Not such a bad little city

This weekend, the weekend between my two weeks in Germany, I'd intended to duck out of Saarbrucken, a population 150,000 small city no one's heard of, and head to Paris again to see my friend Ben and/or former exchange student Audren, or to Munich to explore, or maybe day trips to Luxembourg or Strasbourg or Heidelberg...

Instead, I decided late last week that I would just stay here. Once I made the decision, it made sense. I had work to do. Weather forecasts weren't pretty. Et cetera. It seemed like a shame to lose the traveling opportunity while I'm out here, but then again I'm definitely not wanting for travel this year, and then there's the matter of traveling to Europe last weekend, traveling to Prague next weekend, returning to Baltimore the next weekend, flying to see my family in NC 12 days later, and flying to Dubai a week after that. Even typing all that tires me out, so the idea of sleeping in a bit, wandering the city, and getting some work done sounded nice.

And it turns out, for all the complaining about Saarbrucken from the locals about how little there is to do, I've had a really nice weekend. Nothing flashy, but some history, some lovely buildings, the annual Saarbrucken Christmas market celebration, and the free bicycle the fantastic hotel staff here let me borrow to wander the city have contributed to a great weekend.

On the bad end, work has been worthless this weekend, due more to software problems and the issues of working remotely than lack of trying... hopefully I'll keep productive this next week in Germany.