Is there ever a scenario when...

it is a good thing to wake up with a headache.

3.5 mas's of Hell beer + 2 rounds of schnaps + 1 cup of champaign = waking up with a hangover.

If I had only had a sub at Octoberfest I would not have been in such bad shape. I know that lot's of people say this, but you know that I really mean it. A warning to kids "nothing is ever fun enough to make a hangover a happy event."

I left for the airport at 6:00 am this morning to catch a flight to Gothenburg, Sweden. The flight was smooth and on time. When I got off of the airplane it was like I had teleported to winter. It was raining and cold in Sweden. Hello Fall!

My meeting at Volvo lated until 7:30 pm. I got to my hotel a little after 9 pm. Here is a photo of tonights accomodations.

I head over to the airport at 6 am in the morning for a visit to my home (seat 11A) on the way to LA.

I can't wait to teleport back out of Fall.

So I like Munich, but am too little to do Octoberfest without a stunt double...

I left the hotel at 8 am this morning for MTU. It was a nice calm ride. My mission today was to kiss MTU's butt and make them love Carlton again. The morning was nice and sunny, not a cloud in the sky. I knew if was going to be hot today. And I started to dread the meeting at MTU. Why you might ask?

MTU does not have air conditioning in the offices. In Bavaria they don't really need it since it does not really get that warm here right?

The meetings in the morning went well. They were eating out of my hands. I was even starting to believe the BS I was dishing out.

I at white fish for lunch in the MTU executive dinning area. It was nice, but it was getting hot. by the time that we got back to the conference room from lunch I think that it was in the 90's in the room. The MTU people were going to solve this by opening the windows. Yeah, that worked.

At 3:30 we concluded the meeting. I took a taxi back to the hotel and Wolfgang was going to come to my hotel and walk to the Octoberfest with me at 4:15.

At 4:20 Wolfgang showed up in full leaderhosen and we walked for 20 minutes to the 2009 Octoberfest. Yeah me.

MTU was in a different beer hall this year. I was told that it was more traditional and smaller so we could have conversation.

I have to admit the tent was very nice. It was decorated in green fabric. All I kept thinking was "Mom and Paula would really like this tent." We were seated in the MTU area, which was on the second level above the crazies. It was a pretty good spot. Of course the mas's arrived minutes after we sat down. But the beer was cool compared to the tent. The food was nice. A cold tray with radished and meats was sreved first. Then the second round of mas's arrived. This was going to be a bad Octoberfest for me with no CFW backup drinkers. The first trip to the bathroom was an adventure.

The people in the tent started to get a little crazy.

This is a photo of part of the group. From left to right: Elizabeth Jordan, Esther Umbreight, Wolfgang Von Rutzen and me. This was beer #1.

This is an action photo of the dancing.

This is beer #2 and the food that arrived. The chicken and pork was great.
Or maybe I was starving. Who will know.

Apparently it tasted good, because I couldn't find a moment to take a picture before eating half of it.

After the dinner I had to take a walk outside. The tent was very hot and the ciggarette smoke was getting to me. This is from out the door of the tent.

I popped in to the Hofbrau House tent to get some photo's of the hops. The MTU people had told me a story that the HB tent used more hops for decoration than it took to brew all of the beer that would be used at the Octoberfest. I have to admit, the celing decorations looked great and smelled nice too.

These are all hops.

This is the image of the spirit that supposedly went up to heaven and came back becasue Octoberfest was better than heaven?? It seem to be tradition in the HB tent for men to talk women out of their bras and then throw then up on the harp on this thing hanging from the celing. You can see one on the harp near his hand and then the like of them at his feet.

This is the statue of mother Bavaira. She was in the shadow tonight.

This tent is a wine tent. I thought that it was strange, but the Germans said that the 'snobs" went to this tent.

I saw this an thought of Paula. They had a corn stand. Just like the farmers market.

This is when we got back to the tent. Our 3rd beers were waiting for us. Yeah.

This was hour 5 of the Octoberfest. The tent was getting'very active'. People were dancing and singing all over the place.

I decided to take some video to try to let you know how loud it was in the tent. And so that you could see all of the dancing. I hope that you can view a few of them.

After 2 rounds of schnaps and a glass of champaign it was closing time for Octoberfest. Thank God. They turned the lights out so we all had to leave. My head was hurting so bad. I had to pee, but I was going to get back to the hotel before waiting in the line again. Made for a nice walk back to the hotel.

