Soon it’s time to say good-bye

In one week my internship @ AutoCom will be done. I thought I will make a short summary about my 6 months in the States.

Yes, you could say I’m addicted to traveling around. :o) I love going on trips and see the country. So I took my friends on trips to Chicago, Toronto, the Upper Peninsula (Pictured Rocks), the Sleeping Bear Dunes and Traverse City, New York (well that was on my own) and the Silver Lake Dunes. I had a great time on all that trips with our so called DTG (Detroit Travel Group). :o)
But I still don’t have enough. I will fly to Atlanta right after my last working day and visit a friend there and drive with him to Miami. After that I will visit Savannah, Charleston and Myrtle Beach before I’m heading back to Germany.

Ok, so what did I like here? As I told everybody I’m not really looking forward to going back to Germany. So I won’t tell you what I like, just what I love! :o)
- I love Michigan in general. It’s a pretty State with all that beaches and the amazing nature, especially in the UP. I LOVE THE UP!! Maybe I will retire there!! :o)
- I found some really good friends here. Not only Germans, also Americans. (Cheers to Maggie, Jen and Shannon)
- I love the Michigan weather. It’s better than in Germany. Ok, it’s summertime :o)
- I love Royal Oak and going out there.
- Joining AutoCom events…I always had fun preparing and coordinating them. Well and to be honest, I will also miss the delicious food. :o)

I know that I will miss a lot of things when I’m back to Germany. For example Mama Dee making me an English Muffin to fight against my hangover. :o) I will miss sitting outside for lunch with Maggie, Shannon and Jen and having fun (I’m glad that laughing is healthy). I just got to know such a lot of you guys...Jen never goes somewhere without her sunglasses and Shannon loves to be taken for a "walk" by her dog! :o) Especially I will miss Maggie trying to find a way making me stay in the US. I don’t know which idea was the best one? Marry your brother, becoming an AuPair for your dog or becoming your daughter. :o) And I will miss the doggy bags for my lunch the next day, as well as the chocolate martinis!

But there is one thing I won't miss: MOSQUITOES!!! :o)

So I had a sick (like Shannon taught me some Hockey-player slang) time and will always have great memories thinking of Detroit!

But there are also some things I’m really looking forward to having them again in Germany... A real German “Bretzel” with butter, homemade “Spaetzle” from my grandma, my Golf 5 which is waiting for me to give him a ride on the Autobahn :o) and I’m looking forward to having a “Apfelsaftschorle”, that’s apple juice with sparkling water (or how some Americans call it “Apple juice with the funny bubbles” or “the apple flavored sprite”) :o)

Last but not least I want to say thank you to some people who made my time that awesome. There is Maggie who became my first American friend and always had a red bull in her purse when I was tired. ;o) Daniela who was working for ZF and became my best friend here. Alex who was my roommate and will be my best male friend ever. Jen and Shannon who always have to tell some funny stories about hockey or baseball teams. :o) And Larry for hiring me, so that I could have that great time.

THANKS TO ALL OF YOU AND BYE BYE!!

Bianca

Traverse City

Last week we interns received the answer of one of the frequently asked questions:

Is it possible to combine work and vacation?

The majority of you guys will now shake your heads and you will answer promptly and convinced: NO!
Far from it! I’m confident because I have seen it for myself…
The answer is easy… the key word is: Traverse City

We (nearly the whole company) went there last week when the event took place and yes, sure, we had to work but the amazing panoramic view from the 15th floor of the Grand Traverse Resort, the delicious dinner we had in the evenings at Stella’s and Great Lakes Culinary Institute and the pleasant atmosphere during the whole days compensated us for the labor-intensive preparations as well as for the long drive and for rising with the sun to open the suite in the morning.

In addition to that, these guys of us, who have a sweet tooth, got the chance to try some of the delectability’s of Jean-Pierre: belgian candies, tuna tartar and Crème Brule gave pleasure to a lot of clients and attendees (even though they were no gourmets...).
Particularly the women forgot momentarily about the calories and enjoyed the sweet sins.

It seemed the "Weather-God" embosomed us: the whole event went along with a lot of sunshine and pleasant temperatures.

Thus altogether it was a good time consisted of a nice work-and-amusement-mix!!

Pictures will follow…!


Linda

Taste the summer -wine tasting-

The last two months may be named as event months by us "AutoComers".

We had the Tech Crawl event at the the 19th of July, the "Taste of the Summer" wine tasting a few days later and the Traverse City Conference at the moment.

The wine tasting was organized by some of our Account Executives and took place in a nice Hotel next to us.

It was more a come together in a nice and relaxing atmosphere than usual work. This evening was also another chance to bring our clients and media together.

All an all I say:


w ell-organized

i interesting

n ight-time

e vent






By Markus

TechCrawl 2006

On wednesday, 19th of July, we interns had the chance to expand our PR-knowledge by a special hands-on training...
Because of the good media feedback in 2005 AutoCom again organized an event called TechCrawl this year. Several journalists were invited to gather informations about novelities (products, processes and services) of a number of our clients, e. g. Autoweb, dSpace, Behr and Hella.
In the morning we met at the Townsend Hotel (by the way: a very nice place where lot of the v.i.p.'s stop over) where we welcomed the clients and journalists. After an official greeting from Larry and a presentation of Gage Products and the City of Ferndale (it was about the 70th birthday of Gage) we set out for the first stop: GKN Driveline.
It was Markus and my job to put signs at each stop in front of the companies stations, remove them afterwards as well as taking care of our guests. Bianca had the assignment to be the contact person in the limousines (which picked up the journalists and chauffeured them to the media briefings) and be sure that the limos are on schedule...
After a tasty luncheon at Behr America, an employee of them invited us to follow him in a special "noise room", where he showed us how the company is working on the sound system of their products. It was an interesting and curious feeling because the anechoic region absorbed all the noise you are accustomed to in everday life.
Afterwards a special Behr groundbreaking ceremony with the mayor of Troy took place. Stops at Hella, Behr and dSpace followed till we finally arrived at the Townsend Hotel for the program final: all of us "AutoCom'ers" attended the reception and we got together to enjoy the rest of the day/evening with conversations, drinks, appetizers and high spirits ;)
Although some of the journalists left during the day (some of them had to keep deadlines or appointments) in my oppinion the event was a complete success and interesting for all of us...
Maybe we capped it all and overtrumped the great aftereffects from last year - let's have a look at the newspapers...;)!


Linda