When I woke up on Wednesday, I was still full from dinner so I decided to forgo breakfast and head straight to the hall. Wearing one of my new favorite outfits and a pair of heels, I was feeling pretty good as I made my way to the stand. From my hotel, I didn’t even have to go outside to get the Messe (but I did!). It was quite a transformation when I entered the hall. Carpet now padded the aisles and the smell of wet paint had vanished. After snapping a few pictures before the chaos was to begin, I parked myself at the welcome desk. My only scheduled meeting was at 2:30p on Thursday, so I helped greet people, passed out catalogs, served beverages, and helped place products back on the wall after meetings. I think we stopped to have sandwiches around 2p. Each trip to the restroom offered a chance to pass by different stands and recognize other North American publishers. I won’t bother to list them, trust me, you’d recognize them too. My other fun activity was matching faces to names and introducing myself when appropriate. The overwhelming response was, “You’re different than I had imagined.” I can’t say I didn’t disagree, but I didn’t say it. I’ll just chalk this up to my youthful appearance.
Most of us started to wrap things up around 6p, so I left with Carlos. We were surprised to see that it was raining, but we didn’t have to go too far. Even though I have a couple of inches on Carlos, he’s a very fast walker. I was walking as fast as I could, avoiding cracks in the cobblestone, and telling a story while trying to keep up with him. It didn’t help that almost every other stride left my heels caught in the cobblestone and me in a lunge position. Carlos seriously had to pull me out a couple of times. Thankfully there’s no permanent damage to my shoes.
After a quick change of clothes (which felt SO good), I walked over to the other hotel to meet my dinner dates. Dana and I jumped into the very long cab line while waiting for Carlos and Phil to join us. The line didn’t seem as bad since we enjoyed a complimentary glass of prosecco while we waited. We ended up being about 30 minutes late for our reservation, but it certainly didn’t matter. We had decided on a new Greek restaurant on the recommendation of Stellios the cab driver (from the day before). Little did we know this was the start of another four-hour dinner, but this one didn’t feel like it lasted that long. Of course, the restaurant only had a German menu, so it was up to me for translations. We did ok, despite my average knowledge of Greek food. Good thing I spent two Easters in Greece! It was seriously one of the best dinners ever. We laughed the entire time. Which is probably why I didn’t notice the ever so slight start of my coughing.
Thursday was filled with even more meetings, but I also had to opportunity to go explore the German hall—all three levels of it! Flats were definitely a good choice for my feet today. I thought it was a little strange that I didn’t see all that many children’s books, which made sense once Berit explained that there were two halls for German books! Oh well. I did enjoy the Gutenberg printing press demonstration at least. I couldn’t hear very well, but the pressman looked pretty cute in his old-school outfit. In between cough drops and tea, I also found some time for light teasing from the boys because I wore my peacock feather headband. Today was pizza day. I had to try a bite of the famous corn pizza and it didn’t disappoint.
Berit and Uwe came in for the day and had a few meetings of their own before our big meeting at 2:30. The meeting was really only expected to last until 4, but we didn’t end until about 5:30! Which was the time we needed to leave to catch our 7:35 flight. I had stowed my luggage on the stand in preparation of a quick exit, so we said our goodbyes and ran out the door. Let me tell you, it was a lot of running around for a 50-minute flight. We took the S-bahn right from the Messe and had one change to get to the airport. I felt bad, but I had to check my luggage. So despite the self check-in line, I still had to wait to check my baggage. And then we had to wait in a very long time for security. And I got my very first pat-down. And boarding was not as smooth as expected, but I wasn’t complaining too much because we had narrowly avoided a Lufthansa strike. The whole thing was an interesting experience because the airport was mostly full of business people. I don’t think I’ve ever been on a plane with so many people in suits. We left a little late, but after Berit dropped me off at the hotel it was still before 9p. I had just enough energy in me to check my email before crashing hard. Mostly I wanted to check if I’d heard back from the apartment people, which I had not.
Friday was a slow day at the office since almost half of the staff was still at the fair. It was a nice chance to catch up on emails and follow-up on notes from the fair. I also called the apartment people and they informed me that the apartment I was interested in had been rented already. Oh well. I spent the afternoon searching for more apartments. Berit found a really good site, so I sent out a lot of messages. Friday night was spent in the isolation of my hotel room resting my body. Before dozing off, I was excited to receive a note about an apartment! I set up a meeting for Sunday.
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