The plane ride here was long and boring broken up by what ever movie/television show they put up on the screen. My usual ability to crash out on planes completely failed me this time and I grabbed maybe an hour on the flight. As soon as we landed we checked into the hotel then shot straight to work.
The day there ended up being a complete waste of time as the guy we needed to talk to got stuck in a meeting for the entire day. We headed back to the hotel at about 3PM and I crashed until we went to dinner. I let my boss order for me on Monday night. He got what was basically raw steak thinly sliced as an appetizer, then we went out drinking. Apparently the steak was bad or we drank too much because both he and I ended up in the bathroom throughout Monday night and into Tuesday morning. I faired much better than he did (which led us to believe it was the raw steak as he ate much more of it than I did) and went wandering around Tuesday night.
While I was out I met a young couple from England and sat with them for a while and shared a bottle of wine. We discussed everything from the shuttle landing to the current track and field games that are going on over here right now (also a very interesting law London is looking to pass that would make it legal for bars in the city to serve alcohol 24 hours a day). I headed back to the hotel and ran into the boss. We stepped out to grab some Thai at a place right outside the hotel (was by far some of the best Thai I have had). After munching food I went wandering again. There is a big music festival here this weekend and they had a stage set up fairly close to us. I went down and of all things there was a Beatles tribute band. A couple of the Belgium girls there thought it was great that I knew all of the songs that were being sung and I ended up hanging out with them for the majority of then night talking about music, movies, history, art, and a thousand of other subjects.
The ladies had to head home so I headed back to the hotel and found out that the hotel we are at has WiFi access (at a rate of $.50 per minute) so I hopped online to do some surfing. I caught up on email and answered a couple of board post. Since I had slept almost all day Tuesday I wasn't really tired so I went down to the lobby and got some tea while talking with one of the young ladies that works at the hotel (we are staying at the Holiday Inn which is by far one of the nicest European hotels I have ever stayed at). We talked off and on between her work (and my surfing...have I mentioned how much I like my laptop?), and I finally went up and crashed out for a couple of hours.
I got up and went down for breakfast and couldn't believe that it is Wednesday already. I was hoping that today would go rather quickly as I need to get out to buy chocolates and other such things, but things are not looking so good on that front. The work day doesn't start here until 9AM (or later from what the guys I am working with have told me) and the shift ends at 3PM, but I have already been told that my day will continue until 4PM. The boss wanted me there for typical American business hours. I tried to argue that we should show solidaridy with our European brethren, but was told to get over it. I had to try at least.
One of the things that I am finding extremely annoying about the Belgium office is that they have known for a month now that I would be coming in. None of my accounts were set up, my ssh keys were not imported, they didn't have a workstation available for me so they had to scramble to put one together (part of this may have been my boss' fault, I don't know if they knew that I would be working shift with them), and they treated me like a leper. They put me as far away from the rest of the group as possible.
So far working in the Belgium operations center has taught me something. They are the most unorganized individuals that I have ever seen and they have no more of a clue as to what they are doing than the group I work with in Atlanta. The majority of the knowledge is contain in just a few individuals and they have no documentation on anything. If something comes up with a customer if there isn't someone who immediately knows what to do with it they seem to ignore it as best they can until someone basically yells at them to take care of it. Why they continuously tell us that they are too busy to handle stuff is beyond my comprehension though. They are no more or less busy than we are, but we (when they don't dump a shift's worth of work on us) always do our best to get everything that comes in during our shift completed.
The attitude they display towards each other has been eye opening as well. They are outright rude to one another and don't care how it is viewed by the American sitting in the corner. If someone on my shift acted towards me the way that some of these guys act towards each other I would have punched them in the nose. So far only one of them has attempted to act in the same manner towards me, I quickly corrected him and let him know that it would not be tolerated. He immediately backed down and hasn't talked to me since.
I just got back from shopping and dinner. I am meeting with some of the Belgium folks for drinks in about an hour and then I will be heading to bed. We have to leave by 7AM to get to the airport in time (flight leaves at 10:30AM), and my boss has already told me that if I am not awake when he knocks on my door then he is leaving me. It will be so strange to be in the air for 9.5 hours and land four hours after I leave. I should be home around 2PM or so.
All in all it has been a good trip, but I have discovered several things.
1) I like my car and the freedom that it allows.
2) Walking everywhere really sucks (especially when drunk).
3) It gets confusing when there are four conversations going on around you
and none of them are in the same language.
4) Younger Europeans like us.
5) Older Europeans think we are snobs.
6) If you have no idea where you are going there is always a taxi nearby.
7) Sitting out on the sidewalk enjoying a bottle of wine isn't such a bad way to spend an afternoon.
8) Sitting in a bar drinking and talking to new friends isn't such a bad way to spend an evening.
9) If you are having trouble making friends in a European bar, buy a round for everyone and you will suddenly have a lot of really good friends.
10) Not all Europeans are adverse to bathing on a daily basis, but you will know when you meet one who is.
Edited to include the end of the trip.
I ended up not going to bed after all. I ended up meeting up with one of the girls from the Beatles concert (her name is Jenna) and spent the majority of the night with her. Needless to say it made leaving Belgium extremely hard as she and I got along really well. I am going to miss her, but we both agreed that an eight hour plane ride relationship wasn't going to work out. Still didn't make leaving any easier especially when she broke down crying saying that she didn't want me to leave.
The plane ride, once it got started after three hours worth of delays went quickly for me. I slept for all but the last hour of the flight. Getting through customs was fairly painless. And now I am home finally. So now I get to crash out, pick my friend up at the airport tomorrow, then get everything packed up for vacation on Saturday.
