Tuesday, April 18, 2000

Woke up after a refreshing night's sleep (it had better be for what they charged me!) and when I was ready to go, called Red Hat GMBH to find out if anyone I knew was in the office, and to find out how to get there. Found out that I was on the same road, maybe a kilometer or so away--easy to find. Had a bit of an adventure parking--there is a tiny courtyard that made me very nervous for my new car, but I managed not to scratch it. Had a really good time talking to the German developers. They are doing good work, and I got them in touch with some of the work we've been doing and found out about some of the work they have been doing. Talked about better integration of ISDN configuration and control, and using some of their work on the modem-PPP side of things as well.

We all went to lunch at a small restaurant with local food. I had an excellent mixed plate with various local foods, the German names of which I did not memorize from the menu, and as I didn't photograph the menu, I'm at a loss to reproduce them here.

Took off at about 2:45 pm and drove towards Frankfurt. Then headed towards Kassel (stayed on A5) until I realized that I really wanted to go more east, and so I cut off on 49 towards Gießen, thence to Wetzlar, thence to Limburg, thence to Koblenz, where I stopped for the night at the same hotel (Ibis) that Kim and I stayed at a little less than a year ago on our June trip.

After walking about for some exercise, went to "Taj Mahal" and had mulligatawny soup and tandoori lamb massala, with some of the best saffron rice I have ever had. Saffron, whole cardamom pods, whole pieces of cinnamon, whole bay leaves, cloves, and whole caraway seeds made the rice nearly a meal all its own.

Now I just have to figure out a route to take tomorrow--or, more likely, a route from which to depart... Maybe I'll aim towards Luxembourg just to be able to say that I've been there. Bero said the gas is cheaper there, too...