Just back from a trip to Europe which included a visit to the INTER TABAC 2010 in Dortmund Germany,
i arrived in Germany on Thursday 16 Sept, after a 3 hours drive coming from my Hometown 's-Hertogenbosch in Holland, unfortunately there was some heavy traffic so the planned 2 hours became a 3 hours drive.
I stayed in the Pullman Hotel opposite the exhibition center, the first night i walked into a bunch of german guys which i know for years so we smoked and had drinks till 3:30 AM,
the next day i had a great german breakfast with nice bread, (i miss the European bread, in the DR the bread sucks) when i parked on the parking of the exhibition center i saw the son of one of my German Clients so he luckely had had a pass arranged for me for the 3 days so i could walk into the show without any registration, Friday the first day of the trade show is always a little quite ,because retailers usually don't close their stores, so the friday is mainly international visitors from all over the world, for them it's easier to come to Germany then to go the the US (IPCPR) so i walked into Russians, Chinese, Indonesian,
Norway, Czech, Polish, Indian & Turkeys people, it's good i made sample cigar boxes which i handed over as my business card, you have to know that i didn't had a booth so i made sample boxes instead with my business card inside, see image,
the first day ended with a big come together party, with a great diner and a band playing, i shared the table with Nestor Andres Plasencia his Brother Gustavo Plasencia & the sisters Rachel & Patricia Quesada, a lot of other people where present, like Rocky Patel, Pete Johnson, Christian Eiroa, Pepin Garcia & complete family and many many more.
the second day was great i had several appointments with clients & potential clients, and some deals where sealed, the second night was reserved for a Mexican Party, when i left the Hotel i walked into Christian Eiroa who forced me to walk to walk with him to the Mexican Party, to after a 30 minutes walk in short sleeves, (temp. 12 celcius)we arrived at the Park Hotel, the Party was nice with a nice Mexican style buffet, after the party we decided to go out, so together with party Animal Rocky Patel, Christian Eiroa, Pete Johnson, David Blanco & the boys from humipack we headed downtown Dortmund to a place called Justin's.
Here we stayed and chilled out till 4 AM.
The next day and last day of the show i didn't feel very good, i was exhausted (Thank you guys) anyway i had some other meetings and 5 PM i decided to leave to drive to Holland to have diner with my parents and my brother & Family.
i arrived in Holland at 7.30 PM , went out for Diner , slept, and left the next morning early to Belgium to catch my flight to the Dominican Republic,
unfortunately for me my Fu.... flight had a delay of 13 HOURS !!!!!!
so the flight left at 1 AM and arrived in Puerto Plata the same night at 4:30 AM
(6 hours time difference) so all in all a Heavy trip.
it took me several days to get rid of the jetlag but i am back on track again, anjoying a cigar (while writing this) in Camp David Ranch here in Santiago.
