Two-weeks update planned for next week!

There will be a huge blog update from the last two last to weeks, next week. I'm caught in back-to-back meetings and have to finish my management report in time! Next week you'll all read about the last weekend in the city, my visit to west point, the insanely great and warm weather, my last days of my internship... and plenty more to come!

I'm leaving for Belgium on sunday the 3nd of June and will be landing in Belgium on monday at 8am in the morning. Thanks also for sticking around and reading my updates!

Time is ticking away...

The last weeks have been really intense here at the office: back-to-back meetings, radio show for Doc Rick, meeting with B&B Pools and Spa, meeting with K-Bear. And on top of that I had to write my management report. This weeks wasn't different from all the others. However,  I accomplished something of which I never thought I could do it. More on that in the following blogpost. 

On monday we had our weekly meeting with the guys from K-Bear. The four-to-six week Go-To-Market  Strategy has come to a final stage, but there are still many things to be discussed. It's very exciting for me how this will all turn out. As there are only two weeks left here, I might not be able to see the outcome of the meetings. But I really hope so!

On tuesday I set a big challenge for myself; a challenge which involves perseverance and dedication: 24hour without Facebook. There is a program on my computer called: self-control. It's the perfect program while studying for your exams. You just set the desired time, add a website (e.g. Facebook) to the 'blacklist' and the program blocks Facebook for your desired time. Anyway back to my challenge: it was hard, but I managed to bring it to good end. I'll definitely consider to do that more often. 

On wednesday morning we had to record two radio shows with Doc Rick. The first radio show was a phone interview with David Lerner, a holistic dentist from California. The second radio show was about the benefits of vegan food. In the afternoon we worked at the office on K-Bear, B&B Pools and Spa, Management report... 

Thursdays and fridays were just normal days at the office, so nothing special to report here. However, we got a phone call from Marshall saying that he would stay another week on the west coast, as he had plenty of meetings to attend to. 

During the weekend, I met with Alexandre to go to a cool sports bar to watch the Champions League Finale between Bayern Munich and Chelsea FC. The bar was crowded with blue shirts, drinking beer, supporting their team. It was madness. There were only a dozen of Bayern fans in the bar. Here are some pictures of the afternoon. Luckily for us there was a guy who sold beers for only three dollars a piece; which was a huge deal for us. As the bar was crowded and as beers were six dollars, it would take us a lot of time before we got beer. 

 
It was really nice game but ooo sooo tense. When Drogba scored the winning goals, the bar was going crazy. People throwing their plastic cups in the air, jumping and screaming all over the place. It was insane, a really nice experience! The sports bar was: Legends at Football Factory. A big sports bar on 33rd street between 5th and 6th avenue.

Afterwards I went for take out and ate it in bryant park. The weather was beautiful that day, so it was really nice to hang out there. I also Skyped my parents from there and made them really jealous. I didn't spend the night in the city as I was tired as hell, so I headed back to Cold Spring around 8pm.

Another cool week and weekend has come to an end here. There are less than two weeks left here in Cold Spring, so the time is ticking away here! I'll be back in Belgium in the beginning of June!

Thanks again to all the people who keep reading my blog! Stay tuned and best of luck studying for your exams!

The one with all the Belgians

I hope you all enjoyed reading my last post. Not that much time left for me here in Cold Spring. In only a three short weeks I'm back in Belgium - I'm flying back to Belgium on 2nd of June. I sure am going to miss it here. Don't worry, still three more awesome weeks to go. To all the people studying in Belgium: best of luck, you'll sure do a great job on your exams!!!

On monday we had a 5(!) hour meeting scheduled with K-Bear. A varied meeting in which we discussed lot's of important topics on the Go-To-Market Strategy. The meeting was interrupted by a former Intern from Denmark came by to say visit MKTworks. His name is Jacob and he was an intern here in 2010. It was really nice to hear how he did his internship.

On Tuesday Marshall was caught up in meetings in the Manhattan, while Marc and Me headed down to our weekly meeting with B&B Pools and Spa. Afterwards we headed back to the office to finalize a first draft of my management report, which was due the next day.