The day there ended up being a complete waste of time as the guy we needed to talk to got stuck in a meeting for the entire day. We headed back to the hotel at about 3PM and I crashed until we went to dinner. I let my boss order for me on Monday night. He got what was basically raw steak thinly sliced as an appetizer, then we went out drinking. Apparently the steak was bad or we drank too much because both he and I ended up in the bathroom throughout Monday night and into Tuesday morning. I faired much better than he did (which led us to believe it was the raw steak as he ate much more of it than I did) and went wandering around Tuesday night.
While I was out I met a young couple from England and sat with them for a while and shared a bottle of wine. We discussed everything from the shuttle landing to the current track and field games that are going on over here right now (also a very interesting law London is looking to pass that would make it legal for bars in the city to serve alcohol 24 hours a day). I headed back to the hotel and ran into the boss. We stepped out to grab some Thai at a place right outside the hotel (was by far some of the best Thai I have had). After munching food I went wandering again. There is a big music festival here this weekend and they had a stage set up fairly close to us. I went down and of all things there was a Beatles tribute band. A couple of the Belgium girls there thought it was great that I knew all of the songs that were being sung and I ended up hanging out with them for the majority of then night talking about music, movies, history, art, and a thousand of other subjects.
The ladies had to head home so I headed back to the hotel and found out that the hotel we are at has WiFi access (at a rate of $.50 per minute) so I hopped online to do some surfing. I caught up on email and answered a couple of board post. Since I had slept almost all day Tuesday I wasn't really tired so I went down to the lobby and got some tea while talking with one of the young ladies that works at the hotel (we are staying at the Holiday Inn which is by far one of the nicest European hotels I have ever stayed at). We talked off and on between her work (and my surfing...have I mentioned how much I like my laptop?), and I finally went up and crashed out for a couple of hours.
I got up and went down for breakfast and couldn't believe that it is Wednesday already. I was hoping that today would go rather quickly as I need to get out to buy chocolates and other such things, but things are not looking so good on that front. The work day doesn't start here until 9AM (or later from what the guys I am working with have told me) and the shift ends at 3PM, but I have already been told that my day will continue until 4PM. The boss wanted me there for typical American business hours. I tried to argue that we should show solidaridy with our European brethren, but was told to get over it. I had to try at least.
One of the things that I am finding extremely annoying about the Belgium office is that they have known for a month now that I would be coming in. None of my accounts were set up, my ssh keys were not imported, they didn't have a workstation available for me so they had to scramble to put one together (part of this may have been my boss' fault, I don't know if they knew that I would be working shift with them), and they treated me like a leper. They put me as far away from the rest of the group as possible.
So far working in the Belgium operations center has taught me something. They are the most unorganized individuals that I have ever seen and they have no more of a clue as to what they are doing than the group I work with in Atlanta. The majority of the knowledge is contain in just a few individuals and they have no documentation on anything. If something comes up with a customer if there isn't someone who immediately knows what to do with it they seem to ignore it as best they can until someone basically yells at them to take care of it. Why they continuously tell us that they are too busy to handle stuff is beyond my comprehension though. They are no more or less busy than we are, but we (when they don't dump a shift's worth of work on us) always do our best to get everything that comes in during our shift completed.
The attitude they display towards each other has been eye opening as well. They are outright rude to one another and don't care how it is viewed by the American sitting in the corner. If someone on my shift acted towards me the way that some of these guys act towards each other I would have punched them in the nose. So far only one of them has attempted to act in the same manner towards me, I quickly corrected him and let him know that it would not be tolerated. He immediately backed down and hasn't talked to me since.
I just got back from shopping and dinner. I am meeting with some of the Belgium folks for drinks in about an hour and then I will be heading to bed. We have to leave by 7AM to get to the airport in time (flight leaves at 10:30AM), and my boss has already told me that if I am not awake when he knocks on my door then he is leaving me. It will be so strange to be in the air for 9.5 hours and land four hours after I leave. I should be home around 2PM or so.
All in all it has been a good trip, but I have discovered several things.
1) I like my car and the freedom that it allows.
2) Walking everywhere really sucks (especially when drunk).
3) It gets confusing when there are four conversations going on around you
and none of them are in the same language.
4) Younger Europeans like us.
5) Older Europeans think we are snobs.
6) If you have no idea where you are going there is always a taxi nearby.
7) Sitting out on the sidewalk enjoying a bottle of wine isn't such a bad way to spend an afternoon.
8) Sitting in a bar drinking and talking to new friends isn't such a bad way to spend an evening.
9) If you are having trouble making friends in a European bar, buy a round for everyone and you will suddenly have a lot of really good friends.
10) Not all Europeans are adverse to bathing on a daily basis, but you will know when you meet one who is.
Edited to include the end of the trip.
I ended up not going to bed after all. I ended up meeting up with one of the girls from the Beatles concert (her name is Jenna) and spent the majority of the night with her. Needless to say it made leaving Belgium extremely hard as she and I got along really well. I am going to miss her, but we both agreed that an eight hour plane ride relationship wasn't going to work out. Still didn't make leaving any easier especially when she broke down crying saying that she didn't want me to leave.
The plane ride, once it got started after three hours worth of delays went quickly for me. I slept for all but the last hour of the flight. Getting through customs was fairly painless. And now I am home finally. So now I get to crash out, pick my friend up at the airport tomorrow, then get everything packed up for vacation on Saturday.
loe:
dude, the gallery is my fridge! haha.
sunna:
...I've missed you 