My Germany Trip Continued

Germany Day 6 – Sandpaper, beer, and skater boy jeans.

The wash cloth situation has reached the crisis stage. The dish rag I purchased has caused the problem. It did not work. I came to realize that dish rags, especially those made in Belarus and purchased in Germany, are intended to clean dishes. They are not intended to wash sensitive areas of one’s body. Remember my reference to the 3 month old in my day 3 blog. I am getting close but not quite there.

The dish rag only compounded a festering problem. Everything in my hotel room has the surface consistency of sandpaper. It is the really gritty kind with the extra big granules of sand. It is the kind that can scratch the surface of glass, that kind of sandpaper. When I say everything has this surface, I mean critical things like toilet paper, the 20 stitch count sheets, the towels, and even the toilet seat. I will not elaborate further.

Everybody in Germany drinks beer. They drink it in the morning, at lunch, and certainly in the evening. It is legal to drink it in public. In public means everywhere. I have seen people drinking in the parks, in their cars, for breakfast, on the streets, and even riding the subway. Old people are drinking it. Young people are drinking it. Really young people like early teens are drinking it. The bottles of beer are also big. Like the size of an aquarium. In Germany, people figure if you can drink beer anywhere you might as well drink a lot. For that, I like Germany.

I have not quite figured out the dress code. These Germans have a fixation with their style of clothing. It all centers on the “skater boy” jean. Boys riding skateboards are not the only ones that wear the jeans. Girls and women wear them also. They all wear the low-waisted straight legged skinny jeans. They wear them to work, to school, to shop, and to sleep in. They never take them off. What concerns me the most is that the men wear them as well. Ordinary men wear them to work. Fat ordinary men wear them to work. Old fat ordinary men wear them.

For most, it is not a flattering look. I also know these jeans are not comfortable. This will be especially true if the Germans have not found a solution to the sandpaper problem. While I can, I am off to drink beer in public.



Germany Day 7 – Objects, the Reeperbahn, and the Sexy Angel


Today was my last full day in Germany. The morning began with a trip to the “Penny Market”. I was in search of talcum powder. It is otherwise known as baby powder. Talcum powder has been used for centuries to soothe skin. When applied It is cool and comfortable. People in Germany know this also. The shelves were fully stocked in a variety of sizes and colors. It does wonders for irritated skin in sensitive areas. I know.


Once that need was satisfied I enjoyed the Hotel breakfast. The Hotel served the same breakfast every day. Scrambled eggs, rolls, sausage, ham, and some dry granola cereals. I was most intrigued by the sausage. I had always heard that Germany was famous for the sausages. Germany is famous for meatballs with one important exception. They all taste the same. Just like the sausage at breakfast. I also sausage lunch two days and as a side one evening for dinner. I knew that taste well. It reminded me of Sweden. I have never been to Sweden but have eaten Swedish meat balls. The kind you eat at a wedding with a toothpick from a crock pot. The German sausages I had were made from this same mystery meat. I am certain of it. One additional note, nowhere did I see hamburgers for sale. Hamburg as in Hamburgers? You can get a Philly Cheese steak in Philly can’t you?

The downtown area of Hamburg was beautiful. I took dozens of pictures but won’t bore you with the photos. Below are a few of the notable ones. I am not even sure what these objects are but they struck me as odd enough to photograph them.

Another interesting photo

On my last evening we visited the Reeperbahn section of Hamburg. It is sort of the arts and bar district. It is filled with bars and restaurants and other establishments. It claims to be where the Beatles were discovered playing in a night club. The Beatles actually started in England and were a complete flop. They traveled to the Reeperbahn to play more. They were rediscovered and the rest is history.

The Reeperbahn is also filled with other establishments. I would describe it as the Bourbon Street of Hamburg but without the smell. Most everything is legal here including the oldest profession in the world, prostitution. We happened upon a side street completely lined with prostitutes. There they were in all sizes and colors. There were more than a hundred of them. They were lined up right next to the police station. Waiting to sell their goods.

After some local research I was able to piece together the story. The Hamburg city government knows that prostitution will exist whether it is legal or illegal. The police can’t stop it. Therefore, it is legal. The girls must undergo a health screening, obtain a license, and return for periodic medical checks. In their eyes the process works. Everybody makes money and the male populous remains satisfied.

Below is a picture of two of them. The girl on the left in the pink boots screamed at me when I took the picture. I found out that they do not like it if you take their pictures even if they are “Sexy Angels”. What a bunch of whores. I mean really.

All in all it was a very big day. Tomorrow I will head for home.

My Germany Trip

Recently my company sent me to Europe for some global training and relationship building with my colleagues across the pond. The following is a summary of the first 5 days of my 7 day trip.

