George Esser

There is not much to report on about our Birmingham UK stay. The internet said this is a nice place to visit, and I am sure it was, but all we did was go back and forth from our hotel to the NEC (National Expedition Centre.)for a number of days, in order to do the Pharmacy Show. Our stand was nice and we made some good contacts but time will tell how successful it was. We had a very nice hotel though, for a reasonable (Europe reasonable) price.

On Tuesday, we left for Paris, the City of Love – at least the way I remember it from Moulin R0uge (but all I could hear was some old Pearly person saying “a city of sin!” private joke). We arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport and ventured to make our way to the 36km trek to our hotel. I thought I was pretty good with languages as far as getting by. I know a little Spanish, a little Dutch and some high school French, but I had a hard time figuring out what the French were saying. While my Dutch pronunciation was getting along, my French pronunciation really sucked! Also, most French people do know some English, but they seem to refuse to speak it unless it is financially in their favour. This was our experience and confirmed by our hotel receptionist.

I asked a taxi driver how much to get to Paris, “85€” was the reply. I communicated quite effectively when I turned around and headed for the train station. I waited in line to purchase a ticket and figured out that I could buy two tickets, for three days, to go on any train or city bus for 86€. So off we went to find the RER to get to Paris and our hotel. We found it and ventured out but we realized quite quickly that we were a little lost in terms of getting used to the Subway system in relation to where we were and where we needed to be.  For one, the signs that say “straight ahead”, use an arrow pointing down instead of up. So “Nation ↓” meant “Nation go straight ahead.” They also had ambiguous signs of where to go. But after only going the wrong way, once, we did it. While it did make sense to the French, you had to always stop and think about the sign instead of just intuitively going with it.

From the train station, we decided to emerge at a place we figured our hotel was. Then I took my new Samsung Note Map App and put in “France – Paris – Rue Louise Michel.” The problem was that there were about 15 “Louise Michel” streets. So after we stood there chewing up precious battery on the Samsung, we hailed a taxi.

The taxi man was nice and said he knew no English, so I handed him a piece of paper with the address and he had that look like a school boy who just played hooky and then was handed a test. So I pulled out my Samsung and showed him a picture of a map to the hotel. He then exhibited a grin like a successful pick-pocketer. Not knowing how to get to our hotel via the subway cost us 20€ for a taxi fare, but it was worth it. First of all, we were close to the Eiffel Tower and got to see that up close as we drove by, knowing that it would probably be our only chance to see it. But what made it really worth it was the traffic roundabout at de Arc de Triomphe.

We entered this 11 spoke round-about that looked about 250 meters wide with a very large centre with the arch in the middle. There were no lanes and if you put cars side by side, it seemed like you could draw about 15 lanes. We just drove into a conundrum of cars and it seemed like we were just floating along. At one point, there was this car who also just entered perpendicularly, cutting right across, It seemed like certain carnage was about to happen at least twice, but a few brake lights and a tap or two on the horn, and the driver continued to slice through traffic like a skillful surgeon with his scalpel. Take a look at this video, while we did not take it, it is close to what we experienced. Our own experience seemed to more crowded and no room to spare, but that could have been because we were right in the middle of it.

More entertainment was to be had. A bus was also navigating and didn’t seem to slow down much and seemed to enter and exit like a super model’s lunch. It was amazing to see everyone just glide along without any sort of grid lock. It looked like a school band, with no conduct, yet somehow making music. Janet was just thankful she wasn’t driving at this particular time, as her nerves had met their limit in a 6 lane, London roundabout, with 6 streets coming and going during rush hour traffic. I’m sure that one would get used to it rather quickly, but when you are driving in a city and you don’t really know exactly where you are going and which exit you are supposed to take (and driving on the left side of the road in this particular case), with a standard and left handed gear shifting… well… let’s just say that I heard a couple of choice words I rarely hear from her).

One cab driver explained it like this.

“If there is an accident here, each driver is considered equally at fault. This is the only place in Paris where the accidents are not judged. No matter what the circumstances, insurance companies split the costs 50-50. In Paris, a good driver gets only scratches, not dents.”

After we made it to the “one-of-15 rue Louis Michel” we found our hotel. It was the most expensive hotel on our trip and was only a 2 star. It did the trick though, and I always say that they all look the same when our eyes are closed. I could hear the subway cars and feel the rumble underground and it gave me a different perspective of living in a city with a good transit.