Doc Rick wasn't back yet from his trip to the mediterranean, so there was only one radio scheduled for wednesday. As I had to finish up my report, Marshall dropped me off at the office and drove to Poughkeepsie to host the radio-show. In the afternoon we had two meeting scheduled. A first meeting was a lunch meeting with the guys hosting the Facebook page for B&B Pools and Spa. We had lunch in a Chinese restaurant and it was really good food they served. Afterwards we had another meeting in Ramsey, NJ with a contractor/ architect who helped design that kick-ass pool I was talking about in one of my previous blogposts.

On thursday we went to Beacon to see the grandson of Ron competing in a running game. It was a running competition amongst juniors with other schools in the area. Here are some pictures from that same evening. The first pictures was the running game. The second pictures is the picture covering the mailbox at the office with my name on it. When driving back home I also shot a beautiful picture of the sky that day, wonderful don't you think?

On friday I had to drive Marshall to JFK-airport as he was leaving for California to attend business meetings on the West Coast. It was also the first day of the week where the sun was shining high up in the sky. Luckily there were almost no traffic jams, so it was a smooth ride. While entering the airport, I saw the gigantic Boeing 747 with the Spaceshuttle on top. As I was driving, I couldn't take a picture; too bad.

Weekend


For the weekend I had plans to attend 'Belgian Nights Volume 4', organized by the Belgian American Chamber of Commerce (BELCHAM) in the RdV lounge in Meat packing district.

It was a nice sunshiny day on saturday and a nice warm temperature. When I arrived in the city around 2pm, I had barely anything to eat. My plan was to have lunch in 'White Castle', famous from the movie 'Harold and Kumar: Go To White Castle'. The sliders weren't that good but the fries were ok. Here's a picture of my lunch.

Afterwards I wandered around in the city looking for some cool things to do. Apparently there was a movie shooting on 5th avenue with Ben Stiller in it. The movie is called: 'the secret life of Walter Mitty' I didn't see Ben Stiller, but I did saw some stunts being performed: crashing cars, chase scene. Here are some picture I've shot from the surroundings.

Afterwards I took the subway to my hostel on the upper west side to check in.  I found a hostel for only 27$/ night. If you are in the city and looking for a cheap place to crash: International Student Center on 38 west 88th street (Between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue). There were 8 big rooms in the hostel, each with 10 bunk beds and communal washing facilities.

I freshened up a little for the party and took the subway downtown to Meat Packing District where I grabbed a bit to eat and to wait for Alexandre and Alexandre to join me to the party. The party began at 9pm and starting from that moment there was free Stella Artois, Duvel and Palm. So it was a great party. It turned out even greater as a friend of mine studying in New York attended the same party. It was really nice catching up with him and meeting his friends. They are doing a One-year Masters program in which they study in three countries in three different continents: Belgium, India and the U.S. This is probably going to be the option for my Master degree. We'll see.

The party ended at ended at 3am and I headed back to my hostel with the subway. The next morning I had to wake-up before 10am as Check-out was foreseen at 10am. It was another beautiful day in the city: high temperatures and beautiful weather. I decided not to take public transport and walked all the way down to Grand Central through Central Park and 5th avenue. On the way I ate a delicious Real Belgian waffle from 'Wafels & Dinges'.

I took the train back to Cold Spring at 1pm and spent the rest of the day cleaning my apartment, writing my thesis and watching a tv-show.

Stay tuned for some more stories!

Ninth (!) week already...

First of all, sorry for waiting so long to post some new content on the first week of May. My week so far was jam-packed with meetings and assignments for school and work. But here it is, without further or due the content on the first week of may. I have also decided to bring you the story in a rather different way. The workweek won't be as extensive as it was before, as every week barely differs from one another; the weekends however will be more elaborate.

The week started of with a very interesting meeting with the executive team from K-Bear. As I started writing my management report, I fully participated in the meeting to get as much information out of this as possible. We also scheduled a meeting with them for tuesday afternoon.

