Germany!
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Well the trip started out like many others - on a plane. I had just finished a lecture in Baltimore and it was time to catch my red-eye flight to Frankfurt to attend the IDS. Luckily the gods were smiling, and I was able to upgrade my flight and sit with some extended legroom. Being 6'4" I don't take these things lightly, and frankly for me the flights out and home set the mood for the entire trip.
Lucky for me the in-flight entertainment system had plenty of TV to watch. I have not been able to ever sleep much on planes, so movies were on the menu for me. Now if my kids had been with me, they would have been in heaven as there were tons of Disney shows. Having a couple of pre-teen girls in the house means that you get to know shows like Wizards of Waverly Place, Good Luck Charlie and The Suite Life on Deck.
After flying all night from Baltimore and landing in Frankfurt, it was time to hop on a high-speed train for the short 50-minute journey to Koln where the IDS was being held. It's amazing to me how efficient the trains are. I only had about 45 minutes to make my train by the time I landed and I knew that if I was late, I would miss it. When the board says the train will leave at 10:09, they mean it - that sucker left at 10:09 and not a second later. We went at 267 km/hour flying by Porches and Mercedes on the Autobahn who must have been doing a pretty brisk pace themselves. The trains were comfortable, relatively inexpensive, and efficient. Makes me want to have more of them in the U.S.
After arriving at the train station in Koln, I had a short walk to the hotel to get a quick shower and then was off to the IDS. Now, I had heard that the show was large, I had heard of the vast number of companies there, but until I saw it, I didn't believe it. And it's not just rinky dink booths with rinky dink companies - I'm talking amazing booths the likes of which you have never seen. All the big companies have a bar at their booth and at 5:00, it's happy hour! Amazing. The booth here is a random company that was exhibiting. Full of color and style.
If there was a theme to the meeting it had to be Digital Impressions. There were at least a dozen companies showing their versions of intraoral scanners; some just utter crap, others not so bad. But so much buzz about digital impressions and obviously the Sirona booth was just massive and packed. The demos were five deep and they sold an unbelievable number of machines.
One of the neat things at the meeting was getting to see the new products that are going to be coming out. This block by Dentsply, for example, is a compression of liquid and metal powder that is milled by the milling unit. The user puts the block in an oven and voila - a milled metal crown out of the CEREC MCXL. Granted this has little use for those of us who use the CEREC and mill our restorations chairside, but for labs, this is huge. Now labs can mill any material they want out of their MCXL.
Another great product that I got to see was this new larger can of Optispray. I love the Optispray, it works great. I loved it even more when Sirona lowered the price. Now with a bigger can, the price is even better. It sprays great, it's got a better tip and is simply a terrific product.
After spending all day at the IDS, it was off to dinner with some friends. Sirona was host of the meeting so they took a group of us out to dinner. Now the specialty drink in Koln is called Kolsch, a local beer that is quite interesting not only for the taste but also in the distinct glasses that it's served in. We ate at a 300-year-old restaurant and it was delicious. However, be warned that you better like the beer. Trying to order a pilsner, or a dark ale or god forbid a scotch at this restaurant results in a look of annoyance on the waiter's face. All they do is beer and lots of it. Below was the appetizer before even ordering dinner.
And then dinner came....some people had the steak, others had the local specialty of pig knuckles (yes, you read that right), and I dabbled in a bit of everything tasting the local fare.
And of course then dessert...by this point, I don't even remember whether my meal was any good or not - it tasted like chicken I think. The wheels of Kolsch did not stop - at all. It was wheel after wheel after wheel. Quite the nite.
The next morning, we hopped on a bus and took the 2.5 hour drive down to Bensheim, the home of Sirona. The plan was to visit the factory the next day and get a tour. But this night, our plan was to check into the hotel and go down to the town of Heidelberg (about 20 minutes away) to have dinner. The town is typical German town: We walked through the town square and saw this 800-year-old castle on the hill.
After a glorious dinner, we headed back to the hotel, and with jet lag kicking in hard, it was time to hit the sack...at 9:30 pm. The next morning I woke up refreshed at 4:30 am...and stared at the ceiling. After a nice morning run around Bensheim, I had breakfast with the rest of the crew and hopped in the shuttle to visit the Sirona headquarters. Not only did we get a great tour of the factory, but we also got to see the new innovation center. It will house all of the research and development teams of all of the divisions of Sirona - imaging, CAD/CAM and more. Kinda cool if you think about it. There is also the showroom that has all the Sirona materials and products.
There was a demo of the first chair that Sirona made - kinda looks like what's in my office!
We got to meet with the different departments of Sirona and got up close and personal with some of the available products. Here is the aforementioned milled metal crown from Dentsply and a full contour bridge made by the milling unit.
Finally after meetings and tours of Sirona, it was time to go to the next city. So far we have Baltimore, Koln and Bensheim. I hopped on another high-speed train to Zurich. Now, the original plan was to visit the Ivoclar factory in Lichtenstein. However, meetings at the Sirona headquarters delayed me, and the rest of the crew that I was with had already left. So the next morning, I took the train to Zurich to catch up with them and finish off my European trip.
I got to Zurich and had a few hours to kill so I walked around on the Bahnof Strasse, the main boulevard in Zurich where I was spending the night. I even got to check out Lake Zurich. This is by far one of my most favorite cities, and I have visited several times before with my wife.
Now anyone who knows me knows of my love and admiration for watches. Cars and watches, right...what else is a guy supposed to waste, errr...I mean spend his money on? In the window of one of the multiple watch stores I saw a piece that I had coveted forever. I'd seen it in magazines, I'd read about it, but hadn't seen one in person. It was the Audemars Piguet Bumblebee. Guess which one is the bumblebee from this photo? Great little watch but alas, I've not quite saved up to pay for it yet. And with the exchange rate so unfavorable towards the dollar, it will just have to wait.
Final night in Zurich meant one last meal. The gang at Ivoclar hosted this one. Some restaurant off the beaten path with a fixed menu that was amazing. Now the food was great, but what I distinctly remember about the night is the wine. I'm not a fan of white wine but this little bottle was some of the most amazing stuff I've ever had. Had to snap a photo of it before I forgot the name. You can bet that I will be Googling this bad boy and ordering a case!
Finally, it's time to leave, so I get on the last train to the airport or Flugenhafen as it's more commonly called. Sleep patterns are getting back to normal, just in time to hop on a flight back to the states. Off to Chicago and then Scottsdale for a lecture and Level 2 and Level 4 classes.
My two regrets about this amazing trip: I wish my family could have been with me and that I had taken more pictures.
