I have been carefully watching how the locals behave in cafes, restaurants, and in public.
I finally figured out what the Belgium culture book meant by “don’t eat with your main hand”. When people eat here, they hold their fork in their left hand and their knife in their right hand (which is not what I do in the U.S.) And typically if you’re holding one, you’re holding the other. According to what I’ve read, it is considered kind of crude to cut your food with a fork. However, it is perfectly acceptable to put your elbows on the table, eat all communal appetizers bare fingered, and bring your dog into the restaurant. Lastly, tip is included in the bill here, and according to the little Belgian etiquette book and my own observation, pretty much no one puts anything extra on the table. As an American, it feels very strange not putting extra money on the table. Yet when I see the bill, I don’t feel so bad after all.
The Little Burgundy Book also reads “Belgian restaurant service is good but leisurely”. I can attest to that. The servers are friendly, and will do whatever you want- they just don’t do it very fast. Meals are a process here.
A lot of people have asked how people dress out and about. I can only say that I have worked in one company, and seen two cities, so my sample size isn’t very large. Here at Bekaert, the receptionist was wearing some kind of satiny pants and a T-shirt with a puffy print on it. About half the company wears denim pants and T-shirt type outfits, though you do see more belts, short sleeve polos, and trousers. My boss wears pretty much what I wore in San Diego, so I’m safe. I’m told that short sleeves won’t do in winter for practical reasons. About half of my work clothes date from Spring, 2001 (Four pairs of pants and four shirts), and most of the rest are well used, so I am going to spring for about five new weather appropriate outfits. Mom H. suggested I search in Portland, since they are used to colder and wetter weather. The Americans confirmed that Portland is indeed a good benchmark, so while I am there I will do some shopping. So I’m going to clone myself.
As far as clothes on the street go, if you took a snapshot of the people in Grote Markt, and transposed them in a photo of people in downtown San Diego, you’d never know the difference. They have a lot of jeans, t-shirts, some goths and punks and other sub-cultures, as well as some suits and more style-conscious people. People in the evenings in certain restaurants and areas do dress up more (certainly more than what I see at work). So the nice clothes I am more likely to wear out and about in the evenings. On top of everything, umbrellas are indeed ubiquitous here and have taken on the “practical but accessorizing” status of purses.
29 August, 2006
28 August, 2006
Sunday
The sky opened up today (Monday), and it decided to rain. It has only rained two days since I’ve been here (the first time while I was in the car…), but this is the first time it has really come down. The sky split with a low thunderous groan that said “your feeble polar fleece is useless against me!”
Yesterday was Sunday, which I spent entirely in Kortrijk, for the most part preparing for this week at work. I did go on two walks, one of which was to the very verdant Astrid Park, which has a miniature golf course, several fountains, playgrounds, and more bird habitat in it. I walked out of the hotel in the late afternoon into a well attended motorcycle rally- which somehow spontaneously sprang up while I was in the hotel. These festivals just sort of pop up when you’re not looking, as this was the second such event to manifest while I was in the hotel for a few hours. The first was “Eat the Beat”; I walked onto a street filled with drummers and scantily clad dancers (both sexes) in the Grote Markt area, high school cheerleaders performing routines, and a brass band.
One of the first nights I was here, a Spaniard of about my own age invited me to his table. His name was Marcos, and it turns out he works for (of course) Bekaert also, only in this case Bekaert textiles. He was fun to talk to, and we spokein Spanglish the entire time. I had breakfast with him once also, and we chat in passing in the hotel. The same goes for Kim, the Chinese controller who was in town all last week (I actually ate breakfast with her every day). So it seems the Bekaert group forms its own little international community here, but that also doesn’t preclude the locals and other travelers from striking up a conversation or inviting you to their table.
Yesterday was Sunday, which I spent entirely in Kortrijk, for the most part preparing for this week at work. I did go on two walks, one of which was to the very verdant Astrid Park, which has a miniature golf course, several fountains, playgrounds, and more bird habitat in it. I walked out of the hotel in the late afternoon into a well attended motorcycle rally- which somehow spontaneously sprang up while I was in the hotel. These festivals just sort of pop up when you’re not looking, as this was the second such event to manifest while I was in the hotel for a few hours. The first was “Eat the Beat”; I walked onto a street filled with drummers and scantily clad dancers (both sexes) in the Grote Markt area, high school cheerleaders performing routines, and a brass band.
One of the first nights I was here, a Spaniard of about my own age invited me to his table. His name was Marcos, and it turns out he works for (of course) Bekaert also, only in this case Bekaert textiles. He was fun to talk to, and we spokein Spanglish the entire time. I had breakfast with him once also, and we chat in passing in the hotel. The same goes for Kim, the Chinese controller who was in town all last week (I actually ate breakfast with her every day). So it seems the Bekaert group forms its own little international community here, but that also doesn’t preclude the locals and other travelers from striking up a conversation or inviting you to their table.
27 August, 2006
Ghent
Saturday I eschewed all work and decided to do something fun. I ate a late and leisurely breakfast at the hotel, and set upon the road to Ghent. Mostly countryside rests between the two, and the drive takes about 25 minutes (going the speed limit)- rather like the San Diego-Escondido drive.
