Buses 79 and 21, to be exact.

I attended a business event with my colleagues at our new offices in the Tractebel region of Brussels. From Troon, which is where I am currently stationed, Tractebel is pretty far. The only way to get their aside from driving is by bus.

So I logged into the SNCB (b-rail.be) website and planned my route. I like their site, it makes it fairly easy to get from place to place in Brussels. I wish they had some better mapping, but no biggie.

After I got my route together, I took hold of my jump pass and hopped on the 21. Totally uneventful except for the fact that it started to rain. It always rains when i head to a work event *sigh*. Next came the 79. Again, totally boring. But this time, at least, the bus was pretty much empty so I had more room to sit and relax. There was a pretty interesting fellow with his seeing-eye dog. I really have no idea how that works. This man, using his dog as a guide, walked right over to the open doors of the bus and up into it without troubles. He then went right over to a seat and sat down. How did he know some old lady wasn’t already sitting there? Certainly his dog couldn’t relay that info.

Anyway, I sat through a DRP (disaster recovery plan) and Business Continuity presentation from a colleague that was both very interesting and thoroughly boring. Later I ate some oddball Belgian food then got a ride by new friend Frank to Central Station.

So there you have it. The most mundane adventure yet. I hope to have more interesting things to say… at some point… hopefully…

Last night I jumped on the train to Amsterdam to attend a conference put on by Q4K (Quest for Knowledge). (I’ll blog more about the content of the conference over at Tod means Fox.) The conference runs ’till Friday.

The train ride was long and hot. For a stretch (between stops Brussel Centraal and Mechelen), I had to stand. Not a lot of fun when you have to stand with about a dozen other people in a poorly ventilated tin can. And not a lot of fun when you have a laptop and suitcase resting at your feet. One kid took a tumble when the train hit a bump and his foot got caught on the exposed wheel of my bag. I felt bad, but hey — he was alright. Nothing broken. No blood.

The train got significantly lighter when we dropped off passengers in Antwerpen Centraal. And then again in Roosendaal. By the time we reached Den Haag, I was living large. I bought a Coke from the cart guy (a dirty old man wheeling a cart of expensive goodies down the isle like a stewardess on Northwest Airlines). I had a seat next to me all to myself, and I was cruising along in my new book: Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, by Malcolm Gladwell.

I really enjoyed Malcolm’s Tipping Point, and am really enjoying Blink so far. I’ll be posting more about this soon…

…

So here I am, at the hotel. Questing for knowledge and thinking without thinking. Sort of ironic I suppose.

I left for De Jacht from Troon (where I work) at a little past 17:00 to attend a work party at Albert Hall. I went into the Subway to buy a 10 voyage Lijn ticket. I’m not sure if these little tickets have an official name. So from now on, I’ll call it a “jump pass”. Mostly because it sounds cool.

I took my Jump Pass to the bus stop and got on. The bus trip from Troon to De Jacht was uneventful and totally boring. The bus was full — mostly working stiffs trying to get home I suppose. 

When I arrived in De Jacht, I was about an hour early. So I walked around a bit. The intersection at De Jacht was pretty large — something like 6 roads converging. Lots of people. Lots of cars.

I really felt that I had entered the ‘old city’. I got this sense that the structures here predate the structures I see a lot around Troon and Central Station. If I had more time and a camera, I might have investigated further. It’s great how many buildings display their year built on a sign above or beside the front door. 

They let me into Albert Hall a bit early; I was the first one there but did get a chance to talk with some of the event organizers. Before letting me in though, I had buzzed the door and a very nice older French-speaking fellow came out to meet me. I asked when I could go in. He had no idea what I said. Then he said something and I had no idea what he said. I have <em>gotta</em> learn me some French!

Eventually, we resorted to animal sounds and pointing. I pointed to me. Then the door. Then I showed him 6 fingers. Then I shrugged. Something clicked and he responded with a nod, six fingers, and then 3 sets of ten. 18:30. Got it. Merci. Dank u. 10 minutes later, he let me in. Merci. Dank u opnieuw.

The party was our 2008 kickoff event and featured many PowerPoint slides about how we’re doing and where we’re going. half the presentation was in Dutch. I understood a surprising amount of it. The English slides helped. But in IT, many of the words are simply English: Data Warehousing, Service Level Agreement, Project Management, etc…

One conversation I had with a few different colleagues was the etiquette that surrounds the Belgian Kiss. You know, when two strangers, acquaintances, or friends exchange a cheek-to-cheek ghost peck. I asked a few people if extending my hand in a hand-shake could be seen as rude.  I’m not totally comfortable with the Belgian Kiss so I avoid it. Based on my feedback, it looks like I’ll stay the course. No new strategy. Merci. Dank u.

Then the magician came out. Ugh. I find it easy to see the sleight of hand when you don’t concentrate on what the magician is saying. Misdirection is his game. But I was focused on his hands and caught some of his moves. He’s fast, but I wear glasses now and don’t speak his language.

I got home around 00:10. It was a late night. But I enjoyed my short trip to De Jacht and look forward to heading that way again some day.