So, I’m in Germany right now—Düsseldorf, to be exact—setting up a trade show. The show opens tomorrow. The heavy lifting (from a marketing perspective) began yesterday and will continue full bore today. The weather has been kind of gray and miserable since Monday, so it hasn’t been so bad being stuck inside Messe Düsseldorf Hall 13.

Airfare and timing wise, it worked out best to arrive over the weekend. Sunday was a bright, cool, glorious spring day, and my friend and colleague, Sherri, and I had the time to check out some of the sights before our work began in earnest.

Herewith some of those sights:

*Rheinturm

Rheinturm, or the Rhine Tower, is this massive concrete structure, and the tallest building in Düsseldorf. Wikipedia tells me it’s a communication tower that holds aerials for directional radio, FM and TV transmitters. I’d imagine all that stuff was a much bigger deal when it was built in 1981, because there didn’t seem to be much hoopla about the communications equipment when we went there. Or maybe there was, but it was all in German. Anyway, we went for the sole purpose of checking out the observation deck that sits 168 meters above the earth.

The picture at the top of this post shows the impressive view from the tower. All those white tents along the right side of the Rhine River were for the Düsseldorf Marathon, which just so happened to be this past Sunday. If you look really closely, you can see the runners.

In this picture, taken from the bridge nearest my hotel, you can see the tower on the right:

*Neuer Zollhof

In nearly every depiction of the Rheinturm I encountered, there were these really cool, curvy buildings featured in the foreground. I got to see them up close before I knew anything about them:

The one I’m standing in front of is covered in these keen reflective stainless steel tiles. Wikipedia tells me the three buildings are known as Neuer Zollhof, were designed by Frank O. Gehry, and completed in 1998. It looked to me like they house offices and restaurants.

Nothing too much more meaningful to share here, except that there was just something Gaudi-esque about those buildings that appealed to me.

Finally, I’ll conclude with Monday. It was gray and rainy, and there wasn’t a whole lot going on—even at the convention center—because of the May Day holiday. The only open restaurant we could find near our hotel was one called “China Town.” (Thank you, China Town, for upholding the old adage.) It was a lovely find, the service was wonderful, and the Chow Mein (I think it’s called something “Nudeln” in German) was delicious.

Auf wiedersehen.