Sunday, February 20th
At around 6AM my boss picked me up in a cab from my apartment so we could head to the airport together (we're such good stewards of our company's money - sharing cabs and such)! It was a nice cool morning maybe around 60 degrees Fahrenheit. As soon as I closed the door of the cab I noticed #1, it was kind of warm in the cab and #2, the cabbie STUNK...BAD!!!! After about 2 minutes, I looked at my boss with a pained expression and asked "Do you mind if I open the window?" He quickly replied in a loud voice "PLEASE DO!!!" He was just as miserable with the smelly cabbie as me! I spent the rest of the approximate 30 minute drive to the airport with my head as close to the 3" crack in the window as possible! It was a welcome relief to get out of the cab! I was just praying the scent didn't permeate my clothes so I would have to smell it the entire way to Brussels!
We arrived well before our 8:30am departure time so we shopped a little and then relaxed in the business lounge until it was almost time to board. We were flying from Dubai to Munich, Germany and we had a 2 hour lay-over and then from Munich to Brussels. First thing I noticed when getting situated in the business class seat on Lufthansa was that these seats weren't NEARLY as comfy as the one's on our Emirates flight from Houston to Dubai. (Yes, I have become a business class snob after only 2 business class flights!) I did manage to survive the 7 hour flight to Munich even in the lumpy seat.
Instead of watching a movie during the flight, I was reading a book I purchased in the Dubai Airport that someone had recommended called "The Girls of Riyadh". It's a book written by a young Saudi woman about the life of her and her 3 best friends. It's kind of like a Sex in the City Middle Eastern version. It was really entertaining and enlightening but also somewhat sad. I would highly recommend it!
While waiting to board the flight from Munich to Brussels I called Chad & Mitchell to tell Mitchell goodnight. After less than a 10 minute call, all the minutes on my pre-paid phone were GONE! So, I was in a foreign country, and would be for the next 5 days, and had no cell phone usage! I felt NAKED! I hadn't even made it to my final destination. My boss was in the same boat. After one call, neither of us had any means of communication except for land lines...THE HUMANITY!!!
On the flight from Munich to Brussels we were on a smaller plane that was similar to a Continental Express Jet but had two seats on each side of the isle. The first 4 rows of the plane were considered "Business Class" because they only booked one person on either side of the isle, so I had two seats all to myself! We were delayed about 1 ½ hours due to a mechanical issue but finally made it to our hotel in Brussels at about 7:00PM (10PM Dubai time). We had a drink at the bar with our co-worker who had flown in from Saudi and I ditched the two guys to go to sleep! I was fading fast!
The Brussels Marriott only had wireless internet in the lobby so I had to sit at the desk in my room connected to an Ethernet cord in order to do any work (blog). It's amazing how spoiled we are with technology. You don't know what you've got 'til it's GONE! No cell phone, no wireless internet connection...was I back in Y2K?!?!? :-)
The next morning we met in the lobby around 7am to go grab a quick bite to eat and then head to the office. The CONTINENTAL breakfast at the Marriott was 17 Euro...that's over $23USD!!!! WAY too much for my cheap blood for a cup of coffee and a muffin (even if it wasn't my own $$)! So, Jim & I decided to head to the McDonald's next door to the hotel for breakfast. Much to our dismay, McDonald's didn't open for breakfast until 8:30 AM!!! CRAZY! So, we decided to find a grocery or a convenience store or somewhere to buy a small breakfast. After about 15 minutes of wandering around, and almost giving up, we found a bakery that was open!!! HEAVENLY!!! Breakfast was delicious pastries at only 4 Euro! Yes, I'm a bargain breakfast shopper!
We met up with the cabbie (who drove a Mercedes) at the hotel and we were at the CPChem offices in Overijse, Belgium in about 30 minutes (make a note of how long it took to get to the office)! We met all the wonderful people in the office and embarked on our marathon of meetings! We went out for a "quick" lunch that ended up taking almost 2 hours because "restaurant service" appears to be non-existent in those parts, somewhat of an oxymoron! You have to beg for a menu, beg to order, beg to get a drink refill, and beg for the bill!
