In Mexico City, July 12 - 16, 2010

Well here I am back at my Blog. Another week and another trip. I am back in Mexico (Mexico City) to attend a booth show this week. Flew down Monday on USAirways. They have a non-stop flight from Charlotte to Mexico. Before I get involved with this week’s Blog, I want to say I appreciate the words of encouragement from a lot of people on last week’s blog. Thanks.

I did make an error in last week’s blog that was pointed out by a couple of friends from Mexico. I was talking about visiting Durango City, home of “Poncho Villa”. Actually, it is “Pancho” Villa. My apologizes to Pancho, Durango City and Mexicans everywhere. “Poncho” is actually a nickname for Alfonso in Mexico. You learn something every day.

A little word about Mexico City. If you have never been here, you should come just to say you have been. It is a massive city that measures about 100 KM across, has about 25 million people, and is difficult to get anywhere very fast. It has a lot of nice things, such as a decent airport, the rail system is fairly modern but is limited, a lot of history and museums for those interested. My youngest son visited here with a friend about 3 years ago, visited a lot of museums, used the subway and had a great time. For a city this size it severely lacks an adequate freeway system (It probably has less freeway miles than Charlotte). If you drive you will spend most of you time on surface streets in stop and go traffic (more stop than go). The people are very helpful, though. Everyone will give you directions. The guy I work with and does the driving because he is from Mexico, has no problems with flagging down another car and asking for directions. One woman, one time said to him to follow her and we drove about 10 miles to where we wanted to go and then she just waved and said bye and drove off.

Traffic in Mexico City

One thing about Taxis you need to know. Not just in Mexico City but anywhere. In Mexico City airport, when you come out of baggage claim there will be people who will ask if you want a taxi. NEVER take a ride with them. There are booths on your way out of the airport that rent Taxis (several different companies). They will rent you a taxi, charge you the correct amount, and give you a voucher, and point you the way to the taxis. Taxis are relatively inexpensive in Mexico. When in a hotel and in need of a taxi, let the hotel do it. They will get you a reputable taxi and most hotels will charge the taxi to your room and give you a voucher or the cash, so the charge is up front not after the trip.

Taxi you don't want to ride in

We are staying at the Intercontinental Presidente in the Polanco area of Mexico City. The Polanco area is the most upscale area in the city. Beautiful buildings, statues, restaurants and shopping. (I even saw a statue of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King) The street the Hotel is on is Avenida Campos Eliseos. This street has many first rate hotels and is about two blocks from Avenida Presidente Masaryk. This street has many upscale boutiques, shopping areas, and restaurants. Much like Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. Stores like Gucci, Hugo Boss, Cartier, Tiffany and many others. It has been declared a “Zona Segura” Safe Zone. There will be many security and Police around the area. On the other side of the hotel is a beautiful park (Chapultepec Park) and in the park is Auditorio Nacional. Avery nice place for concerts, etc.

Hotel Intercontinental Presidente

                                                                                                  Avenida Presidente Masaryk

            Auditorio Nacional

The first day I was here we ate at a restaurant about a 5 block walk from the Hotel. Restaurante Asturiano (http://www.restauranteasturiano.com/) serves Spanish food with the service you would expect. I had Garbanzo Bean and Ham soup. It was excellent. My associate had some kind of Seafood soup that looked pretty good. We both sampled Morsilla (Blood Sausage), it was very good.

One of the things we did on Tuesday is go to where the Booth show will be, Centro Banamex. It is an Exhibition Center with a Horse Track on the other side of it. We went there to check out the progress with our booth for the show (People in Europe and almost everywhere else calls it a “Stand” not a Booth.) It was coming along nicely. Hopefully a lot of customers will show up. It is much larger than the same show last year, so maybe get a lot of traffic. (Chinese companies represent about a third of the total floor space at the Show).

We took important customers out to dinner after the show both Wednesday and Thursday night. As is tradition in Mexico, the Show runs from 2:00 pm to 9:00 pm. So our dinner started at 9:30, late for us Americans (very Mexican). The first night of the Show, we had dinner at The Palm Restaurant in the Hotel (Intercontinental Presidente) (http://www.thepalm.com/) The Palm is a chain of restaurants with several in the USA, including Charlotte (Phillips Place). I had a small steak and it was cooked to perfection. I like my steaks medium rare. Because most restaurants will over cook a steak, I try to stress this by saying: ”more rare than medium, bloody”. Most restaurants still will over cook. But this steak was great. Since the service was excellent, I would recommend The Palm. Some of the other people with me had Tuna or Shrimp, all said it was excellent.

The next night (Thursday) we went to an Italian Restaurant, again in the Hotel, Restaurante Alfredo. Service was excellent and the food was good, not excellent. I really like Italian and I have had better, but the atmosphere and the opportunity to dine with our customer really made it a good night.

On Tuesday I had eaten with our company’s credit manager at the Zhen Restaurant in the hotel. Now I love Chinese Food as well and any food I eat. After paying the bill, which included a comment card, the waiter brought the card back and wanted our credit manager to fill it out. I never fill out a comment card. I took it and wrote “Small Portion, Big Bill” and returned it. Not worth the cost.

Now, the reason I am in Mexico is to attend the Booth (Stand) Show. It turned out to be an excellent show with some good contacts made. Wednesday was a little slow but we met a potential customer, that, if we get him, will make the whole show worth the time. He actually came back to our Booth on Thursday and talked some more. We have set up to visit him in a couple weeks when I am back in Mexico. We had a great day on Thursday and am anxious to hear how we did on Friday. I left to go back home on Friday and left the show to be handled by the team. Friday there are few potential customers that come to the show. It is mostly young people picking up posters, give-a-ways and getting pictures taken with the beautiful models. This is one of the really good things about Latin America, The Exhibition shows in Latin America will have lots of beautiful Models that are used to attract attention to the Booth (stand), and this year it was no exception.

Now I am finishing this up on the plane back to Charlotte. We will land about 6:30, which I wish was earlier, but you take what you can with the airlines. Unfortunately, Charlotte does not have the “GOES” System (Global Entry) yet that is available in most Foreign entry airports (Miami, Dallas, Houston, San Francisco, LA, Detroit, etc). So I have to stand in line with everyone else. This could take an hour (With the GOES System takes me 10 seconds to get through immigration.) They tell me it will come to Charlotte at the end of the year. (It actually took about 30 minutes to get through Immigration).

During all the activities of the past week I did manage to finish my current book by Dean Koontz, “Relentless” and started a new novel by Michael Connelly, “9 Dragons”, staring one of his continuing characters “Harry Bosch”, a LAPD Homicide Detective. He is a pretty cool guy. (I really do have an exciting life, HAHA)

Next week I will spend the week in my office, a rarity for me, but will be traveling again the next week. Don’t know what I will do on the Blog, but might do something.