Goodbye Chicago. It was fun and I'll miss you.

We fly out of town at 9:00 tonight. Siebel's doors will be open to us at noon to let us drop off luggage and attempt to finish off the last of the Sierra Nevada on tap. Springtime has finally come to the Midwest. Over the week I've noticed the flower shoots pushing up the mud and litter. Birds have returned. I saw my first cardinal. We don't get those pretty birds west of the Rockies and it fascinated me. They sing a song that's much like young boys pretending to shoot lasers at each other. (Pyew, pyew!) The barbary and pussywillow I pass on the way to school are sending out new branches. I think back on the two weeks of constant snow in Seattle we had in December and the intense cold of Chicago. This has been the longest winter of my life. The summer plagues me in my dreams. Being in Munich in the spring should be a just reward.

The guys of been eating lots of salads and Asian foods, and drinking lots of American IPA before this trip. We've been warned that the Germans eat nothing but pork and pretzels, and don't import our beer. If the weight of my bag is light enough, I'll try to pack a few DIPAs for the German students to try.