At the end of the day, we were given keys to a company car (4-door BMW...SWEET!) we would get to use the rest of the week and a GPS. The car was a stick shift and I was deemed "designated driver". I'm not lying when I tell you it took over 5 minutes for us to figure out how to turn ON the car and I think we finally got it turned on by accident. You had to put the key in, push the clutch in, push a button and shake the stick shift. REALLY! After we finally got the car started, we attempted to find our hotel in the TomTom portable GPS (NOTE: there was also a built in GPS in the dashboard). This is where it gets really tricky! I was searching the car GPS for the hotel, Jim was searching the TomTom. He finally found the Brussels Marriott Hotel on the TomTom so off we went. The only problem was that we couldn't figure out how to turn OFF the GPS in the dash....SO, I was getting two DIFFERENT sets of directions...all while driving a stick shift car for the first time in as long as I could remember (had to have been over 10 years!) So, while one voice was telling me to turn left, another was telling me turn right. AAGGGHHHH!!! All while trying to shift and not give my passengers (and myself whiplash)!
After quite a few wrong turns, many choice 4 letter words and about 50 minutes later we arrived at our "destination" according to TomTom but, alas, this was the Brussels Marriott Hotel APARTMENTS...not the Brussels Marriott HOTEL! Things that make you go HHHHMMMMM! After searching for the hotel address, figuring out how to plug it into the GPS and almost rear-ending a parked car because I thought I was in reverse when I was in 1st gear, we were off...AGAIN...in search of our hotel. The GPS said it was only 5 minutes away but it also kept telling us to turn the wrong way on one-way streets. (On a side note: Have I mentioned that pedestrians DO NOT have the right of way ANYWHERE in Dubai...well, pedestrians have EVERY RIGHT in Brussels and there are crosswalks EVERYWHERE and many of them are hard to see because they are NOT at intersections. Luckily I only ALMOST took out 2 or 3 pedestrians!) When we were finally less than 1 kilometer away from our hotel, we came upon two fire trucks and two police cars blocking our route. I almost cried! FINALLY, after 1 HOUR AND 45 MINUTES, we arrived at our hotel!!! (Remember how long it took us to get to the office that morning?!?!?) WAS I IN NEED OF A DRINK!!! I think my passengers were too!
We dropped our briefcases in our rooms and headed to find a BAR (that may happen to serve food) STAT! We headed toward an area called the "Grand Place" (pronounced Gran Plass to sound fancy) just a few blocks from our hotel. We walked along cobble stone streets and passed many souvenir shops, restaurants, retail stores and CHOCOLATE shops! We finally made it to the Grand Place and it looked beautiful from what we could see in the dark (see below). After a quick look we headed into a bar/restaurant. No one greeted us at the door. We stood inside the entrance area for a few minutes looking around (like tourists), after no one acknowledged our presence, we seated ourselves. After a few more minutes with no sign of wait staff, Jim went on a mission to find a waiter...we NEEDED BEER! Of course, as soon as Jim was out of sight, a waiter appeared out of thin air. We ordered beer and then looked over the menu. Nothing looked all the appealing but, by now, it was already close to 8:30 PM and I was starving! I ordered some local chicken casserole which ended up to be a chicken leg in chicken gravy with some carrot and celery pieces hard to see with the naked eye....and it was luke warm on the outside and cold on the inside...EEWWWWW! Luckily by the time they had finally brought our dinner we were on our 3rd beer and my taste buds were comfortably numb! My co-workers' meals were no better but the beer was REALLY GOOD!