Now I am back at the hotel and I am sooooo tired. I smell like smoke. And my head hurts. I am going to rest for an hour before I get up and wash the smoke smell out of my hair.

2:20 am and the taxi picks me up at 6 to take me to the airport. Heading to Sweden soon. One more day until I get to head home:)

Sunny Munich

I will say that in the past few weeks I have stepped off of the airplane and instantly been plunged into the local smells (which have not been good) of the country that I am being sent to, it was so nice to step off the plane here and smell nothing but clean air. Ahh. The week is already looking up.

The weather is nice. It is warm like a fall day.

This is the hotel that I am staying at. It is the nicer hotel owned by the same company that manages the hotel (Exselsior) that I usually stay at.
The room is nice. The sheets are clean and smell clean. The water smells like water and I can brush my teeth with it! Yeah.

For those who have been to Munich you should recognize this. I walked over to the tran station to get some bottled water.
This is the street to get to the train station. The people here do not smell like BO - so nice. No people with visible disease around.
Everyone seems happy here. I would still rather be home but if you have to be somewhere Munich is pretty nice. And the food is good.

This is not fun anymore

I must be having withdrawls from not being on an airplane for the last 24 hours. Either that or I am in work hell.

I am at the airport waiting for my flight to Munich to board. Yeah me.

Seat 11A. It is starting to feel like home:(

Thursday - Part II

How is it that I can wake up and be annoyed with people already? I keep daydreaming and then forgeting what country I am in.

I figured today I would snap some photo's on the way to the TATA office so that you could get a flavor for Mumbai. here goes...

So the whole city is not completely crap, there are some nice parts. But then there are some not so nice parts...

You have to admit that the tree growing out of the awning here is a nice touch.
This is another view of that bridge that is built in the ocean.

This picture is of the building that I have been meeting in. It is the TATA International offices.

I still have not figured out what these roadside kiosks are selling, but they have them all over. How do you like the old Fiat taxi's? India is full of them.

So my meeting lasted 16 hours today. I took a small break at lunch and went to the US embassy where I met the Ambassador - Tim Roemer (where do they get these has been politicians?) and the other US Commercial Services people.

I decide at 8 during dinner that I was going to try to fly home tonight. I am tired and done with India.

So when the car got back to the hotel I asked the driver if he would take me to the airport is 15 minutes. So the Volvo guys are now mad that I abandoned them. So sad for them. And I headed off to the airport to get onto the next flight out of India.

Once I got out of the car and was on the side walk a person came up to me, grabbed my suitcase and took off. I had to chase the criminal to get my bag back. Finally he stopped, turned around and told me that if I gave him $20 American dollars he would give my suitcase back to me. I was yelling so a (I think an) airport police officer came over to find out what the problem was. I told him that the man had stolen my suitcase. His reply was "don't you have any money you can give him?" I ended up giving the guy a $20 since I had spent all of my India money at the hotel and did not have any left. So I got my suitcase back and went into the airport. While I was at the check in counter another guy came up behind me and grabbed my suitcase. I turned around and grabbed him and my suitcase and yelled at the couterperson to help me. He said "just let him help you with your suitcase to the x-ray machine and give him a few dollars and there will be no problems. " I told the theif that I didn't have any money left and he said that hi know that was not the truth. I gave him $4 and told him to get away from me. I cannot believe that I was extorted at the airport twice! It still amazes me what a shit hole this place is.

Good news though. I got on the earlier flight home. Yeah. Will be on my way in 20 minutes. USA here I come (through a short stop over in Frankfurt).

Ok, here is another wierd thing in the Mumbai airport... they are playing Christmas Carols over the loud speakers? Go figure. These people deserve coal for sure. I am starting to think that there is a reason why these people got India and other people get to live in nice places.

Oh crap... I am still in India

Ah...nothing like waking up to the smell of India.

This is the view from my hotel room today. This area is supposed to be known as the Brentwood of Indai. I think that I may go out for a walk and see if I can find the Indian verson of OJ:)I have a meeting with the Volvo guys over breakfast before we head over to our meeting with TATA. Then tonight I have a meeting with the US Commercial Services people prior to dinner with the TATA group. Looks like it will be an event filled day. I keep telling myself that my job here is to be nice. Pray for me.

Closest I have ever been to feeling like getting on the plane was a mistake

If anyone ever hears that I am flying inside of India and I say that I am flying on Indian Air. Please be sure to tell me that I am an idiot and remind me that I told everyone to never let me fly on them again!!!