All bets are off with the drivers of East Flanders and Ghent, they became much crazier in the city. Like many metro places, the downtown area became a convoluted mess of bike lanes, one-way streets, intersections, canals, and bridges. I decided that the safest thing to do was follow some other cars for awhile, and followed one down a street that had rail tracks in it- in the middle of the road. I figured it was part of some antiquated and now defunct rail line that was kept around as a piece of history. Nope. I was rather shocked to see a trolley speeding up behind me on those very tracks. The trolleys are in the streets in Ghent, not on their own separate routes, and are apparently treated like any other traffic. It was the first time I have ever been tailgated by a trolley.
I ended up parking in a garage, and mapped its locations with Gothic steeples so I could find it again. From there I zigzagged all across Ghent, peeling ten miles of rubber off of my shoes. I walked past St. Bavo’s Cathedral, and into “Veldmarkt” lane. The city is very cosmopolitan, and shopping, food, clothes, and curios from all over the world are available. I poked my head into two large, modern malls, some clothes stores, a world market, and saw cheese shops, chocoladehuizen, waffle stands, Persian rug stores, and all sorts of neat stuff. The streets in the Veldtmarkt were stuffed with people.
Along with the high density of Gothic architecture, the canals do create a very charming and distinct atmosphere. Many of the canals are lined with cobbled lanes for cycling and walking, and some are allowed to retain trees and wild growth along their banks as animal habitat. Some canals have tiny floating islands, replete with foliage, where nesting birds have taken up residence. The canals do make the air more humid, but that is easily mitigated by cooler temperatures. While not as common as in Venice, the canals are used for transportation and tours, and I saw at least one restaurant boat. Indeed, as odd as it may seem Ghent is a major sea port connected to the ocean via channels. Shipping docks occupy the Northernmost reaches of the city.
I passed Ghent University and University town, went through some very green parks (the fowl have their own cordoned off areas here as well), saw the city hall and city library (quite large, with free daycare), and wound back around downtown. There is a large opera house here, a major local dance troupe, several theaters and at least one concert hall, on top of many museums, towers; and cathedrals. I am sure we will enjoy living here.
Lastly, since it was a short drive further, I crossed the border into the Netherlands and stopped in the first small town I came across, just for fun and to see the drive.
All bets are off with the drivers of East Flanders and Ghent, they became much crazier in the city. Like many metro places, the downtown area became a convoluted mess of bike lanes, one-way streets, intersections, canals, and bridges. I decided that the safest thing to do was follow some other cars for awhile, and followed one down a street that had rail tracks in it- in the middle of the road. I figured it was part of some antiquated and now defunct rail line that was kept around as a piece of history. Nope. I was rather shocked to see a trolley speeding up behind me on those very tracks. The trolleys are in the streets in Ghent, not on their own separate routes, and are apparently treated like any other traffic. It was the first time I have ever been tailgated by a trolley.
I ended up parking in a garage, and mapped its locations with Gothic steeples so I could find it again. From there I zigzagged all across Ghent, peeling ten miles of rubber off of my shoes. I walked past St. Bavo’s Cathedral, and into “Veldmarkt” lane. The city is very cosmopolitan, and shopping, food, clothes, and curios from all over the world are available. I poked my head into two large, modern malls, some clothes stores, a world market, and saw cheese shops, chocoladehuizen, waffle stands, Persian rug stores, and all sorts of neat stuff. The streets in the Veldtmarkt were stuffed with people.
Along with the high density of Gothic architecture, the canals do create a very charming and distinct atmosphere. Many of the canals are lined with cobbled lanes for cycling and walking, and some are allowed to retain trees and wild growth along their banks as animal habitat. Some canals have tiny floating islands, replete with foliage, where nesting birds have taken up residence. The canals do make the air more humid, but that is easily mitigated by cooler temperatures. While not as common as in Venice, the canals are used for transportation and tours, and I saw at least one restaurant boat. Indeed, as odd as it may seem Ghent is a major sea port connected to the ocean via channels. Shipping docks occupy the Northernmost reaches of the city.
I passed Ghent University and University town, went through some very green parks (the fowl have their own cordoned off areas here as well), saw the city hall and city library (quite large, with free daycare), and wound back around downtown. There is a large opera house here, a major local dance troupe, several theaters and at least one concert hall, on top of many museums, towers; and cathedrals. I am sure we will enjoy living here.
Lastly, since it was a short drive further, I crossed the border into the Netherlands and stopped in the first small town I came across, just for fun and to see the drive.
26 August, 2006
Final Post on Work
This laptop I was issued in an azerty keyboard model. It is bizarre, a bunch of the letters are rearranged so if there are typing errors in posts this is probably why. You have to hit shift to get to the numbers and the bloody period. But hey, you don’t need to hit shift for the §, ç, and µ signs that are on the number keys, which is a good thing because I make extensive use of these daily. Apparently the only places in the world that use azerty keyboards are France and Belgium.
