Pozor schod

Hi everyone,

My training is continuing in a similar way as the 2 weeks before.
However, there are a few things I can share about:

About the IBIS Charleroi Airport hotel...
Last week I was staying in the centre of Charleroi, and working next to the airport, just outside the city. For this week I had a booking in the Charleroi Airport hotel. On Monday I took the bus service from Brussels to Charleroi Airport in order to get to the hotel.
When I arrived at Charleroi airport I saw a small sign that pointed to IBIS hotel. I started walking with my suitcase along the big road next to the airport.
20 minutes later, 2 kilometers down the road, I had finally passed all the airport buildings, take-off strips and parking lots, but still there was no hotel to be seen.
A few hundred meters further, also the sidewalk ended and turned into a small muddy strip next to the road. However, there was another small sign: IBIS hotel. I bravely continued.
After about 5 kilometers, I was getting a bit desperate and tired, but in the distance I saw 2 big apartment blocks. For the rest there were only small houses, fields and lots of cows, so this had to be the hotel.
After 6 kilometers I reached these blocks and noticed that they were not the long awaited hotel. Then I saw another dreaded sign to the IBIS hotel. Looking in that direction I finally saw the hotel. It was still 1 kilometer more but I was already glad to have found it.
Conclusion: IBIS Charleroi Airport is 7 kilometers north from the airport, while IBIS Charleroi Centre is 5 kilometers south from the airport. In the end, the receptionist of the hotel clarified the logic for me. The hotel is closer to the airport than to the centre, so their name makes sense...
A taxi to get back to the airport from there is 20 EUR. No decent bus connection that takes less than 1 hour is available. Probably this hotel is for people who take their car in their luggage.

About Sibelga...
After living in Brussels for 2 years, in August I properly filled out all the paperwork to end my electricity contract. Sibelga seems to need 4 pages of information to close an account, but I nicely put everything they wanted. I noted all the counter numbers and amounts, I wrote down my new address to send the final bill to, I photocopied my passport and I sent the whole thing to the company. Case closed... or so I thought.
This week I visited my old address in Brussels and guess what? There was a bill of 544 EUR, sent to the old address. These 544 EUR were my extra charges for the months of June and July, over the money I already paid earlier on. Interestingly enough this amount is higher than all bills of the past year put together. On the phone I first enjoyed classical music for half an hour, but then I quickly discovered that one of the counter amounts from my forms had been typed in incorrectly.
No problem according to my correspondent, I just needed to do all the paperwork again, and then they would see what they could do!!! I asked what happened to my original file, but these seem to be thrown away after typing them in the system.
When I insisted on a better solution, she proposed to send a technician to the apartment to check the counters, because probably I didn't read the numbers right! I asked if she was kidding and if she couldn't just contact someone else in the company.
After listening to one more classical concert I got her back on the phone with 'good news'. They will change the number and send me a new bill later next week. The amount on that one will be 8 EUR. I am curious to see if this will be the end of this story.

About home...
Right now I am spending the weekend in Antwerp with my family. This will probably be my last weekend at home in a long period. It is very nice to be in Brecht and enjoy my family, the garden, the house, the food,...
During most of my trips, I didn't miss home a lot, but now I can see a lot of things which I will have to miss for a long time. Let's see how I think about that in a few months.

About AIESEC involvement...
On Thursday I visited Brussels to go to the weekly AIESEC drink. First I met Habib from Cameroon, but now from AIESEC International who was staying in my old apartment.

Then I had a very nice chat with Paulo from Portugal, the newest AIESEC intern in Belgium. Paulo will spend 1 year in DHL in Brussels. He was asking me how I feel about being at the end of my AIESEC career. My conclusion is that I am not exactly at the end yet. I spent last weekend at September National Conference, on 13th of October I'll go to the local conference of AIESEC Praha and after that I hope to be a trainer at the international conference FEEL in Slovakia in the beginning of November.

Here comes the promised conference report...

I arrived to the conference at 1 am on Friday, actually Saturday morning. This was thanks to Kristina from the organising committee who picked me up from the Pardubice train station. Thank you Kristina!

As soon as I arrived, I noticed that I could meet both old and new faces here. There were actually more known faces than I expected. Several people who I met at TWIN in Germany, EuroLDS in Belgium, New Years Eve in Prague and other international events were present in the conference.


I also saw the new Czech MC in action. First they win the Topalky drinking competition on Friday and afterwards they still deliver really top quality sessions. I am impressed, guys and girls!

During the whole conference we could enjoy nice and sunny Czech autumn weather.


On Saturday evening we had Global Village. I am proud to tell you that I consumed the traditional LC Praha drink without spilling. As you can see on the picture below Ondra is holding 2 shots of liquor. One for me and... one more for me. The art is to drink both at exactly the same time.



I also learned that money from New Zealand is impossible to tear. You can see me trying below, but I can assure you that also stronger individuals did not manage to destroy the bank note.


On Sunday we had a relaxed end of the conference with many cool outdoor activities.



