Watch out for that dog!

I'm back from my European tour. I was traveling for 10 days. First I was in Prague for a conference. It was great to see all my WBN friends and colleagues again. Reinhard from Germany brought me flowers at our first lunch as a group to say "welcome back". Here is a picture...




We went on a tour of King Charles IV castle on Saturday afternoon....his "compound" included a cathedral that was quite impressive....

We walked back to the hotel over the famous Charles Bridge (also named after Charles IV)...

I was in Prague from Tuesday to Sunday. Then it was onto Milan to meet with our client. Here is a picture of the cathedral in Milan - it only took 600 years to build it.



We left Italy and flew to Sibiu, Romania on Tuesday. We arrived at the airport and had driven about three blocks in our taxi when the driver hit one of about one zillion stray dogs in the country. The dog was ok, but it wrecked the license plate on the car.

The manufacturing facility is in Medias, Romania - which is about an hour drive from the airport. In addition to dogs, we also encountered some goats in the road.

Here is what a women's toilet looked like at the plant. Are you sure you want more coffee??

Before we left Romania, we had a walking tour that was arranged by our Romanian broker partner in Sibiu. But first we had to survive the drive from Medias to Sibiu with this same broker partner. Since one of the people traveling with us was an attorney, we decided that should anything happen, he was doing all the talking. The drive was a two lane road and included passing trucks on curves at a speed of about 60 MPH. This was all while there were pedestrians with small children walking along the shoulder of the road. I don't think that they will be exporting Romanian driving instructors any time soon.

This is from the old town in Sibiu. The area has been almost completely restored.

There were signs everywhere - there was going to be a Scorpions concert in the square shown in the picture above. The guy in the picture is my colleague from The Netherlands, Duncan.

Here is a picture of a dog in Sibiu. I think he was looking for his friend that had an encounter with the taxi license plate.


We left Romania late Wednesday afternoon to head to Bordeaux, France. Sibiu later. Here is a picture of the engine on our plane from Sibiu to Vienna. Hey - look, there is duct tape on the engine!

We didn't get to Bordeaux until 9:00 at night, minus luggage for Duncan. We drove to Tonneins the next morning (almost a 2 hour drive). The drive was very scenic.



Tonneins is very much in the country. There is an interesting neighbor next to the plant.

As you can see, it was an interesting and fun trip.

Matt and the girls did just fine without me. I talked with them every day. When I called from the airport in Detroit, Olivia wanted to know how long my hair was. Carina said she was going to hug me and kiss me and never let me go. It doesn't get much better than that.