I finally got the final grand tour of all of the labs. I was shown all three sections-mechanical, chemical, and advanced characterization. The mechanical lab had all of the usual tests you would expect and more- stress, shear, and tensile, adhesion, friction, geometry, compression, and all that stuff. They have some very high pressure systems there. The chemical lab blew my mind. They had analytical tests I’d never even heard of, and everything I had. And the AC had an ion drill SEM (very expensive scanning electron microscope), a slew of high powered optical microscopy instruments, and a bunch of other high powered equipment. And I can order tests on anything! The BTC is like the General Atomics of Belgium, and is very well known here. I’m not really supposed to talk about specific projects, let alone post it on the internet, but I can give general ideas in person.
The work environment is stellar. Firstly, there are about a dozen static holidays, and I get six weeks of vacation per year. My boss is one of those “can I get you anything?” people, and to a person all of my coworkers have expressed the same. The hierarchy here is blurry, and the lines between “groups” is also fuzzy, and it seems fairly laid back even if there is a lot to do. A catering company comes into the cafeteria with warm meals each day, which you can have if you write your name on the list up to the day before. BTC has free snacks, coffee, and tea, and rather than paper cups you can grab a saucer and tea cup (with the Bekaert logo on it). When you’re done, you just set it to the side of your desk and twice a day the office-keeping staff come along with their cart and take your dishes and trash away. People and groups are urged to share information, resources, and ideas, and basically the only leashes we wear are budgets. The stated goal is to generate an environment that is “creative”.
It does look like I’ll be coming back to the US several times per year (also at least once to Arizona). I’ll also be working some in Eindhoven, NL, and Luxembourg at Bekaert partners’ facilities (day trip range). It now looks likely I will get sent to China once or twice (we’ll save up for an extra ticket for you in that case, Juje!).
So, this is shaping up to be an exciting two years at work. I'll not bore you all with work details for awhile now.
I finally got the final grand tour of all of the labs. I was shown all three sections-mechanical, chemical, and advanced characterization. The mechanical lab had all of the usual tests you would expect and more- stress, shear, and tensile, adhesion, friction, geometry, compression, and all that stuff. They have some very high pressure systems there. The chemical lab blew my mind. They had analytical tests I’d never even heard of, and everything I had. And the AC had an ion drill SEM (very expensive scanning electron microscope), a slew of high powered optical microscopy instruments, and a bunch of other high powered equipment. And I can order tests on anything! The BTC is like the General Atomics of Belgium, and is very well known here. I’m not really supposed to talk about specific projects, let alone post it on the internet, but I can give general ideas in person.
The work environment is stellar. Firstly, there are about a dozen static holidays, and I get six weeks of vacation per year. My boss is one of those “can I get you anything?” people, and to a person all of my coworkers have expressed the same. The hierarchy here is blurry, and the lines between “groups” is also fuzzy, and it seems fairly laid back even if there is a lot to do. A catering company comes into the cafeteria with warm meals each day, which you can have if you write your name on the list up to the day before. BTC has free snacks, coffee, and tea, and rather than paper cups you can grab a saucer and tea cup (with the Bekaert logo on it). When you’re done, you just set it to the side of your desk and twice a day the office-keeping staff come along with their cart and take your dishes and trash away. People and groups are urged to share information, resources, and ideas, and basically the only leashes we wear are budgets. The stated goal is to generate an environment that is “creative”.
It does look like I’ll be coming back to the US several times per year (also at least once to Arizona). I’ll also be working some in Eindhoven, NL, and Luxembourg at Bekaert partners’ facilities (day trip range). It now looks likely I will get sent to China once or twice (we’ll save up for an extra ticket for you in that case, Juje!).
So, this is shaping up to be an exciting two years at work. I'll not bore you all with work details for awhile now.
25 August, 2006
Things I Said While Driving
“How do you put this thing in reverse?”
“Is that a yield sign? It looks like a yield sign…”
“I wonder what those triangles across the road mean…”
My rental car is a little diesel Volkswagon Golf, which I must say shoots around like a German V1 rocket. Does golf also mean wave in German as it does in Dutch? I like the thought of driving a little wave around. Of course, it does kind of look like a golf cart… Euro diesel cars are awesome.
“Why are there two lanes in the circle thingie anyway…”
“Damn it, where is reverse?”
“Weird, why is that light blinking?”
The key is strange, quite unlike the typical jagged edged key used in the U.S. It is a thin, flat bar of metal with a squiggly groove carved in either side of it, though it is used pretty much the same way. And it pops out of a plastic holder like a switch blade knife, which is kind of cool. I thought it was unusual.
“Maybe I should have figured out how to use the wipers before it started to rain…”
“I guess I’ll need to learn how to turn on the defogger about now, too. Fast.”
“Oh yeah… headlights.”
My adjustment to the scale of the city size was broken when I began driving in Kortrijk, as the narrower streets and hairpin turns presented themselves. There are a lot of “T” intersections in the city, since not everything here is built on a perfect Cartesian grid, and there aren’t many traffic control lights which as you’ll see isn’t a problem. Blocks come in several shapes and sizes, and there are quite a few slithering avenues as well. Also, there are droves of cyclists and pedestrians meandering about, particularly in the afternoon. Oddly, they sort of serve a purpose in traffic control. If you needed to turn left at a “T”, it would be very difficult to execute during the busier times of day due to the chute of tiny Eurocars zipping by. However, pedestrians stop the traffic fairly frequently in the crosswalk on your right, enabling you to turn left. Human stoplights! Ingenious! And whenever there is traffic there are a lot of pedestrians as well, so it all works together.
