Day One 13th and 14th July 2016.
Today we leave for Europe after it snowed in Ballarat yesterday and Melbourne got to a maximum of 8 degrees. It is very cold and the warmth of the European summer is inviting. Having taken Ava back to Lara and spent some time with Andrew I caught the train into the city, just made it, of course, because Andrew dropped me off and I had no time to spare.
I met Gerard in at the Worksafe office and we left our warm coats there and we caught a taxi to the airport. We had plenty of time to check in and relax before the flight. The only hiccup was that Dave, our travel agent, hadn’t linked us as travelling together so we were not seated together. The service attendant was able to re-organise our seating for both flights so we were sitting together, all good!
13 hours later, a heap of movies and a few hours of sleep and we landed in Dubai at 4.30am local time, It was 31 degrees and I was not needing the thermal top and jumper I was wearing. We had to go through a security check before we could enter the airport and go to our next departure gate. This is the first time Gerard’s shoulder has set off the security magnetometer, so they must have had it set fairly high. When we left Melbourne we went through the circular booth and it didn’t go off with Gerard’s shoulder, just my necklace.
We were able to have a shower and freshen up, wander around the airport and have a cuppa as we had 4 hours to wait. You couldn’t see very much of Dubai as it was covered in a haze from the humidity mixed with a bit of sand. It went surprisingly fast and before we knew it we were back on a plane for the 6 hour flight to Dusseldorf. We had a good flight and a bit more sleep and we arrived in Dusseldorf. We went through passport control without any problem and waited ages for our bags to come through. We headed to customs through the “nothing to declare” door thinking our bags would be x-rayed there. We walked through the door and we were in the airport and obviously our bags had been scanned before we collected them, there was nothing to do but go and get our hire car.
We picked up the car, got the guy to change the sat. nav. to English and we headed off to Wuppertal about 20 minutes away. It is hard to describe how scary it is to sit on the right hand side of a car without a steering wheel and not in control and driving on the wrong side of the road. Gerard did a great job and stayed calm while I was freaking out. We got here safely, though.
Our hotel is the Inter City Hotel and it is right near the Monorail Station and the main Railway Station as well as all the shops and the big shopping centre. We went for a walk into town and found a nice café for a cuppa. No one was in a rush and we enjoyed watching the people just wander by. It is not very warm here, about 20 degrees. The shops are open until 8pm every night.
We came back to the Hotel and had a delicious dinner in the dining room, I had the best weiner schnitzel, ever and Gerard had ox cheeks (when in Germany!) We turned in to bed at 4.30am Victorian time, about 8.30pm here and had a great sleep.
Day Two – 16th July 2016
Today we had a fantastic late buffet breakfast which was included in our room booking. All the beautiful German meats and cheeses, eggs and bacon, cereals, soups, breads, cakes, croissants etc. and all the accompaniments as well. So many choices! We left our Hotel and headed to ZSK at Krefeld about 30 minutes away. ZSK manufactures embroidery machines and we met the Asian Pacific Sales Manager. As it turned out he had been on the same flight as us yesterday as he had been in Dubai. Frank was great, he showed us all their machines and accessories as well as their manufacturing plant and development area. Their machines are amazing and they have great ideas which they are implementing. They are even doing embroidery work on composite textiles and sewing in sensors, heaters and Teflon fibres etc. into parts for cars such as heated seats etc. We discussed the Australian market and how we could provide training when machines are sold in Australia and train service technicians. They have a sales rep in Australia that we will make contact with and go from there. They sell about 20 large machines into Australia per year but they need technicians who will travel all over the world.
We left Krefeld and drove to Dusseldorf. We are getting more confident with the driving and it was a much better and more relaxed trip. We parked the car and wandered through the old town with beautiful cobbled streets down to the Rhine River’s edge. It was so nice and clean and old world and we walked through the streets with cafes on the footpaths and down to the market. We had a beautiful lunch of quiche and salad and wandered back along the river. We decided to head back to Wuppertal as Dusseldorf is going to be very busy tonight as they have a carnival opening and fireworks along the river. We are feeling a bit weary and we will walk into town for dinner.
