A Boating Industry editor in Dusseldorf
Greetings from across the ocean.
I’ll be covering the Boot Dusseldorf show this week, so keep an eye out for info here on BoatingIndustry.com, as well as our Facebook page.
This is my first trip to Germany, so should be an interesting experience.
The show kicks off tomorrow morning, but I took some time to get acclimated today, walking around the Alstadt or “Old Town” Some quick (non-boating) observations:
- Everybody speaks English. I was promised this was the situation since my German is basically limited to guten tag, schnell and counting to “zehn.” Also a reminder how embarrassing it is that most of us Americans only know one language
- Boy, they like to smoke here!
- Dusseldorf reminds me of the Midwest. I’ve spent my entire life living in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois and it looks like home. The terrain looks like the Midwest, the people look like Midwesterners (shouldn’t be a surprise — a lot of Germans settled there), the people are helpful, the architecture is similar and the climate is certainly Minnesota-esque.
- Based on what I saw of the set-up, there are some pretty big boats here. Boot Dusseldorf has a big focus on superyachts, so again, no surprise.
More boating news to come as I’ll be off and running tomorrow