We knew that we would have very little time in Paris and so we decided to go to Moulin Rouge and could only get tickets for the 11pm show (two weeks prior).

The Moulin Rouge is a risqué world-famous cabaret, performed in a 19th-century windmill, and has been exciting audiences since 1900. It also has a lot of history in our family. There is a 2001 movie called “The Moulin Rouge” which was one of the most watched movies in our home; especially by our daughters when they were in their teens. The more you watch it, the better it gets … so my girls tell me. They love the music, the story and everything about it. I did watch it once and liked it. They also did a spoof B- rated movie for my third daughter Meaghan’s wedding. This spoof is absolutely hilarious if you a) know the movie, b) know the cast (of the B- rated movie and the Holly Wood production) and c) are familiar with the Christian culture they grew up in (and poke good fun at).  Janet and I knew that we had to visit the real “Moulin Rouge.” When I called up and made reservations, all they did was take my name down which I found interesting. I thought, ‘don’t you want my credit card info?’

So we left the security of our hotel and made our second venture on the subway that day. With a little pre-help from our hotel receptionist, we make it to Pigalle station and emerged up to the street. My GPS pointed us in the right direction and we strolled along a beautiful, but not so clean, boulevard. The first thing we noticed was a sex shop, then another and another and another. We couldn’t believe how many there were. Then we walked past this place named “Pussy.” We started to realize that this area of town was not very sanctified and probably was zoned “red light” in the by-laws. (Hmmm, I wonder if a homeless shelter would be permitted…) We eventually saw the windmill turning at the Moulin Rouge and we ventured up to acquire our tickets. It was 9:30pm and they told us to come back at 10:30 and just get into a line. Still no tickets. We were hoping that this was going to work out.

It was a beautiful night with a Starbucks across the road, so we sat outside with our cheese cake and cappuccinos. At about 10:20pm we ventured across the road to form a line which, at this point, was about 5 city blocks long and eventually grew to about 7 city blocks long. (Janet thinks I’m exaggerating, but I guess it depends on how long I think a city block is. There just were a lot of people – and the 7 blocks makes the story sound more exciting, doesn’t it?)    Their official capacity is 1,000 but the way they shoe horned us in, I think that number is just to keep the fire marshal happy. There was very little room to manoeuvre. The price was 105€ each and included champagne (or in my case, two small bottles of seven-up.)

The 2 hour show was pretty spectacular and included Mario Berousek the New Guinness World Record fastest juggler, two very strong hand to hand acrobatic pirates, circus characters and 80 dancers in over a 1,000 costumes of feathers, rhinestones and other gaudy materials. There were a lot of bare-breasted women, but it was well done, and not erotic – just part of the costumes. See this trailer for an idea of the dancers and costumes. At one point, a swimming pool rose up from the stage with several very large snakes in it. Before we knew it, a dancer dove into the water and danced to the music, grabbing snakes twice as long as her and twirling them around her body. It really was quite stunning to watch.

While we did visit Paris, we saw way more underground than above ground. The purpose of our trip was to meet Laurent, a potential distributor, along with Claude, a French speaking person who does our marketing and was to translate for us. The idea was to meet at a café on Avenue des Champs-Élysées on Wednesday. So we flew in Tuesday and flew out Thursday. On Monday, a general strike was declared by the train workers in Belgium disrupting everything. Claude was planning to come by train from Brussels to Paris via high speed train. Laurant was coming from the south tip of France (6 hrs) to Paris to meet us. So we had a problem.

We ended up meeting in Lille, France which is on the border of Belgium. Claude rented a car and drove there. Laurent changed his final destination and we ended up having to book 2 tickets from Paris to Lille. The distance is 200 kms and took 1 hr and 4 minutes with speeds up to 300km/hr. The problem is that you have to get to the right train station, and you have to go early because you are a dumb foreigner trying to get used to all the signs. And when the system pronounces the name, it is only a close resemblance to what is written. (E.g. Malesherbes sounds like Ma-erb.) So our whole day ended up having to leave early and getting home late for a 2 hour meeting in Lille.

