SPRECHEN SIE DEUTSCHE? - DO YOU SPEAK GERMAN?

So I'm in Germany, Munich to be exact visiting my really good friend Valerie. I got here late last night and I'm happy to report that I slept through the entire night and just got up about 10 minutes ago. That hasn't happened for me in over two weeks. If I knew that just flying to Europe would have brought me a full night's sleep I would've done it a long time ago:)

I've known Valerie for about 10 years now. We were both bridesmaids at my best friend Peggy's wedding, who I co-own Urban Safari Design with. Valerie is a woman like no other that I know. She is African American and I met her when she was doing her Masters and PhD at Stanford years ago (she did her undergrad at Princeton- yeah she's that type of crazy smart!!) Her doctorate was in something to do with Aeronautics and Astrophysics if I'm not mistaken and she used to run track with a best in the 100m hurdles of 13.00 if I remember correctly which is not too shabby!

She used to design jet wings for Boeing and then one day she decided she wanted to work in the German office of her company so what did she do, she taught herself German in no short order and not the "where is the bathroom?" and "how much does that cost?" kinda German, I mean the kind where she can communicate perfectly well in an office environment, discussing technical things. Beyond impressive if you ask me. She's now learning French and so travels back and forth to Paris for intensive classes all the time. I speak French pretty well so it'll be fun to chit chat with her in another language.

Did I mention, she owns two BMW motorcycles? Yeah she used to ride them all the time when she lived in LA and DC. One's a dirtbike and one's a big racing bike. I'm not sure but I think she left them back in the US. She actually rode one of them all the way from San Francisco to LA when we went to Peggy's wedding and I took her suitcase with me on the plane, lol!

One time I rode with her to the mall and when we got off I had the distinct impression that people were staring at us wondering what two buff black chicks were doing riding such a big bike. I think we looked like a "couple", if you know what I mean, lol for real!!!!

I've been to visit before so I know the lay of the land. I'll be going shopping downtown once I get cleaned up and then later on I'll be having dinner at this great Italian restaurant around the corner.

Anyway, I love Val. She's a free spirit and a go-getter and lives and marches to the beat of her own drum and I'd do well to take more than a few pages out of her book while I'm here.