And now it's back to Belgium...

Tonight I flew back from Brussels to Prague after 2 weeks of training in Belgium.
Of course I would like to share the main events of these 2 weeks with you.

On Wednesday I went to Brussels to the birthday party of Ola from Poland. Before the party I passed by my old apartment to se how the new MC team was doing. I found the new inhabitants busy with different housekeeping tasks.



Ola's surprise party was taking place in a Moroccan restaurant called Kasbah. This was a great place to catch up with friends and to enjoy food which is hard to get in Prague. I tried the traditional Moroccan lamb tagine.



Every Thursday, within the Global Headquarters of InBev there is a free bar where you can sample the InBev products. Of course this is a popular event for InBev interns. As you can see we were grabbing opportunities like true AIESECers.





Afterwards we went for a nice dinner in Leuven. Because we were already in the mood anyway, we decided to continue the evening in Brussels.




In Brussels I visited the weekly AIESEC in Belgium Intern drink in Mezzo. It was good to see that the new MC is continuing this tradition in style.




The next morning it was a bit more difficult to wake up than usual, but I still managed to arrive in time for work in Leuven.


I spent the weekend at home with my family.

Then I moved to Charleroi for my next week of training. Unfortunately this city is not so entertaining, but I still managed to take some pictures to give you an impression. I spent most of the week eating different types of fast food. A cool thing about Charleroi are that there are statues of comic book figures everywhere.




By Thursday evening I had enjoyed Charleroi enough. (Read: I was bored to death.) That's why I decided to go to Brussels and enjoy beers in Mezzo. Before that I had dinner with Pedro and Makis in a small Greek restaurant in the famous 'Pitta street'.


In the drink there were no MC members, as they were all preparing for the national conference, but many AIESEC EHSAL members showed up as they were in the first week of their academic calendar.






Now I am back in Czech Republic to enjoy the September National Conference. A report of the conference will be available asap.

This is the first week of my exotic international training in Belgium. We are now in InBev headquarters learning about the different computer systems.
Of course this is also a nice opportunity for me to meet family and friends.



On Monday I had a drink with my mom and dad in Diegem, near the hotel where I am staying. Yesterday I went to see Elie, Annelies, Maggy, Eva and Robin in the center of Brussels.





It looks like my training program might last one week longer than expected before, so I think I'll be in Belgium most of the time until mid October.

Zatim, ('See you' in Czech)
Kevin

Friday's agenda contained a visit to the Staropramen brewery, followed by a visit to a pub that is serving all the different InBev beers. As I was already missing Kriek a lot I was very happy to be able to enjoy this real Brussels beer in my new environment. It was very good to have some beers with the colleagues before we all prepare for our training program in Belgium.






Soon, AIESEC CZU, my local committee here is soon sending someone to Belgium for an internship at InBev! Obviously I was interested in helping Zdenka with the preparation for her year in Belgium. This morning we met for a tea in the center of Prague. I had a nice time and I am sure Zdenka is going to have a lot of fun in Belgium. She is very prepared now and by now she also has a Lonely Planet guide to Belgium (and Luxemburg).



On Monday morning I am taking the 7am flight to Belgium to start my 4 week training program. I will be based in Leuven and Charleroi for the first 2 weeks. For my friends/readers/fans based in Belgium, I would be very happy to meet some of you during this period. Feel free to propose in a comment where we can meet. Personally I was thinking about AIESEC in Belgium's intern drink at Mezzo, but other suggestions are more than welcome.

See you soon!

This week is mainly focused on classroom training. At the Regus office building, where InBev is temporarily placed until the final offices are ready, I am having trainings in a group of 20 people, who will all be responsible of different parts of the Order to Cash process. My tasks are related to the pricing policy of the InBev products. I will spend most of the next month in Belgium, to learn more about my tasks from the people in Leuven.




On Tuesday we had the first meeting of AIESEC CZU after the summer break. Lots of people showed up at Druhej Svet, the bar where it was taking place. There wasn't much of an agenda, but it was a lot of fun. I also tried Absinth for the first time. With this 70% alcohol drink you get a spoonful of sugar. You dip it in the alcohol and then you light it, to produce caramel. Then you stir the caramel into the absinth and you drink it all.




This evening I went with Lenard, Lukas and Katka to 3 different bars to try 3 different beers. The overall evaluation is that Czech beers are very nice.




Tomorrow, my training program includes a visit to the Staropramen breweries, in order to know exactly how beer is made. I am already looking forward to it.

The last party of IC was the African party. As you can see in the picture it was good fun and the almost endless supply of InBev beer was still there.



Back in Prague, my new priority was laundry. The little Bosch washing machine was doing a great job and thanks to the very windy balcony here at the 11th floor, the clothes were dry in no time.




In the evening I still went shopping with Judit. I now am the proud owner of a lifetime supply of washing powder and scotch tape. I am now using the scotch tape to decorate my room with my AIESEC badges. Pictures will follow when it's ready.