in mid-april, i was fortunate to have the opportunity to travel to europe on a business trip. we were visiting pork facilities [so it was a little less glamorous than it sounds!], but it was my first international work trip and i was pretty excited. i learned so much about the way pork is produced and got to do a little sightseeing on the side.
it was only a five-day trip, but i took an extra day in dublin and packed in lots of good stuff… more on that later! i was traveling with one of my coworkers, jason – we flew out on sunday afternoon, got into london heathrow on monday morning, jumped on a plane to dublin, met up with the vendor there, and took their private jet [!!!] over to the small town of rheda-wiedenbrück, germany. it was a charming little place, and although i didn’t get to explore much [we were only there one night], i did take a little walk around near the hotel and some good pictures of the cute architecture and the little creek/park area nearby. a lot of the buildings in the town had this beautiful writing on them that i wished i could read, and one of the guys we had dinner with was telling us that many of the old buildings in the towns across germany were destroyed in WWII and that this was one of the few towns that had escaped that and still had its oldest buildings remaining.
our hotel, ratskellar wiedenbrück, was built in 1560, which i thought was pretty cool. it wasn’t fancy, but it was very clean and cozy and the bathroom was nice and modern [the important things!!]. and we had dinner at the hotel that night and it was sooo good – one of my favorite meals on the trip.
{our little hotel, which is 2,000 years older than america, no big deal.} !!!
{on the left, this was my room key… no one ever thinks about how quiet those little hotel card-keys are until you have to unlock and lock a door with one of these babies, especially in the evening or early morning. i’m pretty sure the whole floor heard me fiddling with that lock in the door, no matter how quiet i was trying to be… but it still made the hotel that much more cute. and on the right, my humble little abode for the night. i love how in europe, they always seem to have those little twin beds pushed up next to each other to make a full bed.}
{i felt like i had been transported to a different era…}
{that little church was built in the 900’s. isn’t that completely insane??}
{that building on the right looks like it could be the gingerbread house that hansel and gretel stumbled upon!}
{just across the way, there was a pond and a creek and some running/biking paths. it was a very peaceful place.}
{i loved this dinner. we had our own quiet private room, and next to the table there was a fireplace lit with lots of candles.}
{we started the meal with a pint of local german beer and some great bread, and then they brought out the wine and this single ravioli that was stuffed with some sort of green tomato compote. it was really tasty.}
{next was asparagus cream soup with rocket pesto and a baked prawn, and then the entree: i had royal gilthead with local white asparagus, buttered potatoes, and hollandaise sauce.}
{dessert was a sampling of little bites – right up my alley! and then we had coffee, and THEN we had the german tradition – schnapps! to “aid in digestion.” haven’t figured that one out yet but okay!} ;)
{my window view by day and by night… goodnight, germany!}
the next morning, we had a lovely early-morning breakfast at the hotel and toured a very state-of-the-art pork facility nearby. it had a supermarket and restaurant for the employees as well as the townspeople and even had its own soccer stadium!
{pretty cool, right?}
and then we boarded the jet and headed off to denmark!