Dusseldorf!

I often find myself thinking this when I travel alone, "I wish they could see me now," just referring to my friends and family, because I do the most 'out of my comfort zone' things when I'm abroad, and I feel like they would be proud of me. For example, when I was stuck in Brazil and was rattling off in Portuguese trying to get out of that sticky situation (that story is somewhere in this blog) I was beside myself listening to me speak all that Portuguese. Well yesterday it was more of a comical scene: me all dressed up walking through a trade show seeking out prospective distributors for our product, in Germany... "I wish they could see me now" hahaha.

Business class was nice, and being priority is luxury. I met Robert at Chicago O'Hare and we went directly to the United lounge, you know, behind the frosted doors where you never get to go but always wonder what's back there. We got complimentary beers and sat in comfy lounge chairs. I found it somewhat ironic that just 10 minutes prior I was happily ignorant of this place, seated at a table in the food court amongst the other peons surrounded by LOUD NOISES. What a difference! This is a life I truly don't know about! The filet mignon, grilled shrimp, endless German riesling, and far-reclining seats made for the most comfortable flights to Europe I've ever had. Now that I've had a taste of it and may never get to again, I should say, "Ignorance is bliss."

Back to the point. There is a trade show featuring everything having to do with glass in Dusseldorf, this is why we came here first (to meet other companies who deal with railings, etc). We are trying to find out what kind of market there is for cable railing, and I am there to help translate. We only talked to about 5-6 companies, two of which were Italian and Spanish (yay!), and I didn't have to interpret for any of them (boo). I am not going to be doing much interpreting when it comes to language (which is actually good because it's a lot of technical lingo), everyone speaks English (which is what I figured). What I will be doing the most with my languages is researching from a list of websites (from all over Europe and several languages) that Robert has found but can't read, figuring out which ones are interesting to us and then sending them e-mails, in English, because ultimately we want to be doing business in English. I'm also helping us get by on the streets, which is what I like to do most. It's been challenging so far though, I tend to be afraid to say anything if I think it's not going to come out right, (especially with German which I've never spoken before) and it's really something I don't have time for and need to get over. Easier said than done. I found myself staring at the guy at the phone store as if I were talking, but no words were coming out, he was confused. So now I need to start making a fool of myself speaking and stop making a fool of myself not speaking. This is, after all, why I'm here! Ich kann es machen!

One thing I observed yesterday: there are 3 kinds of people at trade shows- those business people who actually know something about said trade and are there to learn, teach, or share about it, then there are those who are goodiebaggers- just walking from booth to booth collecting all the little free trinkets they can, and then I suppose there are people like me: look the part, but don't know much about said trade. I must say that the majority of business people were men, lots of men, the majority of goodiebaggers were men, and the majority of the somewhere in-betweeners like me were women. I don't think that necessarily means anything, it's just something I definitely noticed. I hope I didn't stand out like some of the obvious ones that I saw. And don't get the wrong picture of the businessmen either, when you're not looking they just play with the trinkets too and talk about where they're going to go out that night. Other than the show, our work has consisted of finding (via internet) potential contacts and emailing them, trying to set up meetings that will then fill up our itinerary for the rest of the month. I do know that we will be going to England for a week or so around the 14th for another show and several meetings, which actually excites me because I've never been to the Motherland! We will probably stay in Germany until then, unless I can convince Robert to go to lunch in Belgium, it's just next door to Dusseldorf! And he really wants an excuse to go to Vienna, that would be a bonus! At this point it seems like the amount of work we could do here is endless, so I think we will be pretty busy and be covering a LOT of ground.

We have adjusted well to the time here, although I think he left his appetite back in the States because he is never hungry! On the other hand I'm always thinking about the next meal, especially in a foreign country, so hopefully that will change soon or I will always have to be the one to suggest we eat (not that I'm afraid). But we must look like we're fitting in just fine, because we have both been stopped (separately) by people on the street asking for directions. This seems to happen to me quite often, and I like to pretend I'm from there and help people, but this time I sadly couldn't. When the 3 Americans asked me to help them find their hotel, I glanced at their map and couldn't even tell them were WE were. We need to work on our senses of direction, we have gotten lost almost every time we've left the hotel, and it took us over and hour just to find our hotel the other day. (Robert is the king of not planning, apparently things just work out for him, if I were in charge I would've written down the directions!) It's really too bad Hertz ran out of cars with GPS. We did, however, discover that our little 2-door Puegot is a convertible:)

Anyway, with exciting plans coming up for the weekend, I'm sure I'll have fun stories to tell next week! After all, we can't just work the WHOLE time we're in Europe, right...?

J