Back in Ploiesti

Well, after a long grueling week in Chengdu preparing for a new equipment installation and the corresponding customer visit to gain production approval during which I didn’t do anything fun except work, work, work; I left that fabulous city and moved northward to Ploiesti Romania where I will stay for three weeks.

Our Xiangtan China Plant General Manager, Bill Zhong (Chinese) and Engineering Manager, Devid Sink (American) were also traveling to Romania for separate purposes, but we coordinated our travel to fly together, so I met them in the Chengdu Airport. Our flight plan took us Northwest out of Chengdu, over Moscow in to Amsterdam and then connecting to Bucharest to complete our 18 hour day.

We flew KLM Airlines and the combination of the airline carrier and the long flight gave me plenty of opportunity to remember when Elise and I flew to Amsterdam on KLM for our honeymoon (especially the part where we got a little lost and found the ‘red light’ district by mistake. No really, it was a mistake). Amsterdam is a really cool city and I encourage all of you to go visit sometime during your life.  But all I saw this trip was the airport.
I also had the opportunity to recall how excellent the customer service is on KLM. I begged our flight attendants to hold a training seminar with the entire USA Airline Industry to re-teach them what customer service is supposed to look like. They appreciated the comment and I appreciated their service. If only United Airlines knew how to do this.

But, in the end, we were delivered safely to Ploiesti by our driver, Robert, who is a big, burly, stereotypical Eastern European complete with the clipped English and cigarette smoke encrusted gravel voice and booming 80 dB laugh who makes sure to point out all the Romanian women we pass on the road with a hearty “See? She is much woman. Good Romanian curve!” He is often our driver, so we have gotten to know him well. A good entertaining drive when its 01:00 AM and everybody is exhausted from the flying and we still have a 40 minute car ride. We were laughing too hard to be weary.



Bill, Antonio, Devid

 Sunday was pretty much rest and relaxation. We ate lunch at the “OK Café” (not related in any way, shape, or form to the Atlanta based Restaurant of the same name). As we enter, the waitress Corina, met us at the door with the “cheek kiss.” I never know whether to start with the left or the right cheek. Imagine the reaction if I went left when she went right and I ended up planting one on the mouth? So, move in slowly and try to follow her lead. Bill Zhong had no idea what was going on and his face scrunched up like a 10 year old kid who was forced to kiss his Great Aunt Zelda who has a moustache and a hairy mole. He looked at me and said “That make me some scare! Why she do that?” Thursday, we went back there for dinner and he hid behind Devid to avoid her.



So here I am, safe and sound. We’ll just have to see what adventure lies next. This shouldn’t be difficult, because we will go tour Bucharest on Saturday.