From the 8th grade until I graduated high school, I had taken German as my foreign language. I've never been good at learning languages, so I was surprised that I stuck with a foreign language for so long. Honestly, the only reason I stuck with it in high school was because of all of the counselors stressing that colleges wanted to see 4 years of a foreign language in high school. Of course I wasn't exactly happy when I got into the engineering program at NCSU and found out that I only needed 2 years of German in high school to graduate.

The point being, with 5 years of German under my belt, you would think that I could carry on or understand a handful of things when I actually finally went to Germany. The first time I went to Dresden I quickly realized that just about everyone I interacted with spoke English, which meant that my German hardly got a workout. But I shouldn't shift the blame, it wasn't that everyone I encountered spoke English, it was I couldn't speak anything but a few words of German.

This time around, I tried a bit harder, but I ended up with the same end result. Sparkling water is plentiful in Germany, and I'm not sure what the attraction is, because I absolutely cannot stand sparkling water. Drinking it feels like I get none of the hydrating aspects of water and instead I'm left with a strange taste and an even stronger thirst for flat water. Of course, finding anything but sparkling water at AMD and the other places apparently wasn't really going to happen. The thing that surprised me most however was that I swear I was taught that the word for flat water in German was mineralwasser, but given my recent experiences indicating the contrary, I'm guessing I remember incorrectly :)

Being in Germany, I did regret not having more time to spend there. But with piles of work back home and Vinney having classes this week, it just wasn't going to happen. One of these days I would like to spend some more time there, potentially on a non-business related trip. Who knows when that'll happen :)

As far as work goes: my Gefen review is complete, just waiting for a hole in the schedule to publish it. I will be doing an update to the USB Flash Drive roundup hopefully in the next week or so with Lexar's latest offerings. I have much more interesting items waiting for a review, but I'm waiting on a few other products in order to make that review possible. I have no idea when the moons will be in alignment, but as soon as they are, you'll know. On a similar note, Kris is out in Taiwan right now, gathering some interesting information for us all, as well as finding us all new and unique pieces of hardware to test.