A Traveler's Best Friend

There are a lot of reasons to enjoy the IFA tech trade show in Berlin.  Not everything is wonderful (sorry, "wunderbar"), but overall it's quite enjoyable, if not occasionally hectic.  Included on the list is the hotel that the press group I'm with is staying in.  It's the Grand Hyatt, which the organization pays for, bless 'em.  But as nice as the hotel is (and it's darn nice...), this might well be my favorite part --

This doesn't do it justice.  It's only a part of the buffet. To the left are the three kinds of eggs, pastries, rolls, sausages, cereal and more.  And around the corner is fruit, yogurt, and half a dozen fresh-squeezed juices.  And to the right is champagne on ice. And you can order pancakes, waffles, and French toast.  And all that alone would be fine, if they left it there, but then there's this part here that you see.  Herrings, lox, peppered smoke salmon,pickles, several kinds of liverwurst, roasted tomatoes and roasted potatoes and different meats -- but wonderful as all that  is, my favorite part by far can be honed down to the bread and cheese.  

You can see all the different breads which are incredibly hearty, full grain and tremendous, that you cut with the bread knife.  And though I try not to eat cheese too much in general, I make an exception here.  How can one not?  The brie, Port Salut, blue cheese, Emmenthaler and others are just so rich and flavorable.

People in our group generally talk about what they're going to do for lunch.  Lunch??!  I barely have an appetite by dinner.  This table here is near-plenty enough.

And so, I have to end this now, because it's time to head down to eat.  (It's 8 o'clock for breakfast.)  The elves at home weep when I send them photos of this, but they'll make do.