The conference was quite large and it was held at two venues – a university and a convention centre.  As one can imagine, food was expensive at the convention centre.  I spent the first two days at the university and ate at the cafeteria – the same thing both days.  Because I can’t read German, I thought I would choose something that I could see what it actually was!  Here’s what I ate:

Quite good (at least compared to my university’s cafeteria).  The sandwich was 2 euro, but the sparkling water was 1.80 euro.  I was surprised that the water was almost as expensive as the sandwich!

We visited a botanical garden near the convention centre.  There was a cafe with an outdoor patio area.  First they gave us a German menu so we asked for an English menu.  The waitress came back a few minutes later and gave us back the same German menus!  Not a good sign.  Anyways, we decided to order anyways.  This item caught my eye:

Of course I don’t read German, so I really had no idea what I was ordering.  I had the feeling that pfifferlingen was mushroom and rostkartoffeln was something baked / roasted.  Sounds good.  The waitress confirmed that it was mushroom but that was the limit of her English.  Here’s what came…

Eggs and cheese with baked potatoes and bacon.  Not a bad dish at all!

My last meal in Germany (in Dusseldorf airport) was this turkey focaccia…

Overpriced, but quite delicious!

Can’t write about German cuisine without mentioning the national beverage, so here’s a picture of me enjoying it!

It was quite fruity – apparently the Germans like fruity beers in the summer.  Not me.

It was a quite large conference that was held in Essen, Germany from August 24th – 29th.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with Germany, here’s a handy map:

The closest international airports are Frankfurt and Dosseldorf.  (I actually flew from Nagoya to Frankfurt and then took a 45-minute or so flight from Frankfurt to Dosseldorf).