We decided to see the Eiffel tower on our way home and arrived just in time to see the last few minutes of a light show which they do on the hour at 8,9, and 10 o’clock. When the entire tower is lit up, it really is very beautiful and so we felt blessed that we got the opportunity to see it at night. The tower itself is pretty impressive especially because it was built in 1889. It was originally built for the purpose of being the entrance to the world fair held in 1989 in Paris and to commemorate the 100 year anniversary of the French revolution. That is quite the fancy gate for a fair. It currently receives more visitors per year than any other attraction in the world; more than 250 million to date and that doesn’t include a pair of tightwad Dutch bred tourists who don’t like waiting in line or parting with their Euros (not necessarily in that order ☺.) We were so glad that we took the opportunity to go out of our way to see the tower that night. It really was more impressive than we could have imagined. After that, we submerged once again and 3 trains later we were back at our hotel. We never did get a chance to see avenue des Champs-Élysées.

We left the next day (Thursday) for Dublin so we could fly home Friday morning. I booked a Travelodge hotel for 40€ close to the airport. We hailed a taxied and showed him the address. He had a hesitation and I asked him if he knew where that was. He said, “Yes” and then proceeded to leave the cab and converse with a friend. When he came back, I asked him, “Are you sure you know where you are going?” and he assured me. So off we went and arrived at the Travelodge €10 poorer. We go up to the counter only to discover that we are at the wrong Travelodge. This Travelodge is full and 60€ so we ask her to call a cab and we venture to the “other” Travelodge. Sure enough, 20€ later, we arrived at the correct hotel. So the 20€ I saved on hotel fees, gave me the opportunity to forgive and bless a taxi driver. This hotel was actually much nicer but in a very rough neighbourhood. After a nice dinner with a few new found friends at Bon Appetite, we are ready to go home.

Getting back to the US was a bit of a security conundrum as there were at least 5 security points and 2 security (x-ray your bags, etc.)checks, but all the US customs happened in Ireland, so when we got off the plane in Washington DC, there were no more checks and no more customs to go through, which was really nice. After another two and a half hour wait in the Dulles, Washington airport, we got on our final plane for our final leg of a long journey.

Janet said if she could sum up this trip in three words it would be “Planes, Trains and Automobiles”.
I would add to that, “Waiting, walking, subways and cappuccinos.” It was a great trip and I felt like it was really good for our “already tight” relationship in that we got to spend constant quality time together working on the same goals. The object of our trip was strictly business, but we felt so blessed to be able to seize opportunities during that time to see some of Europe, meet a lot of great people, and meet up with old friends and family. As far as our business goes, we believe that we got to meet a   number of very key people, some of them unexpected and some of them planned. Only time will tell how successful this trip really was in terms of our business, but we are hopeful and believe that this is a year of jubilee for us.

After 8 flights, 2 car rentals and numerous taxis, trains and subways, we arrived home 5-Oct-2012 9:30pm.

We flew from the Netherlands to England on Tuesday flying into London Stansted airport. From there we rented a car. I booked the car the night before as you can always get it cheaper on-line. The problem was that by the time I hit “Ok”, it was a little after midnight and so the “next day” ended up being Wednesday. When we arrived at the Kiosk, they wanted quite a bit more because they didn’t have any small cars for Tuesday and I booked for Wednesday. The competition helped us out though and we ended up paying a little more than the on-line booked price.

The car we rented was a Peugeot 107 which is a cheeky little urban city car. It was just big enough for two people and our luggage. We rented it to go to Foxton where our warehouse is. That was the first time we visited this warehouse, since we have only had them since last December. We were impressed and it was good to see how they do things. We then drove to Wembley where our hotel was. Janet always does the driving and I do the navigating. There were a couple of stressful moments when we drove London, on the “wrong” side, during rush hour on “round-abouts” and roads that originally were designed for horse and carriage. They even call a two-lane road a dual carriage way.The roundabouts are really interesting as they can be quite a few lanes at one time, but there are no white lines to let you know which lane you should stay in. Most people who live here, won’t drive in London. We went to return the car to another location but when we got there, they were already closed for the day. Fortunately we had a place that we could park it for the night.

London was mostly work for us. First trip was to Trafalgar square, which is where our bank is. We also visited some of the health stores that carried our product. The stores were all really receptive, which of course, was encouraging.

We did manage to go to a live theatre production called Ghost and ended up getting tickets that had us in the nose bleed section; about 8 stories (25m) up and about 200ft (60m) back. It ended up being a very good show and was well done. The section of town where the theatre was, Piccadilly, had many theatres and reminded me of Broadway in New York. It was crazy how busy it was on the tube at 10pm on a Thursday night.

