Big Adventure - Belgium, Day 4

Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Official Day two was another early bus ride and day full of meetings. We ate at the cafeteria again... totally gross! After lunch we all took a tour of the Tupperware plant. It was interesting to see how the products were made, tested, stored, and distributed. I took some photos and video to commemorate the tour. It was an impressive operation. After the tour it was back to the meeting.



We left at 5pm to travel to Brussels to eat dinner.  The bus ride was rough.  We got caught in rush hour traffic in the city and the driver kept up a steady back and forth movement to ensure everyone was car sick.  We finally stopped because the bus couldn't fit on the road we needed to get to.  Everyone got off the bus so relieved to be breathing fresh air and in the process was hit with some pretty cold temperatures! The sun was out but I wore my leather jacket almost the whole time we were there.

We began to walk on some serious cobblestone sidewalks gruffling under our breath about the bus ride.  With my head down watching where I walked, I was totally taken by surprise when I looked up to see the entire group in this large courtyard.  It took my breath away. It is called the Grand Place and it is one of the biggest tourist destinations in Brussels. The courtyard is lined with guildhall buildings from the 13th century and city hall. The buildings were huge and so ornate, so tall, and some trimmed in gold. It was breathtaking and made the horrible bus ride totally worth it.

Restaurant - La Maison du Cygne

Grand Place - Maison du Roi

Grand Place Courtyard

Everard 't Serclaes

We entered the restaurant and climbed a winding staircase to the top floor.  Our restaurant, La Maison du Cygne, was one of the buildings in the courtyard. Just outside the entrance was a famous bronze statue called the Everard 't Serclaes.  Touching the arm of the statue was suppose to bring you good luck.  Since we were headed to dinner I let the other people in the group do all the touching. The interior was wood with enchanting chandeliers and wall treatments. It looked so elegant. The private room where we were seated had four large tables. Our appetizer was thinly sliced beef with a blob of vanilla ice cream and lettuce on top. Turns out the beef was raw and the ice cream was mixed with parmesan cheese. The menu called it L’Incontournable Carpaccio de boeuf Marine’ a’ l’Huile d’ Olive, Basilic et Glace au parmesan. It didn’t taste too bad but I just couldn’t get the raw part out of my head so I kept it to a sample size. The main entrée was lamb and potatoes and it was followed with a sampling of cheeses and crème brulee for dessert.

The food was super fancy but the service was super slow. I was told that slow meals was the European way. I normally would be fine with that but I was so tired by the time we reached 3 hours I could hardly keep my eyes open. After some lively conversation at my table and the need to stretch, I excused myself to go to the restroom. When I got to the hall where the bathrooms were the labels on each room were in French and there was no sign of the little skirt or pants figures. So I guessed! Luckily, I guessed right!  We wrapped things up at the restuarant and began our walk back to our bus. The courtyard was lit up like a palace. It was an amazing scene. We ended up back at the hotel around 11pm but the experience was very memorable and well worth it.

La Maison du Roi at night

Big Adventure - Belgium, Day 3

Monday, May 2, 2011

Aalst

Our first official day started at 8am and the jet lag made it feel like 2am. I just pushed through it. Breakfast was quick. I grabbed an apple yogurt, which I discovered is much more runny than US yogurt, and some cereal and joined the group on the motor coach bus for our journey to Aalst. Aalst was a very small town industrial looking area. There were plenty of homes but a lot of businesses, warehouses, and plants. It was about a 30 minute drive to the Tupperware Plant where our meetings were being held. I loved looking at all the surroundings on our drive. The highway was lined by a very rural looking homes and fields. It was very green and reminded me a lot of Indiana. Each day we would drive by three huge, super-techy windmills. They were so big and so out of place.

Giant Wind Machines

Scenery on our Route

Once we arrived at the plant we would head to our conference room for a full day of meetings. My meeting buddy was Simone from Tupperware Italy. We sat by each other every day and would make funny comments to keep things light throughout the day. Lunch was at the employee cafeteria. It was pitiful but it was free.

That night we traveled back to Gent for dinner at another local restaurant called T Pakhuis. It was an old warehouse that had been converted to a restaurant. We were seated on the second floor and were served a set menu. We had the shrimp appetizer again plus a spoonful of cheesy potatoes which were just plain awesome. The second course was Goose Liver! I tried it but I would never order it. It was gray and tasted like fancy bologna that was almost spoiled. The main entree was cod wrapped in seaweed seasoned with fennel. I was so hungry that I ate it, but I discovered that I am not a fan of fennel. Dessert was a sampling of tiramisu, chocolate cake, mousse, and pistachio ice cream. The evening was full of interesting conversation and I left full and ready for bed.

