May, 1998, Sau Paulo and Rio De Janiero, Brazil

(Day 4, The Show Begins)
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The next day was the first day of the show. At any trade show, it is amazing to see a construction site turn into a finshed exhibitition overnight:

 

Now that our equipment was set up and functioning, as was the rest of the show, I took the opportunity to explore the trade show floor. One thing impossible to miss during a visit to Brazil is the enormous number of attractive women that populate the country. Brazil's reputation for beauty queens is not unlike Russia's for Grand Master chess players. Now before any members of the distaff contingent reading this take offense, let me suggest that you pause for a moment and reflect on the idea of visiting a place where every third male looks like Leonardo DiCaprio, or whoever. Observation: In Brazil, even the bag ladies are pretty:

But back to business. The Siemens booth consisted of many different divisions showing many different products, and much of today was spent talking with other Siemens folks about their products, and vice-versa. One of the people there was a rather pleasant fellow from Siemens Swizerland named Peter, who was considering spending a few days in Rio De Janeiro after the show as well, so we decided to merge our mini-vacations. Pete was trilingual, English, German, and French. Sadly, all three languages were completely useless in Sau Paulo so, like myself, he had to grope around in English.

Meanwhile, my spare boards were still stuck in customs. Manuel, who I'd been working with on the phone, still was unable to work out a solution with customs. I offered to fax him the paperwork, but since we had no fax machine at the booth, we had to go looking for one. We never did find one - eventually, I faxed him the documents from the hotel that night.

ahead to an evening's relaxation
back to day 3 (Setup)
Return to the Home Page