Mario Karts with the IT Crowd

Last night I rubbed elbows with some of Aachen's Silicon Valley community. One of the city's biggest economic focuses is information technology and other related fields, which is the kind of business my host parents do. They belong to a local IT association that had one of its major annual events yesterday at none other than the largest indoor go-karting track in Europe. Woohoo for Aachen IT events! 

And they said Jeff Gordon and I weren't related.

The track was actually in Belgium, but as I've mentioned before, you wouldn't know you'd crossed the border except a lot of the signs are in German as well as French. People got pretty intense out on the track. All I'm saying is I'm glad I watched The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift as well as Fast & Furious 6. My older host brother and I were on a team and got eight place out of twenty or so teams. 

Unfortunately my team didn't make it onto the podium.

The second half of the evening program was dinner. They said we were going to have a BBQ, which I was kind of skeptical of because it was pretty crappy outside and already pitch black out. Well, no need to fret because on the tables were mini grill-hot-plate-device-thingies for every four people to share. Everyone got to be a grillmaster-- indoors and while enjoying their salad. I mean, how much more can you ask for?

Now that's my kind of BBQ!

Sitting next to some very well-educated and innovative people, the dinner conversation was definitely thought-provoking. I learned about the illegal oil importation chain through South American to the US. It was interesting to hear the story of how one guy's sister-in-law (who's also in the IT biz) moved to southern California for work, but ended up having to move to China shortly thereafter because that's where a lot of the IT jobs are being sent. And people were very friendly to me, reliving their West Coast road trips through all the National Parks, San Francisco, Seattle, and British Columbia. 

All in all, I've come to two main conclusions after last night: real life go-karting is even more fun than Mario Karts (even without Yoshi and the bananas) and Aachen's IT community is pretty awesome.