Germany Blog Day 1

I finally made it to the Hotel after 15 hours of travel and 30 hours of no sleep. The plane trip was fine, but the 3 hour layover in the Paris airport nearly did me in. The cab ride to the Hotel was the best part of the entire trip. I was shocked to find that they have middle-eastern cab drivers in Germany, just like New York. The Pakistani cab driver spoke English. I realized at this point that it was a good thing I stopped in the Paris airport and got some Euros. Cabs and most other local places in Germany don’t take credit cards. I would have hated to be the cause an international incident.

The local hotel outside Hamburg, Germany near the office did not have my reservation, even though I had a confirmation number. I think they did it on purpose. That along with a small language barrier made for an interesting check in.

I am 6 hours ahead so it is 6:13pm or after midnight in the U. S. as I type. I am going to stay awake for a little while so I can be on a near normal schedule for tomorrow and the rest of the week.


Germany Blog Day 2

I wish I were dead. I just had dinner with my work associate, we will call him Mike. In summary, he is socially awkward, conversationally challenged, and a poor listener. I have to spend a week in Germany with him. I knew things were bad when he pulled out the English to German translation book and attempted to speak a few words. We were in an Italian restaurant in Germany down the road from our Hotel.

Our cute 23 year waitress laughed and struck up a conversation with us in fairly good English. Seizing the opportunity, I promptly ordered the “big boy” draft local beer and settled in for the duration. The food was excellent and the prices were very competitive. We were able to stay in the $30 per person range easily. After downing the first one quickly, I ordered the second “big boy”. Mike looked at me like I had 3 heads in complete disgust. The night went downhill from there.

It was finally time to ask for the check. Mike, in an awkward moment, referred to his pocket travel guide for tipping information. This man is a complete nerd. I immediately recommended the worst case strategy of leaving a 20% tip. The bill was $46, so leave a $10 tip, I suggested. No one, anywhere, would be offended.

Mike haggled over the tip and we left her $7. Turns out that in Germany most restaurants include the tip in the menu price and some people tip if they really like the cute 23 year old waitress. I did, and we left her the extra tip. I was right all along. Tip if you want.




Germany Day 3

Today was the longest day of my life, literally. The sun comes up at 5:00am and doesn’t set until just before 10:00pm. We are so far north it is like being in the land of the midnight sun. The company I was keeping makes it seem that much longer. I spent the day with Mike, Joe (a little man from China), another sales manager from Slovakia, and 2 German training leaders trying to speak English. Due to travel schedules we got in a day early and more of our colleagues from across the globe are on the way for tomorrow. Several of them are from England so I know we will have a lot to talk about.

I have also been wondering about German hygiene. Let me explain. In my hotel room there are no wash cloths. You know the little towels about 1 foot square. Apparently in Germany no one uses them. I checked with Mike and he confirmed the practice. I asked for one from the hotel maid and got a dirty look, in German of course.

Today the time change caught up with me. Getting up at 7:00am over here is like waking up for work at 1:00am. It takes awhile to get used to.



Germany Blog - Day 4

In Germany the people are very green or environmentally conscious. In most cases I like that. The company office is in a small industrial park in the village of Norderstedt, Germany. Norderstedt is about 20 miles north of Hamburgh, Germany – a city of about 3.8 million people. Hamburgh is located on the northern coast of Germany along the North Sea. Now back to the green part. Few people own cars here. Most of our employees live in the village and walk to work or ride the subway from the city and then take the bus to the office. We also could have taken the bus.

Being that we are LEED certified (Green Building Design Certified) in my business group it was decided that we were going to walk to the office this morning. Our hotel is also in the village of Norderstedt about a mile from the office. Ordinarily, I like to walk. Unless it is 45 degrees out with a nice 20 mph breeze in your face. You see, the North Sea never warms up. It is always cold here. Even in the summer it rarely gets above 75 degrees. It is so cold that there is no need for air conditioning, only heating.

I thought I was going to collapse from hypothermia on the walk to the office. I ultimately survived. So, guess what happened at the end of the day. It was decided that we were going to walk back to the Hotel. The good news is that there was no chance of getting sunburned on the walk because the clouds and cold mist had moved in. Even better, there was no chance of breaking a sweat as the wind had shifted and was blowing the mist and 25 mph wind right in our face. In summary, the weather this afternoon was raw. It was raw like a 3 month old babies’ bottom with a raging case of diaper rash. It was really raw. So raw that it hurt to move about.