And if anyone ever tells me that they are going to fly on them, I will stop you. Just know - never fly one this airline. Today flying back to Mumbai was the first time that I have every thought that I was on a plane that was not going to make it and I had not left the ground yet. This is also despite the fact that there were only coach class seats on the plane and it was over 100 degrees at 7 am in Chennai. Let's just say that there were people getting on the flight that had no shoes on. One last comment before I purge this memory from my brain - I was trying to smell anything on me to to not vomit. You know you are in a bad place when you are panicing that your seat belt is broken and you are wishing that you could smell your arm pits.

I made it to Mumbai finally.

It is funny here in Mumbai. The city is so congested that they built a freeway that goes out into the ocean/bay to get through the city. Interesting place.
I am back at the JW Marriott hotel in Mumbai and it has never felt so good. My meeting were a disaster yeaterday. I really don't like dealing with Indian people. After dinner I think that I have finally convinces the Swedes that the people we have been meeting with are not on the up and up. I have now been in contact with the people form US Commercial Services in Mumbai and they are gathering some information for me that support my case that we are being lied to.

Great day today.

When crossing the street to lunch this afternoon a (I think homeless) lady with no fingers grabbed my hair. It was special. I think that they are trying to keep me here. I begger also came up to the car and gave me the creeps today also. This on had no teeth and a hole in her cheek.

I hope that everyone is well and never has to come here.

Oh the smells of India

When I got up this morning. This morning this is what it looked like out my window. Apparently My hotel is right on the beach here. I was looking out the window for afew minutes and there were so many people out walking on the beach. I guess that Mumbai (Bombay) can be a great resort area? But it is still in India:) We headed to the airport at 6 am to catcha flight to Chennai, India - where we made potential site visits for the possible manufacturing plant.

when we got to Chennai we had a nearly 2 hour drive to the Industrial Park. My friends the cows were all along the dirt highway. It was only 10 am when we arrived and it was already over 100 degrees!

The Induistrial Park that we went to was called Sri. It was 1 year into the development. There were roads already, 8 companies have already started construction of thier manufacturing facilities at Sri. We were here to have a look. This the font entrance to the part. Im pressive huh?
This picture is of the site that the comany sho ownes the park would like for us to buy. We could get 29-1,000 acres.

Here are some photo's of the manufacturing plant that we being built right now that was similar to the size requirments that we had told them we wanted. All the work was being done by hand. Even the cleaning of the freshly poured cement.

The building construction was not bad. They use steel beams (not like the sturdy ones that we would use in the US, but steel none the less).

Ths lady on the right here is mopping the floor by hand.

Here is a photo of the Park President making the hard sell to little Anders. At this point the Swedes were melting and the Indian people where stinking.

More example of buildings that were under construction.

This picture is not that great. I wish that you could have seen this. We went to the housing section of the Park. On the other side of the fence is the village where out non-skilled labor would be coming from. The lady to the middle left is the Vice President of the Industrial Park. The people to the right of her are the villagers. These people were living in GRASS HUT's. I thought that all of a sudden I was in Africa. These people lived in grass huts with no running water or bathrooms. There was families with kids and everything. No wonder the wage of these people was expected to be $75 a month per person. We were checking out the housing because the company would be expected to provide basic housing fo rhte employees at the park. By the way did I mention that the part did not have indoor bathrooms. All of the bathrooms were like outdoor (no roof) stalls. Everywhere.

The photo above is in the mens dormatories that we would purchase housing in. Each room was for 2 people to sleep in. There was a common area for cleaning your self at the end of the hall and bethrooms outside. This room cost the company $11/month. This includes all water and electricity. And people were lining up to take the jobs to live in the dormatory. It was way over a 100 degrees by this time and there was no airconditioning in the dorms.

They also had single family homes for $22/month. They did not include water or electricity, these things were extra. The homes had a kitchen and water up to the door. Bathrooms outside. Funny thing is behind me when I was taking this picture was the grass hut village. No one was living in the homes yet.

This house had an add on of a covered patio. A family with 3 or 4 kids lived here.

Here are some more buildings at the industrial park.

This was a building that was being built for engineers to sit and work on designs for American comanies. SO picture places like this when you call a company and get someone with an Indian accent on the other end.

at around 9 pm we made it back to Chennai to the Courtyad Marriott. This was my solice for the night. Flight back to Mumbai at 5 am. Hotel was not that bad but the bathrooms were dirty, But on the up side - they were indoors and had tp.