Drupa

 
Drupa, in Düsseldorf Germany, is the largest Print Industry trade show in the world, and it only happens every four years. Ever since I started at Creo in January 2004 I have heard about Drupa and always wanted to go and see what it is our customers really do. As Kodak is currently in Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection it is unimaginable they would ever send me, so I decided to send myself. I am not going for the whole show, but I plan to spend two weeks in Germany playing tourist, and then a week in Toronto (on the way back) visiting friends.

I have never been to Germany before. I have been to England once, but that is about as far east as I have been, unless you consider Australia east of us (which it technically is). The plan is to spend a couple of days at the trade show, and the rest of the time exploring Germany.

Preparing For the Trip

I use to be an experienced Road Warrior, and travel was a way of life, but I have not had to plan a trip like this for a long time.

1. I saved over $500 booking through Travelocity, as compared to Air Canada, even though all the flights are Air Canada. Sadly I was not paying attention and I booked my last flight from Toronto at 10:55 PM instead of 10:55 AM like I thought I was doing. I guess I am taking a cab home from the airport in Vancouver.
2. I also booked my car via Travelocity.
3. I tried to book my hotel via Travelocity, but I waited too long and the hotel ran out of vacancies (I was 2 hours too late). I eventually found a decent hotel through Booking.com because it had more hotels listed than Travelocity - Binnewies City Hotel in Neuss.
4. I had to apply for an international driver's license. You need to get a couple of passport photos taken. I thought this would take a few days, but if you go directly to the BCAA office they do it in a few minutes while you wait.
5. Deena suggested I download some audio books - which was a great idea for the long plane flights. I downloaded about 1.15 GB of Larry Niven novels. Deena has another 7 GB of Anne McCaffery novels.
6. I picked up a pair of noise cancelling headphones from London Drugs. I really hate noise, and endless hours of jet engines and wind noise is very depressing. They seem to work great with my new Samsung Galaxy Note and Sony Tablet S.
7. I want to take Deena's new Dell laptop with me, but my computer system has been acting up lately so I am reluctant to leave Deena with twitchy computer system at home.
8. I looked in to travel rates for my phone with Rogers. Can you believe 25 MB of data costs $100 - that is totally criminal - but it costs incredibly more than that if you rely on data roaming. Voice and text is a little better at $56 for 40 minutes and 25 messages.
9. And many other details and things to finish up before I leave...

I can't believe I have only a couple of days left before I leave. This is usually the worst part of any trip, especially when you have not traveled for a while, wondering if you have planned everything carefully.