Guess what we are doing for dinner? We are planning on walking to the bus station for a ride to the subway. The subway will take us to downtown Hamburg where Alan plans on drinking enough to pass out from intoxication and shoot for a ride in an ambulance to a warm bed somewhere. In general, I prefer to do my drinking on an empty stomach. It will be empty as people around here don’t’ eat until around 9:00pm. By that time I should be able to have pounded a few “big boy” beers to quell my appetite.

I have one additional note. There is a “Penny Mart” store in the village across from my Hotel. This is the German version of a dollar store. In case you were wondering, I checked and they don’t sell wash cloths. I have learned that there is no market for them in Germany. There went Plan A as I must have a washcloth. It was time to move on to Plan B. Will a dish rag work as a wash cloth? We will find out as I made the purchase. I will elaborate more on this later.

Germany - Day 5

For this blog I will call it, how do you say, kerosene? In Germenglish that is how it would sound to you. I have been hearing this translated babble all week.

For more proper English, this blog will be titled “kerosene”.

When I was 12 years old and in the Boy Scouts I accidentally drank kerosene. It was in a glass sitting on a picnic table near a lantern. I thought it was water. It was kerosene for the lamp. I WILL NEVER FORGET THE TASTE. Last night I drank Kerosene again except this time it was on purpose.

We had dinner in a Portuguese Restaurant in downtown Hamburgh. I had some sort of fish soup, with a salad and grilled fish. It was much better than it sounds. The Portuguese owner of the restaurant liked us. We bonded in some kind of American to European kind of way. He could not speak English and I do not speak German or Portuguese. It was perfect. Following the meal he wanted to treat us kindly with a complimentary after dinner drink. The man at the table next to us said in broken English that it would help with digestion of our meal. He had offered us a shot of Grappa.

I had heard of Grappa before and new for some reason that it was made from grapes, thus the name Grappa. We obliged the owner and after a few minutes I was ready for the big moment. My first shot of Grappa. Plain and simple. I found out one thing real quick. On the way down that #%&@ burns. It burned all the way down. It burned from the inside out, and then from the outside in. It burned like the Branch Davidians compound in Waco, Texas. (you may have to look that one up). It burned long and hot. Once I righted myself from being doubled over in pain it came to me. It tasted exactly like the kerosene I had drank 34 years ago. I knew I would never forget the taste.

My advice to you is to never drink Grappa. You see Grappa is in fact made from grapes. It is from the part of the grapes that no one else wants. Normal people want the grape juice. They turn that into fine wine. Grappa drinkers want what is left. What is left is the skin, the seeds, the stems, and whatever else is left after the good stuff is squeezed out. This mass is squeezed again and the juice is distilled. That is the stuff that makes finest grappa in the world.

As a world traveler one thing I know for sure is that Grappa tastes like Kerosene and burns like &^$t. No kidding. Oh, and one more thing. It does nothing to aid in digestion either. That lying *%$#@+.

Delta We Have A Problem

Welcome to my blog. For those of you that don't know me well you will soon learn that my job as the Director of Sales for a large Company requires me to travel. Killing time on airplanes is something I have learned to do. The need to kill time actually got me started writing a journal. That journal has now morphed in to my blog. A good part of my writings involve my experiences while traveling. I figured this one was a good place to start. I hope it provides you with inspiration. Simply the inspiration to laugh.


Below is my blog from my Delta Flight 1620 on June 17th, 2010 from Minneapolis to Atlanta.
The title of this blog is “Delta We Have a Problem”.

Before we begin let’s establish one thing. I do not lie. My experiences are 100% true and are real life events. That is, real life events that have occurred in my life.

Let’s begin. I have flown a lot of airplane flights in my life. Without going to the trouble of trying to look it up, I can easily say that I have flown at least 1,000 times. That is 1,000 take-off and 1,000 landings. Just in case you were not thinking, you never really want that to be an odd number.

That number is probably on the low side, but you get the picture. My Delta Skymiles account number shows that I have flown 536,408 miles. That is actual air miles on Delta. That is roughly the equivalent of flying around the world 21 times. I have flown and logged miles on many other airlines including: Northwest, Continental, American, United, USAir, Southwest, Air Canada. Airtran, PanAm, AirFrance, KLM, and AeroMexico, that are not included in this number. I have flown a lot.

I have seen and experienced many things during my many hours of air travel. In no particular order, I have listed the most memorable of those below.

