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This almost sounds like it will be a travel blog, but not so fast.
I just got back from a two week business trip in Europe and would like to share some of my experiences. First thing that I must admit is I hate to travel on business. That said I need to disclosed I just went over 1 million miles on United Airlines (that’s actual “butt-in-seat” miles, no bonus miles on that figure). I am a gold member for a variety of hotel chains, and I recently had to send in my passport to get additional visa pages, so I really do spend a lot of time traveling. However, it’s the traveling part I hate, the “getting to the next stop,” not the actual visits or meetings or any of the ground stuff.
I may hate to travel but I truly enjoy visiting customers so I am always looking forward to my next trip. I look forward to finding out how customers do their jobs, what we could do to make their job easier, and discover their daily job challenges. In addition I get to meet a lot of interesting people along the way.
So let’s talk about the “glamor” of international travel.
I always show up at the airport two hours early just to be on the safe side. After checking in with United I discovered my flight from Seattle to Chicago was 100% full, but on the flight to London Heathrow I should have a row to myself. I finished reading my e-mail in the Red Carpet Club in SeaTac, and then boarded the flight for Chicago. I always read a book (paper not electronic) when I fly, I have long since given up working on my computer because of the tight spacing between the seats. In Chicago I discovered the overnight flight to London was full, seems like a flight to Germany was canceled and all those passengers were now re-routed through London. There went the open seats next to me. After I was seated, I started talking to my new row mate. I discovered that he was an engineer and a PIPE-FLO user! That always gives me a kick and I enjoyed his company on the flight to London.
When traveling in Europe, I try to take public transit whenever possible because it’s so easy to get around. But since my first stop was in the county of Kent outside of London, and I didn’t know if I could get there by public transit, I decided to rent a Fiat 500. Let me tell you about the Fiat 500…
A Fiat 500 has an engine smaller than most soda pop bottles. It is billed as a four-passenger car, but can comfortably fit two skinny super models, or one full-grown man. The next morning I got on the motorway equipped with a local GPS and started driving on the left side of the street, with a stick shift.
It turns out my customer was in a business park out in the middle of the county, but with a rail station next to it! Later in the day I took the car back, filled it up with gas (wow their gas prices are high), and took the train into London for the next day’s appointments. London was easy to get around using the Underground, and I had an excellent visit with a prospective customer.
That afternoon it was back to Heathrow to catch a flight to Dusseldorf Germany. The next day I took two trains and a bus to visit a prospective customer. I arrived at 11:00 and started off with my standard PIPE-FLO presentation. They had many questions; I always like it when that happens. After an hour they asked when I had to leave for my next appointment. I jokingly said I have all afternoon, and at 4:30 on a Friday afternoon they wrapped up their last question. That was the longest presentation I ever made, and in reality, it was more like a training course than a demo. That night I had a great meal and looked forward to a weekend in Germany.
It’s not all glamor in international travel. On business, I always travel light, fitting everything for the trip into a single carry on. Using this approach, I can only take a week’s worth of cloths and on a multi week trip; I have to find a laundry. In the states, most hotels have a couple of coin-operated machines, but I have yet to see one in Europe.
So early Saturday morning, I went in search of a Laundromat in Dusseldorf. I did a Google search and got a list of Laundromats in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, but nothing in Germany. I then saw what appeared to me as a single, middle-age guy walking out of a local café by himself. I figured that he was not in a relationship and so he had to do his own laundry, right? He gave me directions, and after two hours, I had all my cloths washed, dried and folded, along with the knowledge of how to get the soap, where to insert the money, and the etiquette and practices of a German Laundromat.
On the way back to the hotel, I stopped to get a sausage for lunch. I picked something that looked like a hot dog, and they gave me this 18-inch sausage in a three-inch bun. The only problem was where to put the mustard, but they gave me a dipping cup for mustard and I was right at home.
On Sunday, I had all day to get to Rotterdam. Michael Blondin, our Chief Operating Officer was in Milan for a trade show and on Monday morning, he and I were meeting in Rotterdam with our local PIPE-FLO dealer. We both were traveling by train, and planned on meeting at the hotel in Rotterdam. When I got on the train in Dusseldorf the first person I saw was Michael. I sat down in my reserved seat, which happened to be right across from him.
They were doing track maintenance in Holland that Sunday so we needed to take three trains to get to Rotterdam. On our second train, we meet a young woman that was returning to her home in Rotterdam and had a great conversation. She talked about her job with the police department, along with her recent travels to the United States, Italy, and what her life is like in Holland. Before we knew it, we were at the central and were on our way.