It has also been quite some time we met with the guys from b&b pools, so we went to Chestnut ridge on tuesday. In the afternoon we had another meeting scheduled with K-Bear where we worked on mapping the results of the WOTS-UP analysis to the Marketing mix (price, place, product and promotion).

Wednesday is normally radio day, but as Doc Rick is cruising the mediterranean for two weeks, Marshall had to do it by himself. He dropped my off at the office and drove to Poughkeepsie to host an interview with a raw-food specialist in California. The rest of the day we spent at the office working both on my management report and office stuff. In the evening Marshall took me to a delicious italian restaurant on Main Street: Cathryn's Tuscan Grill where I had a delicious linguini seafood platter.

Thursday was a quiet day at the office, which gave me plenty of time to work on my notes for K-Bear and try integrating them in my management report. This report is due end of May and has to contain 10000 words. I'm afraid I will be exceeding that number as I have so stuff to write on. Ron also checked in at the office after three weeks of absence. It was really nice seeing him again as he helped my with some research for K-Bear.

 

On friday we were invited by the wife of Marc to watch her play in Garrison. The play is called 'The Way of the World' and was a really good play with a lot of energy, humor and activity on the stage. I was glad I accepted the invitation to watch because the cast did an awesome job. Sometimes it was difficult for me to understand the language they were talking as it was in shakespearean english. Afterwards we congratulated the cast and went for a big to eat in the riverview restaurant. Here are some pictures of the play.

Weekend


On saturday it was 'Cinco de Mayo' which is a famous holiday for the mexicans to commemorate the Mexican army's unlikely victory over the French forces at the Battle of Pueble on May 5, 1862. This day is both commemorated and celebrated by Mexicans and Americans. I was invited by Alexandre to go to the city and join the party - which was going on all day long - on the '230 Rooftop bar' on fifth avenue. There wasn't really a party going on there, so we just had a beer ($9) and were soon on our way to another bar where the beer wasn't that expensive. Here is the magnificent view you had from up there; too bad the weather was cloudy that day.

Afterwards we went to the brewhouse where we had a few drinks and watched the game of FC Barcelona and Espanyol. The game was not important anymore but it was to honor and say goodbye to Pep Guardiola. We also surfed the internet for some nice places to go in the evening and we stumbled upon a nice place near Bryant park where the bear was cheap and the ambiance was good. The party only started at 9pm, so I went looking for a hostel to stay the night and went for dinner to the BXL Belgian Café afterwards.

Near Bryant park there was a new TV-show being shot; a new HBO show called Newsroom. There weren't any famous actors - maybe soon to-be - playing in the show. I'll definitely check out the premiere to see what it is about.

Afterwards we went to the bar where the 'cinco de mayo' party was held. The concept of the party was really cool: you received a piece of paper with a spanish question on it and you had to find the girl with that same question but then in English. Once you have find your match, you received a free drink. The concept was really great, however the age difference was big. We stayed there for about two hours and met a Spanish guy who lived lived in New York.

Afterwards we wandered around looking for a bar to drink some beer and have some fun. We came across several bars, but none of them seemed fun. Eventually we found a place on 7 E36st street between madison and 5th avenue. The pub was called: Downtown Galway Hooker (For those of you who think I went to a strip club, Galway Hooker is a traditional sailing boat used in Galway Bay off the coast of Ireland) which is a nice crowded bar with a good atmosphere and ambiance. Here is a  picture of the atmosphere of the bar. It was 3am when we got out of dodge and wanted to see how the most crowded place in New York looked like by night: Times Square. It was really great to walk there at night; except for maybe 100 people it was an empty place. It was soooo great walking there, knowing that during the day you'd be run over by tourists.

It was 4am when I arrived at the hostel and went to bed immediately. The next morning I woke up at 10.30am, as I had to check out at 11am, and I headed directly to Grand Central Station to take the train back to Cold Spring. I spent the rest of the day watching series, catching up on some reading and writing my management report. So another week has gone by here. I begin to realize that my internship is nearing its end, only three more weeks left. But that means three more weeks to enjoy my time here and grasp every opportunity with two hands.

See you next week with more stories of my life here.