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!