When Michael and I made it to the hotel, we went to our rooms, dropped off our things, then immediately went exploring Rotterdam. The last time I was in Rotterdam was 1999, but now there was construction going on everywhere and the city was new and vibrant. We walked around the harbor and I was able to see the variety of merchant ships in port. Being a graduate of the Merchant Marine Academy, I never get tired of seeing ships. We went through their maritime museum on the waterfront and had a great walk on a sunny spring day.
The next morning we met with Hans Vogelesang of PumpSupport, our local PIPE-FLO dealer. We have been doing business together since the early 90s and over the years, Hans has become a great friend. We talked about our current business development efforts, gave him a sneak peak of the next release of PIPE-FLO, and talked about old times. He then asked if we had time for a quick lunch. With a 2:55 pm flight out of Amsterdam to London, I thought three hours would be more than enough time for a light lunch and a quick trip to the airport.
When we got to the neighborhood restaurant, he ordered and they brought out an open face club sandwich, with turkey, cheese, and three fried eggs… so much for a light lunch. As we waited for lunch, I watched the minutes tick off and my two-hour buffer began melting away. After an hour, we finally left the restaurant and were on the way to the airport. Then all of a sudden the traffic came to a halt, and we sat there for 15 minutes. I got to the airport at 2:00, fifty minutes prior to my scheduled departure. By the time I got to the front of the check-in line, they said the flight closed two minutes ago, and I would need to be re-ticketed for a later flight.
I went over to the British Air counter and they said that since the ticket was purchased from Orbits, they would need to issue the new ticket. With an hours and a half until the next flight to London I didn’t have the time so I handed them my credit card and purchased a new ticket. I went through customs and made it out to the gate before my original flight started boarding. I asked the people at the gate if I could get on my original flight since I still had a ticket for that flight as well. They said that since I had not checked in and was not on their manifest, I couldn’t get on. Damn!
I got on the next flight to London and we arrived 10 minutes early! That is unheard of when flying into Heathrow. I thought, I am home free and this may be my lucky day after all… I rushed off the plane, went to immigration and saw a long line waiting to get through. They only had three agents at the gates, and often times two of them had to go to their office to make phone calls regarding arriving passengers. After one hour and forty five minutes I made some new friends from Nigeria traveling to London for spring break, and finally got through customs.
I had to drop by the hotel that I had stayed in the previous week, because I left a jacket in the closet. Traveling on the London Underground is amazing. I typed my destination into my smart phone and I was presented with a map showing step-by-step instruction, when the trains left and when I would arrive at my final destination. All was well until I lost my ticket for the Underground. I had purchased an all location daily pass for seven pounds and it fell out of my pocket. In London you need a ticked not only to get on the train, but also to get off. I told the gate attended of my troubles and I must have looked in sad shape because he waived me through.
Next I had to get the train to Hitchens at Kings Cross station. I needed to purchase a ticked (the ticket machines in England were harder to operate than the ticket machines in Germany), and then figure out what track to go to. As I got the ticked out of the machine, I heard my train to Hitchens would be departing in 1 minute. I made a quick dash to the platform with my carry on and computer back pack. With just three steps shy of the train the doors closed. I found out by looking up at the departure sign that they closed the doors two second early, and right on schedule the train pulled out of the station.
The next train to Hitchens would get me in after 9:00 pm, and I was giving a training class the next day. I was really down in the dumps after such challenging day. I made it to the next train, arrived at Hitchens, got into a taxi at the train station and had a wonderful chat with the cab driver. I gave him a larger tip than normal because he did a great job of cheering me up. I checked into the hotel and had a great night’s sleep.
After the first day of class I went out to dinner with some of the attendees. We went out to an Indian restaurant for a curry dinner. The service was excellent, the food was great and my dinner companions were a fun group. It seems that one of my German dinner companions became a celebrity that night. He ordered the Vindaloo, apparently one of the hottest curry dishes available. He was warned by the waiter and when it came out he had a bite and asked if he could get some additional peppers to make it hotter.
The waiter came back in 5 minutes with a dish of tiny peppers (in the pepper world, the small the pepper the hotter they are, and based upon the size of these babies I was afraid that my German friend would auto ignite). He put ALL the peppers on his food and started eating without displaying any signs of distress. Two minutes later the manager came around, in five minutes the chef came out, followed by the restaurant owner, they all wanted to meet the man that could eat fire!
The next day I finished up the course, and then headed off to the train station for my final trip to Heathrow. After checking into my hotel, I was ready to try the Thai place down the road, but when I took my shoes off in the room, I knew I wasn’t going anywhere that night.
The next morning I got on a big United jet homeward bound after 10 days on the road. Before I went to sleep on the plane, I clicked my heels together on my traveling shoes said, “there is no place like home.”