After dinner, we walked back to the hotel taking in all the buildings and the town at night. The buildings were all lit up and magical looking. It actually looked like a scene from a murder mystery but there wasn't any fear or scary music. It was quite the romantic scene except that I was surrounded by people I barely knew from work!

All the streets we walked on in Gent were cobblestone so walking in heels was a bit of a challenge. Luckily, I was able to do some tip-toe moves and I made it back to the hotel without twisting an ankle.

Gent at night

Big Adventures - Belgium, Day 1 & 2

I found out in late March that I had been invited to attend a worldwide marketing conference for work. It was in Belgium the first week of May. I always try and document my trips but I just keep it for me.  A friend of mine recently pointed out that this would be good blog material.  Funny enough, I had a blog!  This was my first time traveling to Europe so the following posts are all about my adventures.

Day 1 & 2

Saturday, April 30, 2011, Dad took me to the airport to catch 1:45pm flight to Philadelphia, PA.  I met up with Michele from work at the Orlando airport. We flew to Philly to get a connecting flight to Brussels, Belgium via US Airways. Thanks to work, we got to fly 1st Class.  I am not sure I will be able to fly coach ever again. You are treated so well and I enjoyed every minute of it. They gave us goody bags, a pillow, a blanket and kept feeding us the whole flight.

The long leg of the of the flight was about 7.5 hours long but luckily it was overnight so all we really wanted to do after dinner was sleep. That proved to be a bit of a challenge because the chairs just didn’t recline enough and the air circulating was so dry that it made it very uncomfortable to breathe. I managed to get a little sleep and we arrived at about 8am on May 1^st (2am Orlando time). We made it through customs without issue and I officially got the first stamp in my passport. We grabbed our bags and met up with some other work people waiting on a ride to the hotel in the city of Gent. We shared a ride with Paul (Asia) and Anshu (India). It was about a 40 minute ride but I was so out of it that it didn't matter.  I was like a zombie and thank goodness when we got to the Marriott in Gent our rooms were ready.

Marriott Gent

Canal in Gent

I slept for about 2 hours and then met up with the group to take a tour of Gent.  What a beautiful city!  Everything looked like a scene from a movie except it was the real deal!  Things were so old and so ornate.  Buildings are just not made that way any more. There was so much detail and the materials have lasted for 1000s of years. The tour was good.  We ended up going to the giant church near the middle of the city called the Saint Bavo Cathedral. The main tower was so tall and when you walked in it was open all the way to the top.  There were brick buttresses, arches, artwork, sculptures and lots of wood and stone materials.  The decor was so ornate and represented many different religious symbols, people, and stories. It was beautiful but I found myself feeling very indifferent about the religious connection.  This happened to me in Montreal too. It was beautiful but for me, it just seemed like the emphasis was on the building and not God. I took lots of pictures and our guide on the tour kept asking questions about world history that no one knew the answers too.  He would ask us the trivia questions about European History and everyone in the group was silent.  Partly because we were mostly American, but partly because we were all so jet lagged we were ready to nod off.

Outside the Cathedral

Inside Cathedral

After visiting the church we decided to go to a local cafe called Krokantino for real Belgium waffles and beer.  The waffles were awesome! Light and crispy and fresh, not heavy like Americanized waffles.  The people I was with seemed to really enjoy their beer too.  Michele and I returned to the hotel to rest and then met up with the group at 7pm for dinner.  We walked to a building across the street from the hotel to a restaurant called De Witte Leeuw. It was on the other side of the river Lys canal.  The hotel was located on a canal that ran throughout the city.  The buildings were made of stone and wood and had very steep sloping roofs.  They looked like an old village town that you would see in a Christmas display!  Dinner was chicken and potato soup with some shrimp appetizers, rolls, and ice cream with hot fudge for dessert.  It was my first taste of Belgium chocolate and it was everything it was said to be!

It was awesome weather the whole day.  

Restaurant, 4th building from right

It was bright and sunny with a cool breeze and about 70 degrees.  We stayed at the restaurant for several hours and returned to the hotel for the evening.  I was exhausted.  Once I got caught up with email and Facebook I tried to sleep.  It was a six hour time difference so the jet lag was pretty bad.  I couldn’t believe I was in a different country.  It was like a dream.  It was like I was experiencing time travel.