My first business trip to Europe was Frankfurt Germany. Purpose of the trip was to help setup a logistics warehouse operations in Frankfurt, Germany for Applied Materials Inc. First time in Europe, I took a flight from San Francisco to JFK I believe and from there to London then to Frankfurt Germany, it was along flight. This was my first time to Europe. The airline was British Airway. The flight was typical, waiting at multiple airports for flight change connections. “london heathrow airport” was the connection to Frankfurt Germany my final destination. There wasn’t any delay, just long waiting connection, I was able to explore around and did some shopping and had some foods, good thing it’s in English, British English that is.
On way from London flight to Frankfurt, I sat next to a man, whom appear to be nicely dress, we talked and exchange some conversation, he said he’s also on a business trip coming home to his family in Dresden Germany. Once interesting thing is he ate yogurt with his finger, I wasn’t hungry so I offered mine to him also. Flight landed after few hours flight from London. It was an early morning flight, so I get to see the view below with a window seat, it look similar to the USA. Frankfurt airport, it’s true that security carry UZI type machine gun, someone told me about this back home but now I seen it.
I got my luggage and went through custom check, they all speak a little bit of English, signs here are half English and German. There wasn’t any problem getting my luggage and custom clearance, I don’t have anything anyways except my company laptop and clothing. I went to the Avis rental car, I got priority “Avis preferred member” because business trip. This nice young lady offered me with $5 extra a day to get large size car which is Volvo more power and more options, so I got that one. I asked for direction to Hyatt hotel in downtown Frankfurt, and also driving tips here in Germany – she said it’s a little more agressive here than the USA but I should be ok she said.
Started driving out of the airport pretty easy because the sign and pictures are in English very clear and visible, but once I’m outside of the airport on the road, it’s somewhat like here in the USA, I did got lost and made an I believe an illegal U-turn it was kind of scary because I believe I went over the curb or side walk but this Volvo has good suspension and powerful engine turbo charge. I got back to the main road and got lost again, this time I came across a circle intersection where there is no signal light but you would just have to go in a circle until you find your street :).
Got to my hotel, Hyatt Frankfurt, checked in, went down for dinner, the food was spectaculous, service was great, room was nice and clean, USA standard toilet and internet with TV that many channels. The parking garage is electronic, you get into the garage with your hotel key, and exit out of the garage also with a hotel key, if you lost it or don’t have tough luck, well apparentally at one time I tried to exit with another vehicle in front of me because the electronic take a long time to close so I just accellerate and pass it but it was closed hit the top of my rented volvo, no major damage was done, I’m sure it’s on camera.
After work, my co-workers invited me to some beer, and we to River Front downtown. It was a nice place, I only had one beer, my co workers especially German they can really drinks, most bars here serve similar beverage, I’m not into beer so I don’t know all the variety, each bar appear to sport and news channel on, people talk really loud. I also took a walk to downtown area, it’s pretty much similar to here in the US. I didn’t buy anything, that’s the thing about me, I have a lot of opportunity for sylvanir to bring back home, but I rarely or next to never bought any.
One of my German co-worker knows a lot about computers, he gave me a bunch of divx movies on my flight back to the US. He also mention the best hacker during the time was the Turkish.
During my time here, on the week end, I took a week end trip to Amsterdam.