huge rooms, comfy bed, great service, great nachos (YUMMY), a wonderful pool and hot tub (that I did not have time to enjoy hardly at all) and much more. The hotel staff know me by name now. They greet me when I walk in every Monday and ask how my weekend was. They know not to offer to take my luggage because I'm a stubborn American woman that is very independent and can handle it by myself in my heels! :) I'm now a "Diamond" member of the Hyatt points club, too. So, that means I get free internet (internet is EXPENSIVE over here and not FREE like it is in the US), a fruit tray in my room and an occasional gift and welcome by the manager on duty.
Not only do the hotel staff know me by name, the surrounding restaurants and coffee shop workers do too. Well, they may not know my name, but they know me and what I order. I totally confuse them if I want to get something different.
My first friend (actually Gene's friend first) was Claudia at Balzac Coffee (pretty much like Starbucks but not), where I stop and get a "tall, dark hot chocolate with foam (milschaum in German - I'm learning some foreign langauge! not French, but it works) and then some kind of food, preferably something chocolate or banana bread (still not as good as Mom M's though). The perfect breakfast!! Now almost all the employees there know me and just ask if I want the usual.
Then, a few of the cooks at a fast food Italian restaurant, Vapiano's, started to know me. They know I typically get "penne pomodoro y mozzerella", but sometimes I mix it up and get pesto instead. This place, they actually cook your pasta right there in front of you and it takes less than 20 min for penne (which according to the Italian's you can't cook penne in less than 20 min)! :) And, if I eat there for dinner, I typically get it to go to eat at the hotel...so they get confused if I eat at the restaurant! One late night leaving work about 8 pm (which is typical for me now) the cooks actually started arguing over who was going to cook my food...they were slow and didn't have many people in line. The cooks have also been trying to work on my German skills.
Lastly, my favorite place...Subway. The one by the office...there is one girl in there that knows what I always get and she knows that I only want TOMATOES...NO LETTUCE, NO EVERYTHING, just TOMATOES. :) That's a BIG deal to me, if you can't tell. All the locals get EVERYTHING on their sandwich...and that's just GROSS!
Anyway, I am looking forward to spending some time at home with my husband, at least for a few weeks. Then, I'm more than likely off to Singapore for an audit in June. Hopefully, Gene will get to go with me and see a tiny part of Asia.