To me traveling is a way to get to meet new and interesting people. First, the customers that have helped us stay in business and keep our business growing. Second, people (both customers and others) I meet along the way that can share their common experiences and grow in our understanding of each other. Best of all about traveling is the ability to sleep soundly on a long trans-Atlantic homeward flight.
Share your travel experiences or suggestions with me! Leave a comment below or send an email to blogger@eng-software dot com. Thanks for reading!
This almost sounds like it will be a travel blog, but not so fast.
I just got back from a two week business trip in Europe and would like to share some of my experiences. First thing that I must admit is I hate to travel on business. That said I need to disclosed I just went over 1 million miles on United Airlines (that’s actual “butt-in-seat” miles, no bonus miles on that figure). I am a gold member for a variety of hotel chains, and I recently had to send in my passport to get additional visa pages, so I really do spend a lot of time traveling. However, it’s the traveling part I hate, the “getting to the next stop,” not the actual visits or meetings or any of the ground stuff.
I may hate to travel but I truly enjoy visiting customers so I am always looking forward to my next trip. I look forward to finding out how customers do their jobs, what we could do to make their job easier, and discover their daily job challenges. In addition I get to meet a lot of interesting people along the way.So let’s talk about the “glamor” of international travel.
I always show up at the airport two hours early just to be on the safe side. After checking in with United I discovered my flight from Seattle to Chicago was 100% full, but on the flight to London Heathrow I should have a row to myself. I finished reading my e-mail in the Red Carpet Club in SeaTac, and then boarded the flight for Chicago. I always read a book (paper not electronic) when I fly, I have long since given up working on my computer because of the tight spacing between the seats. In Chicago I discovered the overnight flight to London was full, seems like a flight to Germany was canceled and all those passengers were now re-routed through London. There went the open seats next to me. After I was seated, I started talking to my new row mate. I discovered that he was an engineer and a PIPE-FLO user! That always gives me a kick and I enjoyed his company on the flight to London.
When traveling in Europe, I try to take public transit whenever possible because it’s so easy to get around. But since my first stop was in the county of Kent outside of London, and I didn’t know if I could get there by public transit, I decided to rent a Fiat 500. Let me tell you about the Fiat 500…
A Fiat 500 has an engine smaller than most soda pop bottles. It is billed as a four-passenger car, but can comfortably fit two skinny super models, or one full-grown man. The next morning I got on the motorway equipped with a local GPS and started driving on the left side of the street, with a stick shift.
That afternoon it was back to Heathrow to catch a flight to Dusseldorf Germany. The next day I took two trains and a bus to visit a prospective customer. I arrived at 11:00 and started off with my standard PIPE-FLO presentation. They had many questions; I always like it when that happens. After an hour they asked when I had to leave for my next appointment. I jokingly said I have all afternoon, and at 4:30 on a Friday afternoon they wrapped up their last question. That was the longest presentation I ever made, and in reality, it was more like a training course than a demo. That night I had a great meal and looked forward to a weekend in Germany.
It’s not all glamor in international travel. On business, I always travel light, fitting everything for the trip into a single carry on. Using this approach, I can only take a week’s worth of cloths and on a multi week trip; I have to find a laundry. In the states, most hotels have a couple of coin-operated machines, but I have yet to see one in Europe.
So early Saturday morning, I went in search of a Laundromat in Dusseldorf. I did a Google search and got a list of Laundromats in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, but nothing in Germany. I then saw what appeared to me as a single, middle-age guy walking out of a local café by himself. I figured that he was not in a relationship and so he had to do his own laundry, right? He gave me directions, and after two hours, I had all my cloths washed, dried and folded, along with the knowledge of how to get the soap, where to insert the money, and the etiquette and practices of a German Laundromat.
On the way back to the hotel, I stopped to get a sausage for lunch. I picked something that looked like a hot dog, and they gave me this 18-inch sausage in a three-inch bun. The only problem was where to put the mustard, but they gave me a dipping cup for mustard and I was right at home.
On Sunday, I had all day to get to Rotterdam. Michael Blondin, our Chief Operating Officer was in Milan for a trade show and on Monday morning, he and I were meeting in Rotterdam with our local PIPE-FLO dealer. We both were traveling by train, and planned on meeting at the hotel in Rotterdam. When I got on the train in Dusseldorf the first person I saw was Michael. I sat down in my reserved seat, which happened to be right across from him.
They were doing track maintenance in Holland that Sunday so we needed to take three trains to get to Rotterdam. On our second train, we meet a young woman that was returning to her home in Rotterdam and had a great conversation. She talked about her job with the police department, along with her recent travels to the United States, Italy, and what her life is like in Holland. Before we knew it, we were at the central and were on our way.