“Maybe they don’t have a reverse in Belgium...”
“How do you know what the direction is of the lane you’re in if they are all the same color?”
“I guess people don’t use turn signals here either.”
The roundabouts are fun, and so is driving on the sidewalk which can be done in some places here. Because of the roundabouts, one can drive for miles without stopping (so I guess this is in trade for the lack of many freeways here). They do keep traffic moving. It also seems drivers are a shave more polite, and more conscientious of pedestrians.
“Is that a yield sign? It looks like a yield sign…”
“I wonder what those triangles across the road mean…”
My rental car is a little diesel Volkswagon Golf, which I must say shoots around like a German V1 rocket. Does golf also mean wave in German as it does in Dutch? I like the thought of driving a little wave around. Of course, it does kind of look like a golf cart… Euro diesel cars are awesome.
“Why are there two lanes in the circle thingie anyway…”
“Damn it, where is reverse?”
“Weird, why is that light blinking?”
The key is strange, quite unlike the typical jagged edged key used in the U.S. It is a thin, flat bar of metal with a squiggly groove carved in either side of it, though it is used pretty much the same way. And it pops out of a plastic holder like a switch blade knife, which is kind of cool. I thought it was unusual.
“Maybe I should have figured out how to use the wipers before it started to rain…”
“I guess I’ll need to learn how to turn on the defogger about now, too. Fast.”
“Oh yeah… headlights.”
My adjustment to the scale of the city size was broken when I began driving in Kortrijk, as the narrower streets and hairpin turns presented themselves. There are a lot of “T” intersections in the city, since not everything here is built on a perfect Cartesian grid, and there aren’t many traffic control lights which as you’ll see isn’t a problem. Blocks come in several shapes and sizes, and there are quite a few slithering avenues as well. Also, there are droves of cyclists and pedestrians meandering about, particularly in the afternoon. Oddly, they sort of serve a purpose in traffic control. If you needed to turn left at a “T”, it would be very difficult to execute during the busier times of day due to the chute of tiny Eurocars zipping by. However, pedestrians stop the traffic fairly frequently in the crosswalk on your right, enabling you to turn left. Human stoplights! Ingenious! And whenever there is traffic there are a lot of pedestrians as well, so it all works together.
“Maybe they don’t have a reverse in Belgium...”
“How do you know what the direction is of the lane you’re in if they are all the same color?”
“I guess people don’t use turn signals here either.”
The roundabouts are fun, and so is driving on the sidewalk which can be done in some places here. Because of the roundabouts, one can drive for miles without stopping (so I guess this is in trade for the lack of many freeways here). They do keep traffic moving. It also seems drivers are a shave more polite, and more conscientious of pedestrians.
23 August, 2006
First Day at Work
I was up quite early on Monday due to the residual jetlag, which was a good thing because I had to conquer the trouser press. The rooms here don’t have irons; they have these things stuck to the wall called trouser presses that remind me of a kind of pasta maker I saw on the TV once. It has a fifteen minute cycle, and it knows if you try to cheat and take your clothes out early.
I hobbled downstairs, where my free breakfast buffet was waiting. Again, the food was heel goed and everything was excellent quality. Skip the rest of this paragraph if you don’t want to read an entire block of text about food, or if you’re hungry. They had bread for toast, croissants, and two kinds of cinnamon and raisin pastries, the good kind of non-saccharine yogurt with three kinds of granola, oats, and fruit slurry to put in it. Most sorts of fruit and juice were present, along with a spread of meats, cheeses, and two choices of chilled and thinly sliced fish (salmon was one for sure), little quiches, some kind of custard pie thingie, and they had mini-éclairs for dessert. Oh, and crème Brule. And of course the tea and coffee. I could sit in there all morning. You know how hotels have little soaps and sugar packets with the name of the establishment on it? They have their own branded cheese wheels here!
A taxi driver picked me and another person up to drop us off at our respective destinations, which happened to be in the same neighborhood. Her name was “Kim” from Beijing, and was heading to- wouldn’t you know it, the Bekaert corporate office near BTC. We talked during the drive, and she was very friendly and knows some of the senior management I know.
BTC itself is actually located in the town of Deerlijk, just past Zwevegem (8km/4mi) from Kortrijk. It borders some farmland, and I get the impression that it is out there because of all of the crazy things they do (more on that in a later post), but also because as part of their zoning they seem to encourage such places to be on the outskirts of towns. It abuts an industrial complex on one side, and a field of cows on the other. I signed in at the reception desk, and my new boss Peter came and took me to my new office. He was quite friendly as usual, and we exchanged pleasantries about my trip and his recent vacation. From there he drove me to the auto rental lot where I picked up my car (definitely more on that later), and we headed back to BTC.
