Bill Watt’s Blog

May 12th to 19th I got to go to Berlin for a work trip that was pretty cool. The last time I was in Germany was the summer after my freshman year at Gordon college and while I made it to a bunch of places on that trip- Berlin wasn’t one of them. I’ve been at eBay now for just about 2.5 years but this was the first office outside the US that I’ve been to and that was really interesting.

Here are some pictures and below is a random summary of what I remember. For those of you who haven’t seen me in a while… I’ve been letting my hair grow out since the wedding. Alice has taken to calling it my “Barry Gibb hair” so be prepared.

Flew out of SFO on Saturday and after 10 hrs, an 8 hour time change, and a date change we landed in Frankfurt around 8AM Sunday. A quick layover in Frankfurt and on to Berlin.

A group of us made our way to the hotel. If you’re in Berlin I do recommend the Radisson SAS- quite nice. Not overly ritzy but pretty comfortable. The oddest thing was the shower that didn’t have a door. It had a 1/3 glass wall but it certainly didn’t keep all the water in. While this sounds like a pointless detail to include we did spend almost a full dinner trying to explain the concept to the other folks at the conference. Joon-Soo went so far as to build a nice scale model and then pour water on it as part of the demonstration.

We checked in and then headed out for a quick walk around town to this local area with a bunch of restaurants. Got a mediocre (by US standards) cheeseburger. We then walked back, got cleaned up and I took a nap before dinner.

Joon-Soo must have been a party planner in a past life as he was Johnny on the spot with plans, details, and organization. He got people from point a to point b pretty effectively. If pressed I could include a sample of the emails he sent trying to marshal the crowd into an orderly mob.

Jason, Jason, Joon-Soo and I went out for tapas that first night. It was cool, not great food, but with enough sangria all things are fun.

We were at the eBay.de offices for an internal summit of sorts for the first part of the week. It was interesting to see how a satellite office of eBay looks especially when I’ve been working so closely with the DE office for the last 2+ yrs . I never made the trip to the FAIM offices in the UK or AU so this was a new experience. I think this would have been similar, although different in scale and success to be sure, but still with the inherent issues of not being at corporate and not controlling the technology.

I could only book the Radisson for Sun and Mon nights so I did and figured I’d see if they had a cancellation or find another hotel. No deal- big conference in town. I ended up surfing expedia on Tues and found a hotel kind of across town in the major shopping district but that was all there was. Oh well- it was well rated and I was desperate.

Afternoon sessions on Tuesday broke up a little early so we took the opportunity to do some touristy things. There was another really good guy, Randy, who spent 6 months in Berlin during college so he took us around and for our part we acted like tourists despite his help. We hit the Pergamum Museum and I got to enjoy the Egyptian exhibit and shared a little of what I had learned. Sad how much of that college knowledge slips when unused for 16 yrs (or so).

Then we went back, grabbed a few more folks, and went out for a walk before dinner. We found a little bar, grabbed a beer, had some locals laughing at us, and generally had a really good time.

We went out for dinner at http://www.panasia.de/ which was pretty good.

I ended up with a massive headache Tues night, went to bed at 1 and woke up at 3:30 in pain and obviously dehydrated. Went downstairs and got an aspirin from the front desk and a bottle of water from the mini-bar and passed out. Slept really well.

Wednesday the group just took it easy and I was the first up and about at 11:00. I cranked out some work and when that was done I ventured out and got in a long walk. Found a nice little coffee place and got a coffee and butter croissant that was awesome. Eventually I found a Starbucks and picked up a Berlin mug for the guy that asked for on at the starbucks I go to everyday when home. Everything was the same as the US, all English and nothing “Berlin” identifiable until I found the city mug. Only thing in the store that said Berlin so I jumped at it.

I continued my walk and emailed the guys from the blackberry. We connected at 2 and grabbed lunch.

For dinner we went to a beer garden. That was fun and different and then we grabbed coffee / ice cream (the group split about evenly on those two choices) and then went back to the Radisson bar. We hung out a bit and ended up playing poker. One of the guys was leaving the next morning and didn’t have a hotel room so we stayed out as long as we could. Get this- he flew to Berlin for basically 1 full night in a hotel, then back to California, had a 2 hour layover and then jumped on a plane to MA for a wedding. Not fun if you ask me.

Thursday I was first up again so I went for another walk from my hotel and toured the shopping district. When Jason and Joon-Soo started replying to emails I grabbed a cab and met up with them at their hotel. It was raining but we borrowed umbrellas from the hotel and walked until we found a place for lunch. It was a great little place where we ate for 1.5 hours including a bottle of wine and really good dessert.

After that we kept going and found our way to Checkpoint Charlie (which, in case you want something to eat, is right next door to Snackpoint Charlie). We went and toured that museum and then walked around the city. Joon-Soo wanted to find a specific chocolate seller so we found that and made our purchases. My wife reports that it was the best chocolate I’ve ever brought her.

Ah, dinner. Seems like every time I go to Europe I have a dinner like this. (Corinne- if you’re reading this it was similar to that “Welcome to Spring party” we went to in Calais that I was sure would result in my being dumped by the side of the road while you and Angela were abducted.) We went to a place called “Felix” that was a combination club / restaurant and what that meant was on the first floor the dining tables were really elegant and the center dance floor was all roped off. It was quite a scene. I was never cool enough for a place like that and now I’m not cool enough and just too old.

Since I had a flight the next morning I left pretty early but people familiar with the evening report it was fun long after I left.