October 7th to 9th - Real Estate Fair in Munich

As every year in October, there's a big fair on commercial real estate taking place in Munich (I think one of the biggest in the world). I had been there last year for job search and this year I wanted to go there as well. Unfortunately my company didn't have any ticket for me, because the planning was done before I joined the firm and the company was very restrictive whith the number of people who will be allowed to go (I'll say it that way - anything else would go to far). But I got an invitation from a friend, so at least I didn't have to pay for the entrance ticket. Going on my own expenses I took three days off and luckily found a bed in a youth hostel close to the central railway station and the city centre because the hotels rise their prices extremely during fairs and I wanted to keep the expenses for this trip as low as possible....
So I took the train to Munich on Sunday noon, because in the afternoon I wanted to meet a member of our community, who lives in munich, and in the evening there's a dinner from the women in real estate assocation, I'm a member of. And I left on Tuesday afternoon, although the fair is open till Wednesday, but I wanted to give me one day to recover because a fair is always pretty exhausting...

I arrived around half past four at Munich and the weather was sunny but pretty cold. I checked in, unpacked my stuff and called Daniel, the guy I planned to meet. He picked me up at the central station, which is only a stone's throw away from my hostel and we went to the Augustiner's beer garden and restaurant not far away and had a nice conversation, a good beer (I only drink dark beer and the dark Augustiner is pretty good) and some brezels. Actually we met because he agreed to help for the search of an agent orange project in Vietnam we want to support. It's really kind of him because he works as an enterprise ressource planning consultant and works in Madrid now. Though Munich is the town he lives in, he's hardly there because he works all around the world for his company. And it's good to have him involved in the project because he has a lot of interesting contacts in Vietnam.

When it was time for me to change clothes and head for the dinner in the evening he accompanied me back to the central station. I went back to the hostel changed from casual to business and made it in time to the dinner in time, which took place only two underground stations away in a restaurant from the Paulaner beer (another famous beer from Munich) and had a nice dinner and very nice conversations with the other women from the association. It was really nice to show them, that my job aquisition strategy from last year was successfull. We parted around ten because some of them wanted to go to a party. Usually I like to go to parties as well but not when I have to be early in the morning somewhere else. So this fair is not only taking place during the day but there are also a lot of events before it and also in the evenings on the fair stands but also in various other locations...

So I came back to my room at half past ten and found my two room mates already asleep. So I prepared myself for bed as silent as possible. The night was pretty short because one of the roommates got up at half past four to leave early in the morning. Luckily the other roommate got up around my time to depart as well, because the Sunday has been the last day of the Oktoberfest also called "Wiesn". Sorry I didn't mention this event before because I don't like this event at all...

It was good to be at the fair early in the morning (a quarter past nine) because it's still quite empty around this time, so you have the freedom to talk and to walk...I planned to visit a breakfast at a stand but there was nothing going on and I wasn't pretty hungry as well, so I looked around a bit before I went to a lecture, which wasn't as interesting as expected so I left after a while and asked at a stand for a former research colleage to meet. She wasn't there but they gave me their cell phone number and we managed to meet an hour later and talked for half an hour before I met a friend from Frankfurt (she's a lawyer for real estate) for lunch at the stand of Hamburg for lunch and to show her one of our projects. We had a delicious fish soup and a nice conversation and went to the stand of my company to take a seat there.
On the way to lunch I ran into a friend from school time, which I haven't seen for about 13 years or so and we were really surprised to meet each other! Her first comment was: "What  are you doing in the real estate business???" That was so funny that we laughed and exchanged phone numbers in order to meet later the day.
At my company's stand I also met a colleage from the Netherlands who arrived around noon and my friend parted there in order to meet a colleage who has her business cards...
So my colleage, accompanied by a dutch real estate journalist and I went for a little walk around the fair until we reached the stand of the Netherlands (sited between Switzerland and Dubai, which lead us to some funny comments). There we parted and I went to another friend's stand (the one who invited me) to join him and some of colleagues because he had stand duty (usually the easiest way to meet someone) and my old friend from school time also joined us for a little while, which was really nice.

Afterwards we (the guy who invited me and I) went to a discussion round, which didn't really caught our attention so we stayed in the background and had our own conversation whith a third guy we know, exchanging our own opinion regarding the topic of the discussion.
The two left for another discussion and I took the chance to take a look at other interesting projects from all over the world (mainly eastern Europe and Emirates) before it was time to join a get together of our german geographer's association, which was really nice. I met a lot of other young geographers working in various jobs...
After this I went to a meeting with the italian women in real estate which was a really small one but also ver nice one....Then I took a look at a party organized by several stands in the same hall, took some food there and looked for some people I know. Unfortunately no one was there so I left the fair around 8 p.m., took a look at the internet for half an hour (you have free wlan access in the hostels but for using a computer you have to pay) had a shandy (a mix of beer and lemon lemonade) and read the newspapers I picked up at the fair and went to bed around ten.
This time my roommate was a young shy guy from asia (I think Korea or Japan) who went to bed around the same time and a guy from the U.S. who came around midnight and left around 6 a.m., sleeping in his clothes. So this night was pretty short, too. And my back hurt after two days in this bed, which matress was too hard for me, because the first night I had a stiff neck. Next time I hope have a proper hotel or a bed at the youth hostel I stayed the year before...

Nevertheless I made to the fair around 9:30 and met a friend from the women association at her stand and had a nice green tea before it was time to join a discussion and having a second breakfast at the same stand. There I met a former colleage and another colleague and I talked to each of them for a little while. Then I left for a very interesting discussion about inner city shopping centres with two participants who had a public quarrrel earlier this year. But they were really nice to each other, who was really interesting .
After this it was time to join another discussion round at another stand which was organized by our women association so it was a fixed appointment for me and a lot of the members showed up. It was probably the highest concentration of women at the fair! The real estate business is still dominated by men. It was really interesting discussion with female high potentials (CEO's) from the business...
Afterwards a friend and member from the assocation accomanied me on a little walk around and back to my companies stand where I had a little lunch before it was time to join my colleague from the netherlands and to meet another executive manager responsible for germany. This was a fairly short but nice meeting and I'm looking forward to meet him in Frankfurt next week.
Then I planned to join another discussion but because I couldn't listen to it for the whole time I stayed in the background and went back to our stand after a while in order to meet a colleague from our Hamburg office but one of his meetings took longer than scheduled so we only found a few minutes to talk and scheduled our appointment for Friday... Nevertheless I met some collegues from other branches. One was a really nice women looking asian with a spanish name and working in New York - what a mix!
I had some time until it was time to catch my train and I spontaneously met a women from an institute for further education...
I came home around 10 p.m. on Tuesday 9th and was really really tired...
I'm just glad that I took off today as well and left on yesterday afternoon though I missed our companies party...

So you see, that a fair is all about meeting people, gathering information, sharing knowledge and also get some good food for free .  Though a fair is always pretty exhausting it's always great fun!