I got the semi-grand tour of the facility, and met all of the key people who are go-to persons for various things. The HR manager isn’t back from holiday yet, but I met a lot of the people I had been communicating with via e-mail. I met lab mangers, secretaries, and project leaders, as well as associates that I will be working with. I was shown the supply area, cafeteria, and all of the usual places. I
Finally we settled down to business, and my key roles and responsibilities were outlined (I’ll bleed bits and pieces over time to avoid boring anyone with a barrage). For now I’ll just say I’m responsible for the “modeling and measurement” component of the advanced coatings and transformations film team subproject, and though I’ll use some optics, I was surprised to learn I will be using a great deal of thermal, as well as be doing some programming. I’ll be in the CAPSOL training next week (“Computer program to calculate multizonal transient heat transfer”). Peter clunked the manual in front of me, as well as a stack of research papers relevant to my project and pretty much said “get to reading”. I have two weeks to digest the literature and learn the program.
I made it back to the hotel, and ate a dinner of eel in chervil sauce with more pommes frites and bread. I then kept reading my papers into the evening… which will indeed take up most of my time these two weeks.
I hobbled downstairs, where my free breakfast buffet was waiting. Again, the food was heel goed and everything was excellent quality. Skip the rest of this paragraph if you don’t want to read an entire block of text about food, or if you’re hungry. They had bread for toast, croissants, and two kinds of cinnamon and raisin pastries, the good kind of non-saccharine yogurt with three kinds of granola, oats, and fruit slurry to put in it. Most sorts of fruit and juice were present, along with a spread of meats, cheeses, and two choices of chilled and thinly sliced fish (salmon was one for sure), little quiches, some kind of custard pie thingie, and they had mini-éclairs for dessert. Oh, and crème Brule. And of course the tea and coffee. I could sit in there all morning. You know how hotels have little soaps and sugar packets with the name of the establishment on it? They have their own branded cheese wheels here!
A taxi driver picked me and another person up to drop us off at our respective destinations, which happened to be in the same neighborhood. Her name was “Kim” from Beijing, and was heading to- wouldn’t you know it, the Bekaert corporate office near BTC. We talked during the drive, and she was very friendly and knows some of the senior management I know.
BTC itself is actually located in the town of Deerlijk, just past Zwevegem (8km/4mi) from Kortrijk. It borders some farmland, and I get the impression that it is out there because of all of the crazy things they do (more on that in a later post), but also because as part of their zoning they seem to encourage such places to be on the outskirts of towns. It abuts an industrial complex on one side, and a field of cows on the other. I signed in at the reception desk, and my new boss Peter came and took me to my new office. He was quite friendly as usual, and we exchanged pleasantries about my trip and his recent vacation. From there he drove me to the auto rental lot where I picked up my car (definitely more on that later), and we headed back to BTC.
I got the semi-grand tour of the facility, and met all of the key people who are go-to persons for various things. The HR manager isn’t back from holiday yet, but I met a lot of the people I had been communicating with via e-mail. I met lab mangers, secretaries, and project leaders, as well as associates that I will be working with. I was shown the supply area, cafeteria, and all of the usual places. I
Finally we settled down to business, and my key roles and responsibilities were outlined (I’ll bleed bits and pieces over time to avoid boring anyone with a barrage). For now I’ll just say I’m responsible for the “modeling and measurement” component of the advanced coatings and transformations film team subproject, and though I’ll use some optics, I was surprised to learn I will be using a great deal of thermal, as well as be doing some programming. I’ll be in the CAPSOL training next week (“Computer program to calculate multizonal transient heat transfer”). Peter clunked the manual in front of me, as well as a stack of research papers relevant to my project and pretty much said “get to reading”. I have two weeks to digest the literature and learn the program.
I made it back to the hotel, and ate a dinner of eel in chervil sauce with more pommes frites and bread. I then kept reading my papers into the evening… which will indeed take up most of my time these two weeks.
Top ten things I won't miss at the library
Tomorrow is my last day working at the library, and as my time draws to a close, I have been pondering some of the things I won't miss:
10.) Answering the same questions ten or twenty times a day. (Where's the restroom? How can I use a computer here? Where's the copy machine? How much does it cost to print?)
9.) The loud cell phone users who talk away, completely insensitive to everyone around them.
8.) The children who are screaming, shrieking, and wailing at an ear-splitting level while their parents calmly ignore them and browse.
7.) Computers that always freeze up, crash, or time out just as we have a huge crowd of people, several of whom have absolutely crucial things they need to do online like apply for a job, mapquest the hospital where their child is scheduled to get chemo treatments, or update their myspace.
6.) The mentally ill people who come in from nearby half-way houses who are not stable on their anti-psychotic meds and freak out.
5.) The homeless people who come in and sleep in the chairs I ordered for the teen area of the library, frighteneing everyone else away.
4.) The guy they caught, um, giving a solo test to one of the sex manuals in the back of the library, who was not thrown out and still comes in all the time.
3.) The perfectly sane people who cry because something doesn't go their way, blame us, and then stomp out saying how unhelpful everyone has been and they will never be back. (Only to come back next Tuesday to check their myspace and complain about how the library is too chaotic for them).
2.) The perfectly sane people who shout at us because something doesn't go their way, write out nasty comment cards, call the boss, call the board of directors, and then stomp out saying that their taxes pay our salary. (Only to come back next Tuesday, rinse, and repeat).
