Just general thoughts

So without resorting to a painful blow by blow of my every moment, although at times that path seems tempting, I will update on the major events since saturday. After riding so long on saturday I was a bit sore on sunday, I was able to get in a short run, but nothing of note. I really miss being in fantastic cycling shape where centuries didnt phase me. On monday night I talked with a couple of the love parade folks, and it sounded like a pretty fantastic event. Something definitely worth trying to go to next year. From what I can tell 1.4 million people go crazy for no apparent reason, and just wildness in the streets.
So on tuesday we did another group lunch which was nice. I do enjoy lunchtime a little bit better when it is not just eat as quickly as possible to get back to work. I also was able to find out more from the austrian girl, Caroline, about Kärnten, an area written about in my german running magazine. It looks fantastically beautiful with all sorts of mountain races and hiking areas. I certainly have no problem figureing out how I will spend my eurail pass.
Tuesday night the french people Charlotte and Lea were celebrating one of their friends from schools birthdays. Upon arrival I could see the most alcohol on one table that I have seen since my Ashford street days. Also many different kinds of crazy fruit juices : cherry, banana, blueberry; some clearly worked better than others but all were quite unique additions to normal cocktails. The event itself was pretty enjoyable although more because the people were so friendly and the food was quite good, the alcohol only served to grease the rails. I also was able to learn quite a bit more about how post highschool studies in france work, and I think the system they use is probably better at sorting out students, but as the american system worked great for me, it is hard to really comment. Also I think the american system provides more flexibility to make decisions later and not be locked into a single path, so I guess it depends on what you value. Also I learned that these french students after doing the equivalent of a masters degree and 12 months of internships (+/-), they still have trouble finding jobs and it usually takes 6 months or more. So I guess I will not be looking for future work in france anytime soon. Fortunately the only country in the world I can work in, needs plenty of people just like me.
Today the goal is to get my Eurail pass in heidelberg and figure out as many logistics as possible for Paris this weekend. Hopefully everything will workout at which point I will have to get the slightest clue of what is happening on the tour. And then of course the thing that makes wednesday my favorite day of the week, Stammtisch. This time its in ludwigshafen so walking home will not mean getting to bed at 2am