new challenges

Well, as part of your job as an export sales manager is to engange in new challenges whenever they're offered to you in different parts of the world. When I started this profession I was mainly responsible for Europe due to my knowledge of German, English and Spanish. But in time things change and when I took a new challenge in a different company I was assigned to cover countries such as Azerbaijan, Georgia, Usbekistan and India, which was a wonderful experience because I had never been to those places and being a sucker for different cultures I was thrilled to see what the deal was in those countries. Of course the most exciting part of these travels is, besides getting the know the people, tasting different cuisines. When I was in Kazakhstan I was privileged to enjoy mutton, horse meat and plov dishes. In India I went to Delhi, Mumbai and Goa..all different parts but with culinary master pieces. I must admit that I have a weakness for Indian food. Just love it. All the spices and herbs. In Goa you can eat a Kingfish that you wouldn't regret.
So, recently I was told by the management that I needed to change my region because one of our colleagues had split and they needed someone experienced to take over. It is up to me now to cover our network of dealers located in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Singapore etc.
Needless to say that I am looking forward to visit those places..my next trip will be to Vietnam..talk to you later with more interesting stories..

 Stay safe everybody!

a quick flashback..

During the past months I was quite busy travelling both for business and pleasure..here's a quick glance at the cities that I visited and what I liked the most about them. I've been to London, Barcelona, Skopje, Zagreb, Belgrad, Chicago and Hannover. I mean they are nice cities but I must say that London has a special place as it is a really beautiful city. Me and my wife we had limited time; only three days but we tried to see as much as possible. We stayed at the Cleveland in Westminster and the hotel was quite nice. Good value. Totally recomendable and the staff was really friendly. As London taxis can be very expensive we took the bus from Stansted Airport to Oxford Street and from there with a cab for 8-9 pounds to the hotel, which was okay. We saw a lot of nice things but I must say I was impressed the most with the British Museum. It was huge and mostly for free. After that I had a business trip to the Balkan, where I started with Zagreb. The weather was perfect and Zagreb is one of the nicest cities in the Balkan region. I visited our dealer there and they are one of the nicest guys, who took good care of me..feeding me Croatian food..however, the clumsy guy I am, I almost started a mini Balcan conflict..there was some statue of Nikola Tesla in a plaza in Zagreb and the Croats claim that he was from Croatia as he was born in Smiljan, which today lies in Croatia..back then it was part of the Austrian Empire..anyways, I wondered why Croats where claiming him for themselves when the rest of the world claims that he was from Serbia..boy, wrong question asked and immediately the guys started to counter-argue that the Serbs are idiots etc. In order to drop the tension I said..''c'mon guys..of course he's Croatian..I was just teasing you..'' anyways, my friends are really cool so it was all fine and they bought me a nice necktie in a traditional shop that was selling only neckties.., which was invented by the way in Croatia and adopted by the French calling it 'cravate'..in German we also call it 'Krawatte'..

From Zagreb I made my way to Belgrade and the weather was so stormy that night that I literally pissed in my pants as there were lightnings all over the city while I was in the air praying to whatever God was available to land me safely. I took a taxi from Nikola Tesla airport and check in at the Hotel Moskva, which is a splendid hotel. It is a bit expensive compared to other four star hotels in Belgrade but is a hotel that surely has some history and the rooms are nicely decorated. I won't go into further details as I have written about Belgrade before but I suggest you visit the Bohemian quarter which is called Skadarlija as it is absolutely worth to visit with its cool bars and cafes. After Serbia I visited Skopje and the week after we went on a family trip to Barcelona. Actually it was a bit outside of Barcelona, a small village called Santa Susana. We stayed at the Aquahotel 4 nights which had two swimming pools and a short walking distance to the beach. Me and my wife did not like it much there but our daugther was totally happy. She didn't get out of the pool the whole day and whatever makes her happy makes us happy too..the train ride takes like 1 1/2 hours from Barcelona Sants to Santa Susanna. Back in Barcelona we took a hotel in Diagonal Mar called Barcelona Diagonal Cero..it is a nice hotel with nice rooms. I have nothing bad to say about it. So it was quite busy but we are not finished yet..I will be travelling to Jakarta in September and I'm really excited about that. Stay safe everybody..!