1.) Poop. Someone left a few piles in several different places in the library today. Yes. This really happened.
Like I said, something to ponder.
10.) Answering the same questions ten or twenty times a day. (Where's the restroom? How can I use a computer here? Where's the copy machine? How much does it cost to print?)
9.) The loud cell phone users who talk away, completely insensitive to everyone around them.
8.) The children who are screaming, shrieking, and wailing at an ear-splitting level while their parents calmly ignore them and browse.
7.) Computers that always freeze up, crash, or time out just as we have a huge crowd of people, several of whom have absolutely crucial things they need to do online like apply for a job, mapquest the hospital where their child is scheduled to get chemo treatments, or update their myspace.
6.) The mentally ill people who come in from nearby half-way houses who are not stable on their anti-psychotic meds and freak out.
5.) The homeless people who come in and sleep in the chairs I ordered for the teen area of the library, frighteneing everyone else away.
4.) The guy they caught, um, giving a solo test to one of the sex manuals in the back of the library, who was not thrown out and still comes in all the time.
3.) The perfectly sane people who cry because something doesn't go their way, blame us, and then stomp out saying how unhelpful everyone has been and they will never be back. (Only to come back next Tuesday to check their myspace and complain about how the library is too chaotic for them).
2.) The perfectly sane people who shout at us because something doesn't go their way, write out nasty comment cards, call the boss, call the board of directors, and then stomp out saying that their taxes pay our salary. (Only to come back next Tuesday, rinse, and repeat).
1.) Poop. Someone left a few piles in several different places in the library today. Yes. This really happened.
Like I said, something to ponder.
22 August, 2006
Prelude
So I am now in Kortrijk, Belgium.
The trip over the pond was mostly painless. I got a little bit of sleep on the plane, but I was in a cabin with twenty-six excited Italians returning from holiday together, which kind of inhibited that. On the first jump from San Diego to JFK in New York there were several infants and very young children, but they had almost everyone’s sympathy despite the noise. The plane wasn’t well stocked when we got on- there were no blankets, and they ran out of water. I guess that is what you get when you ban bottled water on flights, though some of the people who needed to mix formula were upset. I don’t blame them.
I arrived in Brussels, to a very large and very clean airport. It took about twenty minutes to get through customs, which is actually longer than it took me to get through airport security in the U.S. There was a driver with a sign waiting for me, and he loaded me up and drove me to Kortrijk. It is actually less than an hour from Brussels to Kortrijk, and about the same from either of those places to Ghent- much less on a train. The driver didn’t speak much English, so it was surprising that I knew more Dutch than he English. Our conversation was punctuated by long pauses as we took turns engineering shaky sentences in each others language. Still, he was very genial and wished me well before he left.
The way Belgium is zoned is one of the first things I noticed. For a country reported to have the second highest population density in Europe, they still do have a lot of farm land between urban areas. It must be offset by the way the cities and towns are designed- the sprawl seems to be different. The smaller cities, Deerlijk, Kortrijk, Zwevegem are all “tighter” than towns in the U.S. The streets are narrower, apartments and houses smaller, and private yards are small to non-existent, replaced by larger communal areas scattered about (de Grote Markt being the center of Kortrijk). Also, all of the towns are hinged around their downtown hubs. The result is a town with a population of 73,000 covering about the same area as Brawley (pop. 22,000). Interestingly, one hardly notices the size difference as everything is to scale. The Belgian countryside also has a very low cow density, with about two cows per acre and no feed lots. (Yes, I noticed the cow density). And they are clean. No wonder they have good cheese.
The driver dropped me off at the Parkhotel in Kortrijk, which is adjacent to the train station there, and at the edge of the downtown area. I checked in, and wandered the neighborhood for a short time to get my bearings. Judi and I will post some photos and tourist type posts next month after our permanent move. For now I’ll be pretty busy with work, as I have a lot to learn during my current stay. This is a two week training and orientation period, and the information I learn now I will have to immediately deploy in San Diego on my return trip, as well as troubleshoot a data collection program there. I have a tome of papers to read, and some new programs to learn.
I dove right in with the language, and try to use Dutch/Vlaamse as much as possible. I feel like every time I say something to someone in Dutch it is like hitting the “execute” command on in-process code. I either get some kind of useful output, or a blank stare: “syntax error”. I guess the only way to debug my language is to practice.
I didn’t explore too much on Sunday, as I slept off my jet lag a lot of the day. I ate a very fine dinner in the hotel, however, courtesy the Bekaert credit card. Shrimp salad with tomatos in crème sauce, with French green beans and pommes frites (chips/French fries). And I tried a Belgian beer which I must say has entirely changed my attitude toward beer, they aren’t joking when they say Belgium has the best beer in the world. I realized that my entire life it isn’t that I haven’t liked beer, it is that I have never really had one. One beer is still quite enough, especially these.
After dinner I headed to bed, so I would be rested for work. As it is I am a day behind on posts, but I’ve been preoccupied. Tomorrow: my first day at work.
