As I've mentioned, the trip to Belgium is a business trip to teach a Selenia service class to international service engineers. I did however arrive on a Saturday and the class does not start until Monday. There are a few reasons to come in early the best being that I can get accustomed to the time change before the class starts. The other is that I get to see the facility on Sunday before I actually get there to teach.
I flew Delta/KLM partner flights to Amsterdam then on to Brussels. The flight to Amsterdam departed at 7:05pm. In truth it pulled the gate away at that time but it didn't move for another 20 minutes. They said we were going to have no tail wind and we would be late arriving for certain. I am betting the sitting around for 20 minutes doing nothing didn't help that. I ended up on an aisle seat next to an Indian man who was pleasant and spoke English very well. We talked for a bit until the entertainment system came on then I watched Despicable Me followed by part of a Japanese film about a girl trying to be a concert pianist while here boyfriend was a conductor. It was very strange Japanese but being tired I did crash through some of it. I woke up and saw the end then shut the system off and slept some more. My neighbor was a loud snorer and also he was talking in his sleep in Indian a bit of the flight. I am not sure what he was saying but I don't think he was dreaming about his wife or girlfriend at least. That might have been awkward. The flight was basically uneventful and the food, which I had pasta, wasn't all that bad but we did indeed arrive 45 minutes late. That basically put me to landing while my next plane was supposed to be boarding already. When we landed in Amsterdam it was cold and snowing lightly. The snow I had heard about amounted to maybe an inch to an inch and a half on the ground from what I could see.
I ran across the airport (you always have to in Schipol) and rescreened security to find that my next flight was delayed 25 minutes so they hadn't started boarding yet. A bit relieved I was also a touch annoyed. Especially when I found out that it was delayed because they didn't have a flight crew ready for it. We ended up probably leaving about 40 minutes late and had to go through de-icing. All through the lost time the weather started to pick up and get worse and worse until by the time we were taking off the conditions were basically white out. I was fairly amazed at how quickly it turned that way. I was seated next to a Belgian man who told me a little bit about Brussels. The actual flight in air time was less than a half an hour. Almost pointless. It certainly would have been if it was not a connecting flight. In any event, the weather was a bit easier in Belgium when we landed though the plane which was a Fokker 70 was bouncing around all over on the way down. I had to wait some time to get my luggage and took a cab to the hotel. There I cleaned up quickly from the long journey. It is always good to wash the airports off yourself.
After a few minutes I got out and walked around the town a bit. The city is clean and the map makes it look sort of sprawling though I don't really think it is that big. The weather was picking up a bit by this time and as I walked around I noticed that a lot of the businesses around here were closed. It being a Saturday afternoon it didn't make a lot of sense but I have to suspect the weather. There were not many cars on the road either. I wandered until I was a fair bit down the hill where I finally found an open and busy Brasserie. I was quite hungry so I stopped in and had a beer, a brune Tongerlo (which of course is a small Belgian brewery, probably originally an abbey). It was interesting if maybe it had slight perfumy taste to it. I liked it. I coupled that with a cheeseburger which I ate like an American. After eating I walked around a bit more then when I realized the beer ran through me very quickly I decided to head back to the hotel because I was very tired as well and it was still fairly cold out as well. Amazingly I found my way back without having to consult the map or GPS feature of the phone. On the way back I stopped at a shop to buy a quick bit of snack food and a couple more beers for the night or two ahead.
I decided to take it easy for a while then later on I made the easy prepare pasta that I bought. Well, I actually made half of it and ate that along with a Leffe Brune as accompaniment. From there it was almost bedtime.
The pictures from day 1 can be found here.
No comments:
Post a Comment