Auf wiedersehen to the Axe team, the friends I’ve made, people I’ve met, and to Germany! It’s be fun.

Maybe an afternoon in the park and some good music can solve the blockage…

Enjoy your Sunday.

The countdown is not because I didn’t enjoy my time here in Hamburg, it really has been a great 6 months, but I am super duper excited to be back home in NY/NJ with family and friends in less than two weeks (yes I said super duper).

See you soon!

• June 9-10 – Berlin
• June 11 – all day off-site meeting
• June 15 – fly to US
• June 16-19 – split between NYC, Englewood Cliffs, and Westchester
• June 20-23 – Dallas, Texas for Doug and Michelle’s wedding
• June 24-25 – NYC
• June 25 – fly to Hamburg
• June 26 – arrive in Hamburg and then go to Berlin
• June 27 – Berlin and then return to Hamburg (or travel somewhere until the 29th)
• July 12th – fly home to US for good

In Germany (and maybe this exists in the rest of Europe), you are able to bring your bottles (water bottles, beer bottles, and other plastic and glass bottles) to the grocery to get some money back. This is such an easy thing to do and is great pocket change. With the price of water being so low in the first place, you almost make back 1/2 of what you spend for the water in the first place.

I know that in certain states in the US this exists, but it really should become more prevalent. One solution that I have come across is to eliminate the consumer effort needed. RecycleBank provides you with a bin and a barcode to put on your recycling bin. Then when collected, the collectors scan the code and reward you based on the size of your bin and therefore the amount of material that is in it. This weight is converted to points and then to dollars.

In the long run it may slightly drive up the price of goods, but isn’t that a small price to pay to give people an incentive to recycle and to save our world?

I had been in the US for a week and then in Barcelona for a few days so posts have been lite. I’ll be getting back on track this week…

As part of a workshop I am planning in  Barcelona at the end on April, I spent the week booking hotels and planning the event. I wouldn’t have minded this if I had started planning from the beginning — I would have been down with it 5 weeks ago. Rather a colleague of mine had been in charge of booking everything and we can just say that he never finished it, so it fell onto my plate.

It is so inefficient for me to have to spend a week of my time planning hotels and conference space, when it literally could have been done 5 weeks ago and in much less time. I also found out that on the European teams, not only do I have to plan the bookings, I have to essentially “hand-hold” everyone to make sure they book their flights, hotels rooms, the proper number of nights, how they are getting from the airport to the hotel, etc. No one likes to travel without the proper information, but it seems ridiculous, this level of guidance. </End Frustration>

It all comes down to the learning experience, being part of the global team, located in Europe. There is a very different style of working. Sometimes better than in the US, sometimes worse, and sometimes it is just different. While I can be frustrated and disagree with how they work, I’ll take it as a learning experience for me, as I move forward in my career and manage other people.

Today (Monday) was a pretty emotional day. We woke up early and took an hour train ride from Hamburg to Cella and then a 15 minute taxi ride to Bergen-Belsen. Bergen-Belsen for those of you who don’t know because I didn’t know anything about it, was the concentration camp where Anne Frank, and sister died after they were found in hiding. Originally Bergen-Belsen was started as a POW camp where the Soviets were held. Here they experienced horrible conditions, basically no food and no showers but worked menial jobs for eventually a small wage. Once the war started getting worse and was taking longer than the Nazi’s wanted, Bergen-Belsen became a concentration camp in 1941. This was considered an exchange camp. It meant that “VIPs” were held here and were traded for Nazi soldiers that were captured. However, as time went on, it became more of a typical concentration camp. Many Jews from Auschwitz were transported here and many people from Bergen-Belsen were transported to Auschwitz. These 2 camps apparently had a “good relationship.” Approximately 52,000 Jews were killed here before its liberation on April 15^th, 1945, one day before Pesach. This was an extremely eerie experience.

After a quiet train ride back to Hamburg, Adam and I went straight to dinner and then just got back a little while ago. I packed up my stuff so that tomorrow morning we can go out and maybe do something quickly before I have to catch my flight.

Happy Easter! You would think that Easter was bigger here than it seemed but it was just another Sunday out in Hamburg. Sunday was museum day. We went to the Hamburg museum and were excited to find out that they had a “Jews in Hamburg” exhibit.  It was also very interesting to learn that Adam lives in an area of Hamburg called “little Jerusalem.” After the Hamburg museum we went to the “Dom.” This is basically Hamburgs “Coney Island” and although it was probably about 20 degrees out, and Easter Sunday it was packed with families. We got to eat a Berliner (donut) and some other good German snacks. After the “Dom” it was lunch time at one of the bistros by Adams apartment since we both grew a large appetite from walking alllll over the place. This restaurant was very good and we had some quiche, salad and soup. And of course we got beers since they are literally cheaper than a bottle of water or soda. Since it was freezing out and had walked a ton and I got to see a lot, we just went back to Adams apartment to thaw out. We stayed in and cooked dinner and rented a movie.

Saturday was of course another long day. We woke up a little bit on the late side but that was okay because I obviously needed my sleep.  From lunch we went full swing into site seeing. We walked by the beautiful government building on through downtown (which is where they have all the 5^th Avenue stores). We then went to St. Michael’s church which is one of the two most famous churches in Hamburg. From St. Michaels church we walked down to the Reaperbahn and then down to the harbor of the Elbe River. It was very pretty and we finally found a ferry ride that also had an English translation tour. After the ferry ride we walked through the park. Since it was cold and we were hungry, our next stop was the bakery to have a snack. After our snack, I was now ready for a nap, which was cut short because we had to get ready for dinner and Adam’s first night out in Hamburg!! We went to this restaurant that basically sat on the water. It was a beautiful restaurant and very good. After dinner we met Adam’s friends Tamir and Felix at a very NY bar (in their opinion) and then to a more german “underground” techno bar. At about 2:30am, I killed the night by saying that I needed to go home.