When Michael and I made it to the hotel, we went to our rooms, dropped off our things, then immediately went exploring Rotterdam. The last time I was in Rotterdam was 1999, but now there was construction going on everywhere and the city was new and vibrant. We walked around the harbor and I was able to see the variety of merchant ships in port. Being a graduate of the Merchant Marine Academy, I never get tired of seeing ships. We went through their maritime museum on the waterfront and had a great walk on a sunny spring day.
The next morning we met with Hans Vogelesang of PumpSupport, our local PIPE-FLO dealer. We have been doing business together since the early 90s and over the years, Hans has become a great friend. We talked about our current business development efforts, gave him a sneak peak of the next release of PIPE-FLO, and talked about old times. He then asked if we had time for a quick lunch. With a 2:55 pm flight out of Amsterdam to London, I thought three hours would be more than enough time for a light lunch and a quick trip to the airport.
When we got to the neighborhood restaurant, he ordered and they brought out an open face club sandwich, with turkey, cheese, and three fried eggs… so much for a light lunch. As we waited for lunch, I watched the minutes tick off and my two-hour buffer began melting away. After an hour, we finally left the restaurant and were on the way to the airport. Then all of a sudden the traffic came to a halt, and we sat there for 15 minutes. I got to the airport at 2:00, fifty minutes prior to my scheduled departure. By the time I got to the front of the check-in line, they said the flight closed two minutes ago, and I would need to be re-ticketed for a later flight.I went over to the British Air counter and they said that since the ticket was purchased from Orbits, they would need to issue the new ticket. With an hours and a half until the next flight to London I didn’t have the time so I handed them my credit card and purchased a new ticket. I went through customs and made it out to the gate before my original flight started boarding. I asked the people at the gate if I could get on my original flight since I still had a ticket for that flight as well. They said that since I had not checked in and was not on their manifest, I couldn’t get on. Damn!
I got on the next flight to London and we arrived 10 minutes early! That is unheard of when flying into Heathrow. I thought, I am home free and this may be my lucky day after all… I rushed off the plane, went to immigration and saw a long line waiting to get through. They only had three agents at the gates, and often times two of them had to go to their office to make phone calls regarding arriving passengers. After one hour and forty five minutes I made some new friends from Nigeria traveling to London for spring break, and finally got through customs.
I had to drop by the hotel that I had stayed in the previous week, because I left a jacket in the closet. Traveling on the London Underground is amazing. I typed my destination into my smart phone and I was presented with a map showing step-by-step instruction, when the trains left and when I would arrive at my final destination. All was well until I lost my ticket for the Underground. I had purchased an all location daily pass for seven pounds and it fell out of my pocket. In London you need a ticked not only to get on the train, but also to get off. I told the gate attended of my troubles and I must have looked in sad shape because he waived me through.
Next I had to get the train to Hitchens at Kings Cross station. I needed to purchase a ticked (the ticket machines in England were harder to operate than the ticket machines in Germany), and then figure out what track to go to. As I got the ticked out of the machine, I heard my train to Hitchens would be departing in 1 minute. I made a quick dash to the platform with my carry on and computer back pack. With just three steps shy of the train the doors closed. I found out by looking up at the departure sign that they closed the doors two second early, and right on schedule the train pulled out of the station.
The next train to Hitchens would get me in after 9:00 pm, and I was giving a training class the next day. I was really down in the dumps after such challenging day. I made it to the next train, arrived at Hitchens, got into a taxi at the train station and had a wonderful chat with the cab driver. I gave him a larger tip than normal because he did a great job of cheering me up. I checked into the hotel and had a great night’s sleep.
After the first day of class I went out to dinner with some of the attendees. We went out to an Indian restaurant for a curry dinner. The service was excellent, the food was great and my dinner companions were a fun group. It seems that one of my German dinner companions became a celebrity that night. He ordered the Vindaloo, apparently one of the hottest curry dishes available. He was warned by the waiter and when it came out he had a bite and asked if he could get some additional peppers to make it hotter.
The next day I finished up the course, and then headed off to the train station for my final trip to Heathrow. After checking into my hotel, I was ready to try the Thai place down the road, but when I took my shoes off in the room, I knew I wasn’t going anywhere that night.
The next morning I got on a big United jet homeward bound after 10 days on the road. Before I went to sleep on the plane, I clicked my heels together on my traveling shoes said, “there is no place like home.”
To me traveling is a way to get to meet new and interesting people. First, the customers that have helped us stay in business and keep our business growing. Second, people (both customers and others) I meet along the way that can share their common experiences and grow in our understanding of each other. Best of all about traveling is the ability to sleep soundly on a long trans-Atlantic homeward flight.
Share your travel experiences or suggestions with me! Leave a comment below or send an email to blogger@eng-software dot com. Thanks for reading!
