This trip started on Easter Sunday when Kevin and I left Rochester for Tbilisi, Georgia. The flight over was very smooth and uneventful. There were several activities going on for us here. The high point of the week were some high-level meetings with top government officials for which, some high-level people from Harris came over. For Kevin and I, this added some stress as we hadn't traveled much with some of these guys in the past and didn't know how they'd react to some of the cultural differences in Georgia (namely the amount of alcohol drank at a typical Georgian dinner). So, when the VP of sales arrived on Wednesday night, we had an internal strategy meeting to discuss the agenda for the following day, which included meetings with the Minister of Defence, Chief of Staff and head of the Georgian MOI Border Police, followed by a dinner hosted by the MOD. We also discussed that this dinner would consist of wine drinking and explained the Georgian customs for wine drinking - In Georgia, as best as I can tell, a "light dinner" includes beer and vodka, and a "heavy dinner" includes wine-only. Although it may seem that the wine drinking may be easier to handle, this is far from true. The custom when drinking wine is that when the "Tamada" (chief of table) gives a toast, everyone should drink more than half of the glass and the Tamada should drink the entire glass unless he passes the toast to someone else. So, it's easy to see how this can turn into a "heavy night". Anyways, based on this info, our VP responded with the following - "See, when I was a young sales guy, I used to sacrifice my body for the good of building relationships with customers. I'm done with that BS, that's why I have guys like you (pointing to Kevin and I). So, I'm counting on you to handle that for us." So, given clear instructions from our superiors, Kevin and I carried out these responsibilities well and had a great night with our customers followed by possibly the worst hangover of my life the next day. Some pics from that day.
The following day, all of our VIP's were gone, we had some more working-level meetings and Kevin and I could relax a little. The next day (Friday) was also Ivane's (owner of our dealer) birthday. Birthday's are well celebrated in Georgia and typically involve a gathering of as many people as possible and more wine (not enthusiastic about that following previous night), but we again enjoyed another heavy dinner with Ivane and about 55 other Georgians.
That's Irakli, Ivane and Kevin at Ivane's birthday dinner.
Ivane, Kevin, myself, Mike Reda and Anthony Full (both engineers from Harris in town for a demo the following week).
Saturday, we spent the morning walking up to a fortress that was built when the capital of Georgia was moved to Tbilisi (200 AD). Here are some pics of that.
It certainly looks like it could be 1900 years old. I climbed up on parts of it and it seemed pretty sturdy, so I'd imagine it'll be there for another couple thousand years as well.
We then spent the afternoon going to every electronics store in Tbilisi looking for an adapter we needed for a demo happening this week (unsuccessfully), followed by a "light dinner". .At this point, I'm ready to sign a sworn declaration that I'll never have another glass of wine, so I was relieved to see that Temuri had ordered us all beers. There were still a fair amount of toasts with the vodka (mostly to our friends in Poland). Ivane was the Tamada and also gave a few toasts to Nancy and I's future as a married couple.
On Monday at 2am, I left my hotel in Tbilisi, flew to Bucharest and had meetings all afternoon. Tuesday and Wednesday were spent at a defence trade show in Bucharest, capped off by a reception at the US Ambassador's house in Bucharest on Wednesday night. The ambassador and his wife seemed like very nice people and took the time to talk with us for a couple minutes about our interests as a US company in Romania.
Romania has been hit very hard by the global recession, so things are slow for everyone there. So, this trip was focussed on existing programs as well as some new opportunities that are probably a couples years away. I don't have any pictures of Romania as I had to leave my camera in Georgia for use on the demo mentioned above). I spent all day Thursday flying home and am now back in Rochester. It was a fast and tiring two weeks for sure and I'm happy to get back into my normal routine. I am also very excited to not be working out on stationary bikes and treadmills, that was getting very old!
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