mjm wired ;)  

Even though I do have various degrees of experience across different software, I still consider myself somewhat of a junior engineer. Someone somewhere thought differently. So a "roster" of people was drafted for some workshops in Germany. One person's personal trip was already preplaned, hence he was out (you know who you are). Many people had passport or visa issues and in the end, given the last minute nature, only a subset was able to go. So here I am at 4:45am writing a blog post in a hotel room a little distance away from Frankfurt, Germany. I tried so hard to sleep, but I just couldn't.

There's a workday ahead of me with people I hardly know on a project that's so massive and complex that I could spend weeks just understanding ... and my imput matters. I don't know what impression I'll leave on the German engineers or what effect I will have on this project as a whole. However I'm glad to have a unique chance to be involved and to experience another country.

My eyes have been "opened" multiple times so far and that's not even including the culture shock. More later.