London is a very lively city with lots of people and energy. Whites seem to be in a minority everywhere we went. The weather was great and we never seemed to be caught in any sort of rain. The public transit is amazing and it is unbelievable the number of subways, trains and buses. It was very easy to move from one section of the city to the other.

Our hotel in Wembley ended up being a dump. It is hard to find a place to stay, in big cities like London, without paying a fortune. So I found this place but when we arrived, the room didn’t look as advertised. The room was about 8x9ft (2.5-2.7m). It was close to the train/subway and so it worked out. I have a motto; “They all look the same when your eyes are closed.” We did survive the hotel, it gave us a laugh, and we saved money and have another memory. What more do you want?
We left on Friday for Birmingham which is about 200km North of London. We went there to participate in the Pharmacy Show on Sunday and Monday. I went to the ticketeer and he wanted £46 for each of us. I saw the tickets on-line for a lot less and we ended up taking the slower train (2 transfers) for £20. It took longer but the old Dutch wallet just wouldn’t crack open far enough to ride the high speed train. If only I would have packed a crow bar (koeien voet), then we might have experienced the luxury ride.

We set up our show and are now ready to have two long days meeting an estimated 6,000

After we left Germany we headed for Apeldoorn where we were to meet Jan Peter Niezink who is going to represent our business in the Netherlands. We headed north and ended up staying at a small village named Eerbeek and booked a room in the Fletcher Hotel. It was really hard to find as my “free” phone app GPS doesn’t seem to like postal codes or street address. Finally we found it and had to pay €114 for a night in a clean but very dated room. We usually stay in fairly cheap places, but in this case we didn’t book before hand, so then you have to pay more premium prices. Fortunately, this hotel a very tasty breakfast.

The next day we stopped at a swanky resort to meet Lars-Erick who does our Dutch label translation and helps us to get them approved by the Dutch authorities. It is always interesting because of all the regulations we have to go through. For example in the European Union, we are not allowed to call our product “Natural Calm” as “Natural Calm” is considered to be a claim. So we named it TrüMag. We also have to obtain specific label approval in each country and so far have obtained approvals in the UK, Ireland and France. When we went to obtain approval in the Netherlands, they would not allow us to use the name “TrüMag” as we were implying that it means “the best” and we were not allowed to make that claim. Lars found a research paper by the University of Reading UK that proved that Magnesium Citrate, of which our active ingredient is, is the best. So with that information, the Dutch authorities allowed us to call it "TrüMag" as long as we had "magnesium citrate" on the front of the label. The meeting with Lars was very good and he is also interested in getting the product moving in the Netherlands.

Next we went to Jan Peter’s house and stayed there the night. We met his ‘bride to be’ and they are getting married today (28-Sept-2012). She is a heel mooi meisje (very nice girl) and we think Jan Peter is a very blessed man. They were both so kind and hospitable, which the Dutch people are known for. It was great to finally meet them personally, as I have been in touch with J.P. via internet a number of years ago.

The next day we went to Amsterdam and visited several stores, all with great reception, except one. One store was dirty and we were sure we smelled weed. Weed is legal in the Netherlands for Dutch citizens. Let’s just say he was a very interesting character. All the rest of the shops were very receptive. They all did seem rather “happy.” We are excited about being here because most of the people that we are in contact with say that magnesium is very “hot” on the market right now.

In Europe, places are not as easy to find as it is back home. Back home we have relatively straight roads with signs and street numbers. In Europe, the streets were planned hundreds of years ago and so they tend to be narrower and not well thought out as to where they are placed. While looking for one store, we walked into what is known as the “Red Light District.” (A section of town where prostitution is legal. There are actually several “Red Light Districts.”) Jan Peter all of a sudden recognized it, and when he said something, I looked up and out of a window, there was a nice looking call girl who was smiling seductively at me. Janet also caught her smile. As we turned around, Janet possessively put her arm in mine and we walked as one, for the next while.

After we finished visiting the stores that we had planned to, J.P. wanted to take us to Volendam, a fishing village north of Amsterdam. We got there just a storm was brewing, so the waves were pretty wild and it was windy and rainy. But we still found a deli open where we ate “rauwe gezouten haring met rauwe uien” (raw salted herring with raw onions) and parling (smoked eel.) While the smoked eel is tastier (and more expensive), both are a great treat. The way to eat the herring is to grab it by the tail, open your mouth wide, tilt your head back, and drop it down the hatch. Sushi at its finest.

The next day we had to leave Holland and fly to the UK. More about that in another post.