Office christmas party

My office Christmas party was friday. It was a combined party with my office and the Ravensburg office and Herr L, at the office. I work in a converted winery building, and there is a big cellar stretching across the building with old stone barrel vaults, in the final stages of renovation. We had the party there, starting around 5pm but actually we were scrambling to print some things out last minute so they had to chase us downstairs.

There were not so many people, maybe twenty in total. German office Christmas parties are not so often plus one events, so significant others stayed home. Which is ok I guess since its more a time to socialize and connect with coworkers.

We were greeted with a round of Sekt (German sparkling white wine), and then welcomed to the buffet. The whole thing was catered by the Ox, the restaurant and butcher shop which I am renovating, and the food was really good. Smoked salmon, smoked herring fillets, beef carpaccio, and schinken (thin sliced air-dried pork) appetizers, and then really good kas' spaetzel (local egg noodle and cheese) plus some pork and gratin potatoes etc. Dessert was white and dark chocolate mousse.

We had tons of wine and schnapps foisted on us, and because that wasn't enough, Rafa also brought a new bottle of some really premium tequila from Mexico and the office finished off the bottle by the end of the night, six hours later.

It was a good event, everyone was pretty boozed up, but I talked to a lot of people, naturally in German, and both of my bosses expressed to me that they were really satisfied with my work and they thought I was a good addition to the design team. Did take a long time to get home since we to wait awhile for the cab to get to the village, and then drop us all off at our respective houses in Stuttgart. Actually we had a slight problem since none of us had any cash and the cab didn't take cards, so we had to make a quick stop at an ATM so I could pull cash. The total for the trip ended up costing  60 euros, which is about $75 US. (Hopefully. I have been avoiding watching the exchange rate, so by now it could actually be $60 US, or perhaps $6).

The next day...
Was not bad. I drank a lot of water at the event, ate well, avoided beer, and drank more water.