The trip over the pond was mostly painless. I got a little bit of sleep on the plane, but I was in a cabin with twenty-six excited Italians returning from holiday together, which kind of inhibited that. On the first jump from San Diego to JFK in New York there were several infants and very young children, but they had almost everyone’s sympathy despite the noise. The plane wasn’t well stocked when we got on- there were no blankets, and they ran out of water. I guess that is what you get when you ban bottled water on flights, though some of the people who needed to mix formula were upset. I don’t blame them.
I arrived in Brussels, to a very large and very clean airport. It took about twenty minutes to get through customs, which is actually longer than it took me to get through airport security in the U.S. There was a driver with a sign waiting for me, and he loaded me up and drove me to Kortrijk. It is actually less than an hour from Brussels to Kortrijk, and about the same from either of those places to Ghent- much less on a train. The driver didn’t speak much English, so it was surprising that I knew more Dutch than he English. Our conversation was punctuated by long pauses as we took turns engineering shaky sentences in each others language. Still, he was very genial and wished me well before he left.
The way Belgium is zoned is one of the first things I noticed. For a country reported to have the second highest population density in Europe, they still do have a lot of farm land between urban areas. It must be offset by the way the cities and towns are designed- the sprawl seems to be different. The smaller cities, Deerlijk, Kortrijk, Zwevegem are all “tighter” than towns in the U.S. The streets are narrower, apartments and houses smaller, and private yards are small to non-existent, replaced by larger communal areas scattered about (de Grote Markt being the center of Kortrijk). Also, all of the towns are hinged around their downtown hubs. The result is a town with a population of 73,000 covering about the same area as Brawley (pop. 22,000). Interestingly, one hardly notices the size difference as everything is to scale. The Belgian countryside also has a very low cow density, with about two cows per acre and no feed lots. (Yes, I noticed the cow density). And they are clean. No wonder they have good cheese.
The driver dropped me off at the Parkhotel in Kortrijk, which is adjacent to the train station there, and at the edge of the downtown area. I checked in, and wandered the neighborhood for a short time to get my bearings. Judi and I will post some photos and tourist type posts next month after our permanent move. For now I’ll be pretty busy with work, as I have a lot to learn during my current stay. This is a two week training and orientation period, and the information I learn now I will have to immediately deploy in San Diego on my return trip, as well as troubleshoot a data collection program there. I have a tome of papers to read, and some new programs to learn.
I dove right in with the language, and try to use Dutch/Vlaamse as much as possible. I feel like every time I say something to someone in Dutch it is like hitting the “execute” command on in-process code. I either get some kind of useful output, or a blank stare: “syntax error”. I guess the only way to debug my language is to practice.
I didn’t explore too much on Sunday, as I slept off my jet lag a lot of the day. I ate a very fine dinner in the hotel, however, courtesy the Bekaert credit card. Shrimp salad with tomatos in crème sauce, with French green beans and pommes frites (chips/French fries). And I tried a Belgian beer which I must say has entirely changed my attitude toward beer, they aren’t joking when they say Belgium has the best beer in the world. I realized that my entire life it isn’t that I haven’t liked beer, it is that I have never really had one. One beer is still quite enough, especially these.
After dinner I headed to bed, so I would be rested for work. As it is I am a day behind on posts, but I’ve been preoccupied. Tomorrow: my first day at work.
14 August, 2006
Items to be Taken Not Clearly Marked
I almost gave Amvets half of our possessions.
In an unlikely misunderstanding, I confused a phone call from an Amvets driver for the gentleman who was to estimate the cost of shipping our possessions to Europe. I was running ten minutes behind from dropping Judi off at work, and I knew the estimator would arrive at our apartment before I made it back to the property. Of course, I didn’t expect the Amvets driver to show up at exactly the same time the estimator was supposed to, so when I got a call from a gentleman telling me he’d arrived for our “stuff”, I didn’t make the connection that this wasn’t the shipping estimator.
I told him I’d be there in a few minutes, so he asked me a few questions while he had me on the phone. “What am I taking?” he inquired. I explained that he would be taking two dressers, a table and two desks, and all of the boxes he could see through our front window. “What’s in them?” he then asked. I imagined his nose to the glass, his hand over his eyes blocking the glare as he scanned our possessions.
“Oh, a few boxes of clothes, some art supplies, books, and games, linens and bedding, and some camping gear.”
“I’m taking all that?” he asked, with suspicious incredulity.
“Yep.” I explained that I had already stored about a third of our possessions, and sold off another third, and that was all that was left.
“Are you moving”
“… um… yes?”
“Wow, where are you moving?”
“To Belgium- Ghent, for two years or so.”
“Ah, that explains it” he then replied, his surprise seemingly sated. The confusion subsided for awhile, since we had then reached a misunderstanding and were perfectly happy to drop the issue. He thought I was getting rid of everything because of the move to Europe, and I thought he now knew exactly what was going on.
Of course, a few minutes later everything came to light when I finally arrived and saw the Amvets truck outside of our apartment. This man wasn’t the estimator- he was there to take our donations!! He was rather irritated when I explained who I thought he was, and as he grumbled and walked away the true estimator walked up the steps. The driver didn’t even take the items we’d left outside. I immediately busied myself with the true estimator- so without saying a word, he just left a note behind reading “Items to be taken not clearly marked” and drove away.
