I do not know how I made it through the day. I still haven't gotten over the jet lag. Over the past 48 hours, I think I have only slept 5 hours. I woke up in the middle of the night last and couldn't fall back asleep. A lot of other people were the same way.
I came down to the hotel lobby around 5 AM to try and use the internet but the wi-fi was down. The hotel worker came over from behind his desk and asked me if I had a "makintush" computer- he was really intrigued that I was using an Apple. He then started asking me a bunch of questions about the computer, where I was from, etc. After I told him I was from Utah, he kept telling me that Utah was one hour behind California. I kept correcting him, but he insisted that I wasn't listening to him and that he was right. I quickly realized that between his broken English and persistency that our conversation was going nowhere fast; so I just went "ahhhh" . . . . . OK. Afterward, he repeatedly handed me the headphones to his MP3 player to listen to his music. He wanted me to guess who the artist was and what language they were singing. The only one I got right was ABBA.
Our group left the hotel at 8 AM to head to a steel plant 100km outside of Prague to Plzen. We visited a steel plant owned by Skoda Holdings. Skoda is better known as one of the most popular automobile's in Europe. A few years ago Skoda Auto was sold to Volkswagon. The Skoda steel plant we visited is decades old. If OSHA was in the Czech Republic, they would have a field day at this place. It was very run down and the floors were loose in a lot of areas. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures inside the production plant. It was very cool however to see the heavy equipment they used to craft the shafts used for cruise ships.
After our visit to Skoda, we travelled for two hours near the German border to a town called Karsle (I think that's the spelling). We visited a company called Amati. They specialize in manufacturing high end woodwind and brass band instruments. We arrived just after 2:30 PM and met with the CFO/marketing manager/production manager- he was very welcoming. We kept asking him if we could see their production plant; but all of the workers had left for the day (by 3 PM) and he refused to show us. He went to explain that they have had losses for the last 3 years- I think it's because of the lingering socialist influence.
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