The next morning we planned to leave the hotel around 7AM to (hopefully) be at the office by 8AM - we had NO IDEA how long it would take us to find the office after our adventure the previous evening. They, surprisingly, wanted me to drive again (success #1) I started the car with no problems (success #2), I backed up the car and didn't hit anything (success #3) but when we went to leave the garage we realized the spiral ramp to lead us to the garage exit was only wide enough for one car at a time and was for both incoming and outgoing cars. There was a sign saying wait on the hash marked pained box on the garage floor and wait for the light to turn green...we waited...and waited...and waited and finally decided to go for it on red! Luckily we didn't run into any oncoming traffic! Whew! We made it to the office in about 45 minutes, including a stop at a gas station to get some breakfast since it was the ONLY place open!
That evening, with the help of BOTH GPS' we made it back to the hotel in around 40 minutes...we were so proud of ourselves! We went to another restaurant overlooking the Grand Place with horrible service, mediocre food and very good beverages! My co-worker living in Saudi was in heaven getting to drink because all alcoholic beverages are banned there and, with the trouble in Bahrain, he hasn't been able to go there for some weekend beverages either!
Wednesday evening we got back around 6PM and weren't scheduled to go to dinner until 7PM so I did a little shopping. I bought chocolate, chocolate, more chocolate...and a magnet! :-) We've started a collection! Unfortunately the whole time we were there it was cold and mostly rainy so it seemed very dreary there....surprising even with all the chocolate available!
A larger group of us headed out to dinner. Earlier in the week, we just happened to run into a CPC sales manager and someone he worked with from Bartlesville, OK in the hotel lobby (SMALL WORLD)! So with 7 of us, we didn't stand a chance for good service. Luckily the company was good and the food was the best we had eaten in Brussels! When looking over the menu, we noticed a menu item called "winkles" we asked the waiter what they were and, instead of describing them to us, he brought us some. They looked like very small snails and they gave us 4 sharp metal picks (stuck into a champagne cork) to dig the snail out of the shell. They were cold and well seasoned and somewhat tasty. I had larger "snails" AKA escargot (sounds so much nicer than snails) as an appetizer. It was the first time I'd gotten them in the shell and had to use the tong thingies that Julia Roberts used in Pretty Woman to hold them while I dug out the meat! Luckily I didn't end up throwing one across the room like she did!
For those of you that don't work for CPChem (even some of you that do) this may be BORING for you because it's all about work stuff so feel free to skip right on through the next paragraph...
Thursday was our last day in Belgium and we went on a tour of a HUGE warehouse/resin packaging facility in Antwerp (Katoen Natie or KTN for non-Dutch speakers). We use the same company in Houston and the Houston facilities are impressive enough but I deemed the Antwerp facility "The Mother Ship". It was massive with over 1000 trucks in/out of the facility each day. They have their own container port on-site with huge container pickers driving all over the facility moving loaded and empty containers around for all different sorts of processing. They let me ride with one of the drivers in a container picker (see photo below)...I was like a kid in a candy store (YES, I AM A GEEK!) They had 1000 storage silo's that held over 400,000 lbs each. They had multiple "silo farms" that varied in function. Some were for hopper truck loading only and the silos were over 2 stories off the ground so the hopper trucks could drive underneath them to gravity load. Others were about 3 - 4 stories off the ground with the silos on top, packaging facilities on the 2nd level and hopper truck loading below to allow for maximum flexibility of the material in the silo. I'll shut up about all this now, but WOW, I was impressed! (Obviously!)
After KTN, we were off to the airport for our flight home. I, of course, had to do more duty free shopping (more chocolate and wine). We left Brussels at 7PM for Munich and then another overnight flight from Munich to Dubai where sleep was close to impossible due to the uncomfortable chairs. We arrived back in Dubai on-time around 6:30 AM and, after quickly clearing customs, we were back in a taxi (luckily with a stench-free driver) and home before 7:30 AM! Whew, was I exhausted but it felt good to be "home"!
We have another trip to Brussels the 2nd week of April and I DO NOT plan to drive while there! :-)
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