In an unlikely misunderstanding, I confused a phone call from an Amvets driver for the gentleman who was to estimate the cost of shipping our possessions to Europe. I was running ten minutes behind from dropping Judi off at work, and I knew the estimator would arrive at our apartment before I made it back to the property. Of course, I didn’t expect the Amvets driver to show up at exactly the same time the estimator was supposed to, so when I got a call from a gentleman telling me he’d arrived for our “stuff”, I didn’t make the connection that this wasn’t the shipping estimator.
I told him I’d be there in a few minutes, so he asked me a few questions while he had me on the phone. “What am I taking?” he inquired. I explained that he would be taking two dressers, a table and two desks, and all of the boxes he could see through our front window. “What’s in them?” he then asked. I imagined his nose to the glass, his hand over his eyes blocking the glare as he scanned our possessions.
“Oh, a few boxes of clothes, some art supplies, books, and games, linens and bedding, and some camping gear.”
“I’m taking all that?” he asked, with suspicious incredulity.
“Yep.” I explained that I had already stored about a third of our possessions, and sold off another third, and that was all that was left.
“Are you moving”
“… um… yes?”
“Wow, where are you moving?”
“To Belgium- Ghent, for two years or so.”
“Ah, that explains it” he then replied, his surprise seemingly sated. The confusion subsided for awhile, since we had then reached a misunderstanding and were perfectly happy to drop the issue. He thought I was getting rid of everything because of the move to Europe, and I thought he now knew exactly what was going on.
Of course, a few minutes later everything came to light when I finally arrived and saw the Amvets truck outside of our apartment. This man wasn’t the estimator- he was there to take our donations!! He was rather irritated when I explained who I thought he was, and as he grumbled and walked away the true estimator walked up the steps. The driver didn’t even take the items we’d left outside. I immediately busied myself with the true estimator- so without saying a word, he just left a note behind reading “Items to be taken not clearly marked” and drove away.
04 August, 2006
Exodus
So August has come, making the date of our departure seem that much closer in the mirror as it speeds toward us. We managed our grueling weekend move, which included a caravan of Rick, Erica, and us taking three vehicles worth of furniture and boxes to Travis’ parents’ house in the Imperial Valley for storage. We managed to fill two of their closets and a small part of the garage with various items, which they have offered to store while we’re gone. Thanks for the storage space folks, and thanks so much for driving all the way from San Diego to help us get moved out Rick and Erica! I don’t know how we could have done it without you.
After lunch, Judi, Rick, & Erica headed back up to San Diego, and Judi spent Saturday evening cleaning while Travis hauled the boxes upstairs at his parents’ house and organized them. Sunday the 30th was still worse than Saturday, as it included moving everything else out of the apartment. Unfortunately, the moving company didn’t have the contract in time to take all of our stored items directly from our old apartment, so we had to make five runs to our temporary residence in Tierrasanta at Doug & Lana’s house to store these things. We then cleaned the apartment and returned the truck to Escondido. After everything was said and done, it was 7:30 on Sunday evening, making for a fatigued week.
As of now we are living out of a few bags, suffering from “intermittent WIFI connectivity syndrome” (a severe psychological disorder), and are doing our best to keep the house as clean as possible. On the up side, our part of the moving is finished, and only having to worry about a few bags of items is a liberating feeling.
Lastly, Travis has his plane tickets for his pre-employment training at the Belgium lab for the latter part of August. He’s leaving August 19th, and returning directly to Portland on Saturday afternoon (the 2nd of September), immediately prior to the wedding rehearsal. There is still no word on which day we will be leaving in September for our ultimate move, though I imagine we’ll know this by the time of the wedding. In all this visa/passport/travel/moving business I still don’t envy Nay and her wedding/school/exams flurry of activity, she has my sympathy.
After lunch, Judi, Rick, & Erica headed back up to San Diego, and Judi spent Saturday evening cleaning while Travis hauled the boxes upstairs at his parents’ house and organized them. Sunday the 30th was still worse than Saturday, as it included moving everything else out of the apartment. Unfortunately, the moving company didn’t have the contract in time to take all of our stored items directly from our old apartment, so we had to make five runs to our temporary residence in Tierrasanta at Doug & Lana’s house to store these things. We then cleaned the apartment and returned the truck to Escondido. After everything was said and done, it was 7:30 on Sunday evening, making for a fatigued week.
As of now we are living out of a few bags, suffering from “intermittent WIFI connectivity syndrome” (a severe psychological disorder), and are doing our best to keep the house as clean as possible. On the up side, our part of the moving is finished, and only having to worry about a few bags of items is a liberating feeling.
Lastly, Travis has his plane tickets for his pre-employment training at the Belgium lab for the latter part of August. He’s leaving August 19th, and returning directly to Portland on Saturday afternoon (the 2nd of September), immediately prior to the wedding rehearsal. There is still no word on which day we will be leaving in September for our ultimate move, though I imagine we’ll know this by the time of the wedding. In all this visa/passport/travel/moving business I still don’t envy Nay and her wedding/school/exams flurry of activity, she has my sympathy.
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