Bruce's Travels

I have myself well oriented by now, and things are going very smoothly. I haven't done much recreational touring yet, other than to find some fantastic restaurants for dinner, which is my main meal of the day, and the walks to and from the restaurants along cobblestone streets are very pleasant. I've spent full days at the show since arriving. This is the closest I've come to a "real" job (i.e., wearing a suit and tie, writing, conducting and then transcribing interviews) in 23 years! I spent part of Saturday in the lower level of one of the halls among the "moles and trolls" in the tools/supplies/machinery departments. This is just to see what is going on behind the scenes, where the real magic occurs in making the part of the watch that actually makes it work. Both Grobet and Bergeron are here with beautiful hand tools and smaller electrics. The fabrication tools are also here. From a company called Bumotec, I saw a marvelous "Milling Center...

Friday March 28 One of the reasons I said I came here was that I am not getting any younger, and today I really felt this, and was positively bone tired at day's end, with the capper of having to stand during the 35 minute train ride from Basel to Freiburg because the 5 p.m. train was packed. So I really do believe I made this trip not a moment (or body weight) too soon! The day started similar to those before, with an ample breakfast at the InterCity Hotel. I arrived at the fair and set up at the media center and infused a nice cappuccino into my system and proceeded to write and transcribe. I visited with a few vendors today, including Enicar, Eternamatic, and Doxa. I was singularly unimpressed with the folks at Doxa, who directed me to their website for information on their heritage, despite a beautiful display of vintage pieces at their pavilion. Enicar and Eternamatic were slightly better, presenting me with media kits (on memory sticks) and beautiful hardcover book...

Thursday March 27 Day two at the expo, and opening day for the general public Some numbers and other info from Basel: * an estimated 100,000 people will attend the show; * There are approximately 4,000 journalists here from all over the world; * 22 billion Swiss francs of watches were exported from Switzerland in 2013, making watches the backbone of the Swiss economy, even ahead of tourism; * a room at the Ramada Hotel, across from the fairgrounds, starts at 640 Swiss francs (about $755 US) per night, and goes up from there, and they are sold out. By comparison, my room at the InterCity is $148 per night, plus $58 daily round trip for the train ride between Frieburg and Basel. * The mayor of Basel, attending opening ceremonies, declared Baselworld the city's most important (read $$$-producing) event; and * the new buzzword this year is "Swissness," a noun to designate a singular origin of a watch to Switzerland. The Swiss watch industry successfully petitioned th...

The day started late, as I caught up on  bit more sleep. After a shower and shave, I made my way to the included breakfast in the lobby restaurant and was pleasantly surprised by the variety of protein-packed choices, including eggs, sausages, a variety of cold meats and cheeses, fruits, muesli, yogurt, pastries (including my favorite ... croissant), and juices and of course good strong coffee. A 45 minute train ride ($50 Euro round trip), put me in the downtown train station, one of two in Basel, and about a five-minute walk to the expo center. I missed the 11 a.m. press conference, but heard it wasn't much, and my absence allowed me to arrive early at the Baselworld sponsored luncheon. And it was a good thing too, because when the conference ended at about 12:15, the media descended on the multiple buffet lines like locusts, and suddenly there wasn't a  place to stand or sit. I had a slice of quiche, broiled white fish in julienne vegetables, breaded ch...

Tuesday March 25 I'm sitting in my cozy hotel room, starting this blog at about 8 p.m. local time, or 20:00 hours as it's called here. I had a delicious dinner of sauerbraten (marinated beef roast), rotkraut (red sweet/sour cabbage), breit nudelin (wide noodles), and washed down with a Ganter pils, brewed here in Freiburg. All consumed at Zum Deutschen Haus in the old section of Freiburg, along cobblestone streets, about a 10 minute walk from the InterCity Hotel. The original building was built in 1386, so talk about your concept of "old" (Dawn, per our conversation about this). The dinner plus beer was euro $18.30, about $25.25 U.S., and considered a moderately priced dinner here, and I tipped euro $3. Zum Deutschen Haus I arrived very tired and somewhat disoriented from the overnight plane ride. My seat mate on the Boeing 777 was very fidgety, and the passenger in front of me let loose with a near constant barrage of farts that actually prompted me to move...