Saturday, January 31, 2009

WEEK 1 DONE!


So I have completed my first of 12 weeks at JDS.  I will try to bring you guys an update about what the office is like with some photos eventually, but I don't feel like being a tourist in the place I'm supposed to work... yet.  I will say this, Friday is WINE DAY!  Tonight I'll share with you two things: one subway based, one room mate based.
Exhibit 1:  On your left you see an image.  That image is a representation of me being dumb.  I decided to re-enact the events that lead to me being done in this photo.  This is my subway stop on the work side of my commute.  Maybe I'll include more photos later of my trip to and from the office, but for now this is all you get to see.  This is St. Catherine and there are two entrances.  This one, and another one really far away.  One night I heard the train coming so I thought... Oh, the escalator isn't working I'll run down the stairs and try to catch the train.  WRONG!  Clever Belgians have escalators that start moving when you step on a plate near them.  I almost tripped and fell tumbling into eternity on an upwards moving stair.  I am now beginning to understand the subtlety of the bright red circle with a line through it.
Exhibit 2:  A few people wanted to see some of my room mates, and tonight seemed to be the best possible night to introduce Kellim.  Kellim, Niall and Lynn are like my Belgian Clippy.  If you have to ask, Clippy is the wonderful animated paperclip from Microsoft products that offers useful information when you're doing things.  These three individuals have given me so much extremely necessary advice and help in my first week; I'm not sure I would have made it without them being so kind.  So, Kellim... He is an American, which is nice.  He is rather blurry, but promises it isn't contagious.  I also just finished having an hour long conversation about African Tribal War chief Staves... Oh, that's Central African Tribal Warchief Staves.  Kellim is an African art dealer, and just showed me his prized collection.  He is also an architecture fanatic and has explained how necessary it is to go to Rotterdam.  Finally... Kellim is the person quoted my first day saying "Dude... Brussels Sucks."

2 comments:

  1. the metro looks super slick.. care to take anymore pictures? overall is the system better then NYC?

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  2. Asking if the Belgian metro system is better than the NYC system is like asking if the downtown princeton metro is better than the NYC system. The Dinky (the train from the university to the proper North East Corridor) is only slightly less complex than the Brussels Metro. I'll do a map and stuff to explain how minimal it is in a later post.

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