1. My plane has lost an engine at 23,000 feet. We landed safely. See odd number above.
2. I have been on 2 flights that were described as the pilots “last flight”. That announcement got my attention. The pilots were retiring following the flight.
3. I have held the hand of a woman during an anxiety attack. Anxiously, we both survived.
4. I have landed and taken off in blizzards, zero visibility fog, and even thunderstorms.
5. I have flown a commercial flight that did not land on a runway. We landed on the ocean. It was planned.
6. I have even joined the mile high club. Not that particular club. The one that required me to use toilet paper at 35,000 feet. Only once and never again.
7. I have seen people get sick. I have seen people get sick and not make it to either the little bag or the bath room.
8. I have sat next to fat people where the “seat belt extender” did not work.
9. I have sat next to fat people that could not get in the seat.
10. I have sat next to talkers, stalkers, starers, and glarers. What are you looking at anyway?
11. I have sat next to people that smell and people that smell worse than people that smell.
12. Babies have thrown up on me and flight attendants have dumped drinks on me.
13. I have flown in first class and in the very last seat next to the toilet.
14. I have flown a lot.

This past week I encountered a new experience. I was on a flight from Minneapolis to Atlanta. I was in Minneapolis to attend some high tension meetings at my Company’s Corporate Office. The meetings went well and after 3 days I was headed home. The flight was a late afternoon flight and I was ready to get home. The flight began as a normal. Okay, that is a lie. It was not normal because we left the gate on time, as scheduled at 4:00pm. Other than that the flight began as normal.

Although I am a preferred frequent flier, a “Gold Medallion” to be exact, I was stuck in a window seat in the steerage portion of the plane. To be exact seat 27E. Not really where I wanted to be. We climbed out of Minneapolis headed for Atlanta. Seat 27E on this particular plane, an MD-88, is located just over the back edge of the wing. The seat and window provided me with an excellent view of all aspects of the wing including the flaps, the wing tip, the little light at the end, and the part of the wing where they access the gas tank. To bring you up to speed, the gas tanks on most commercial airplanes are embedded in the wings. I was absent that day in aeronautical engineering class when we studied why that is , but I know this to be true.

As we reached our cruising altitude of 35,000, you know I have flown a lot by even using that phrase, I began to wonder. As I surveyed the wing in what was really a blank stare, I thought for a moment. I even thought about wondering out loud. But I decided against it. Was it possible that I was seeing rain water pouring off the wing? I thought to myself, does it rain at 35,000 feet? For the record it does not, it is too high to rain at that altitude. Besides there were no clouds in the sky. Where is that liquid coming I thought? My thoughts were getting louder. WHERE IS THAT LIQUID COMING FROM THAT IS POURING OFF THE WING? After some thoughtful analysis of the wing assembly I determined that it was coming out of the top of the wing. The access port to the gas tank was leaking.

The gas tank was leaking, Holy *&%$. I know that the gas used on an air plane is called jet fuel. Jet fuel is the stuff that makes jets fly. Logic took over. I was in a jet, we were flying, and leaking jet fuel. DELTA WE HAVE A PROBLEM! My mind was racing. Below is the exact order of my thought process.

1. I thought about my wife.
2. I thought about my kids.
3. I thought about my parents and siblings.
4. I thought about my girlfriend, the one from second grade, Jenny Hayes.
5. I said a prayer.
6. I thought about inciting panic by yelling, “ We are leaking jet fuel and are all going to die”!

Calmly, I rang my flight attendant call button. The flight attendant actually responded to seat 27E. I. I quickly ordered a beer. We were at 35,000 feet. She had time to fetch me a beer I concluded. She returned. I opened it and guzzled the can before it even left her hand. I explained the situation in a quiet voice. She acknowledged the problem. A few rows back she noticed an off duty pilot in uniform. He was summoned to 27E. There was a lot of low talking and technical jargon spoken about the situation. The guy next to me and the people in the rows in front of and behind me were now involved. I felt important and a little buzzed. I felt compelled to order another beer. The flight attendant ignored me. Our in flight safety was now her biggest concern.

All of the low talking and pointing out the window did create some anxiety. People were asking about what was happening in 27E. “The off duty pilot concluded that things were fine. “Happens all the time”, he said. “The combination of temperature, altitude, and pressure was causing the leak”. “ Things were fine”, he said. People who fly are not stupid and neither am I. Temperature, altitude, and pressure were not causing the leak. Someone forgetting to tighten the cover on the access port was causing the leak. Again, I attempted to get another beer by repeatedly ringing the flight attendant call button. We were now over Nashville with 250 miles to go. I needed a beer. Never let a good crisis go to waste, I thought.

Surprisingly, things remained calm the rest of the way. The leak actually stopped somewhere over Chattanooga. Did that mean we were out of fuel, I wondered? We were not. We landed safely. The real pilots greeted us leaving the plane. They said, good day, so long, thanks for flying, and all of those other stupid phrases they use.

No one mentioned the leaking jet fuel. I plan on sending this to Delta. I hope they read It and forward it on to that flight attendant. I am still waiting on that beer I ordered.