Tales From ISPO - Part 2

Installment 2 of Tales from ISPO by Mark Drennan.  Random observations from the ISPO show floor:

"Yesterday I had a meeting with a French salesman conducted entirely in Spanglish.  I don't speak French but he did not speak English very well.  Luckily we both spoke Spanish.  Within a few minutes it evolved into Spanglish. It actually worked pretty well.  Most people here at the show seem to mix words of various language all the time. After just a couple of days it doesn't even seem weird.

Until ISPO, I used to think there was a lot of beer at the OR show, but this is Germany after all.  On Sunday I rounded a corner and had to leap out of the way to avoid being run down by a whole pallet of beer.  Near our hotel there is a giant wall-o-beer.  It is a stack of beer bottles in cases fifteen feet tall and about 100 yards long. 

I saw a new sport today.  It's called Headis (think head tennis).  All you need is a ping pong table, a bouncy rubber ball about 4 inches in diameter and two people willing to risk neck injury.    The rules are pretty much the same as for ping pong only you use your head instead of a racket to hit the ball.  try typing "Headis" into YouTube to see how it is done.  They even have tournaments.

I'm reminded regularly that there are differences between Europeans and Americans.  I passed a booth selling paddles for some type of paddle ball.  They had a screen showing a cool young man playing paddle ball on the beach...in a speedo.

We have met with French, Germans, and Italians.  From my bit of experience the Italians deserve their reputation for being easy going. If they are all like this I need to go to Italy - of course then I would be the most uptight guy in the whole country."

Stay tuned for more gripping tales and observations from the ISPO show.