To points east

The Toy Fair has ended and we are now in Slovakia, where we used to live, recruiting summer employees. Though it was our first Nuremberg Fair, and we had no real standard by which to judge it, apart from our experiences at the New York Toy Fair, we would call it a success. We discovered many, many lines of toys that we plan to import directly, and several that we may consider distributing if we can reach an agreement with the manufacturers.

In the end, we walked almost the entire show twice (excepting the remote control and model train halls) and thankfully, we saw a lot the second time that we didn't see in the first round! We hope to make this an annual event, perhaps even combining it with the Paris Gift Show in late January (for a nice peek at the Paris show, check out the Modern Tots blog).

Departing from our weeklong home in Zirndorf, we hopped the train for Munich, then on to Salzburg, where we spent the night (and Ryan spent the evening lolling about the hotel room with a fever). Then 2 dear friends picked us up in Bratislava and we are now in Trnava for the week. Unfortunately, Sarah now has caught the "German Grippe" and is in no fine state. Hopefully the children will escape it!


Tomorrow Ryan is off to NY for the Toy Fair there, while the rest of the group will catch up with old friends and find new employees here in Trnava. You might catch a glimpse of our kids feeding bread to pigeons in the town square on the Trnava web cam aimed at the heart of the old town (use the username and password listed at the top of the cam page).

Dovidenia!