Pozor schod

The past 7 days really had a bit of everything in them, except new postings on my blog. Now I'll make a comeback with a complete report of everthing that might be of interest to you, and most likely even more...

Wednesday and Thursday:
The Skoda Roomster Roadshow 2006 ended in the home country of Skoda with free concerts by 2 excellent Czech bands. I enjoyed both Support Lesbiens (already for the second time) and Chinaski. If you are wondering what these bands sound and look like, try the following links: Support Lesbiens - Sweet Little Something and Chinaski - Muj Svet (My World).





Thursday:
After the Chinaski concert, there was a party for InBev personnel in the Touster club. Many people showed up and we had a fun evening. An interesting fact was that the club did not sell any InBev products.





Friday morning:
It was not so easy to get to work in time after such a nice party, but I managed anyhow. During the day, I took some random pictures of different people in the office. Here are my neighbours Ringo and Alena. Alena is working right of me, Ringo is on my left.




Friday evening:
Abi from the office suggested to go see a small concert of his friend from Iran who sings in a French bar here in Czech Republic. Shahab's songs were in English, Spanish and Farsi (Persian). I love the internationalism of this city!




Saturday:
The day started with another attempt at baking pancakes. This time, I managed to get it all right. I am now what a Czech person would call "palacinkovy expert".
In the afternoon, Katka passed by to teach me Czech and practice her French. Many hours of practice later I was very happy because I am sure I learnt a lot. Thanks, Katka!
I spent most of the evening walking around the city with Judit, Marian and Zsuzsi, looking for the "Palma restaurant", which was quite hard to find... Only when we finally arrived to "Restaurace Fama" we noticed our mistake. Many trainees had been there for hours already and were preparing to move to club N11. We didn't hesitate to join...




Sunday morning:
At 5 am, on the night tram back home from the club I noticed that I had to change to daylight savings time. This meant one extra hour of sleep, which was welcome indeed.

Sunday evening:
I met Solnitchka (Jana), fellow Nomadlife blogger, AIESEC alumna and above all a very nice and spontaneous person. I had a very nice evening and thanks to Jana's good advice I now also have a new winter jacket. I like its happy color. I just hope nobody will kill me when I will be wearing it.




Monday:
I love the metro system here. It is really fast and modern. Kobylisy is the metro stop I use when I get to work. In the evening I also took a small walk at the Vysehrad station, where you have a great view of Prague. Then I continued to Cerny Most where I found the newest member of our household here: a Zyxel wireless router. Bye bye, internet cable!




Tuesday:
Today, I am leaving to Slovakia to facilitate at the international conference FEEL 2006. I am looking forward to facilitating at a longer conference again. The 11 hour train and bus ride which I'll have to make on my own to get there seems a bit less appealing for now...

Yesterday evening I had a small birthday party with Judit. It was very fun. She bought 2 small pies and also gave me a nice warm scarf which will be useful in the Prague winter. Thanks, Judit, I am happy to have such a nice roommate.




Today I received birthday wishes from many friends and overall it was a very nice day. One of the very nice presents I got is a table with all main Czech grammmar in one A3 sheet. This present from Jana will for sure help me in my attempts to learn Czech. Thanks, Jana!

In the evening, in the LC meeting of AIESEC CZU, new members were learning about AIESEC and got to choose the team they want to work in. Also interns are allowed to join a project, so now I am a member of the IT project. The team leader of this project is Pitri. I don't know her well yet, but I am looking forward to working together.






After the meeting, I still went to the city center to meet LC Praha. They were having in a party in La Fabrique, which is a nice club with expensive beer prices. I had a Stella Artois and I enjoyed the party until just before midnight, when everybody left in order to catch the last metro.

I spent most of the weekend cleaning and arranging small logistical things, but there were also some nice activities. On Saturday there was an AIESEC drink in the center. I won't post pics of this one as some people are getting worried about me turning into an alcoholic. ;)

On my last flight back from Belgium I brought some Belgian endives (witloof/chicons). This weekend was one week after that so it was about time for some real Belgian cooking. Thanks to a website I found on Google (Koken voor klunzen) and some creativity I managed to have a pretty good meal. It looks like Judit and myself are a good cooking team.




After lunch we went to see the InBev Tigers kick some ass. The company football team was doing a good job, and the competition was absolutely not up for it, so we witnessed a glorious 13-0 victory. In the beginning it was quite entertaining, but after a while we started to feel sorry for the other team.



I am also proud to tell that this morning I woke up before 7 in order to still do some laundry before work. I am less proud to say that with my sleepy head I forgot to wash the shirt that I actually wanted to wash in the first place, so I had to handwash it. Next time I'll stay up longer and do the laundry in the night...

I just finished my first week of work in the brand new InBev office in the Chodov business park. Let's start with a few pics of my new work environment. I only took pictures outside until now so for an inside view you'll have to wait till a later update.





Outside working hours there was of course also some AIESEC activity this week. AIESEC Praha had an LC meeting, and I was invited. When I arrived, I noticed that in one of the top 10 Local Committees in the world, a meeting is very much like a conference. Lots of energy, lots of people,... it was very nice. Afterwards we still went for drinks in a bar near the university.
The most unexpected moment in this evening was when suddenly Victoria from Ukraine walked into the room. After the conference TWIN 2003 in Germany I did not manage to keep in touch with her, and now suddenly she was there. It is only now that we found out that we both ended up as interns in Czech Republic. However her internship was 1 year before mine, so now she was only in the city to visit friends. Victoria, the large version of the picture below should be in your mailbox by now.






On Thursday night there was the InBev birthday celebration for October. This monthly event is not so much about the birthdays but more about meeting all your colleagues while having a snack and a drink. I left quite soon after it began, as Jana, one of our colleagues for the Luxemburg market, suggested to go to a flamenco concert. Judit and myself packed immediately and took the metro to the city center. Jana's cousin Lubos took us by car to the concert building, which previously was a church. Inside it was unfortunately not allowed to take pictures, but I can tell you that the concert was great. Afterwards we still went to an Irish pub, where my camera was welcome again :).




That's it for now, tonight there is a meeting of AIESEC CZU, so I am heading to the center to meet the AIESECers.

During the past weekend I was invited to the AIESEC Praha Local Training Conference. In this weekend the local committee introduces its new members to AIESEC, its way of working, its people, its parties, etc.
I was amazed to see this very fun conference being run with an incredible level of professionalism and energy. This conference was an absolute eye-opener for me.
I learnt a lot, I got into really interesting discussions with both old and new members, I partied till 6 AM, and I was blown away by the spirit and atmosphere in this local committee.
In the bus on the way back people were singing and playing guitar non-stop for almost 2 hours. This was definitely my most memorable bus ride so far...
Thanks guys!

During my last week in Belgium I really took the opportunity to still get in touch with some more people. Two very memorable meetings also took place in this week...

The first one was a reunion of the AIESEC in Belgium Member Committee 2004-2005. We managed to get the whole team together in the apartment of Wouter and Diana, who cooked some delicious Thai rice. The moments when our whole team is in Belgium at the same time are getting more and more rare, so we had to take the opportunity.
Two other notable guests in the reunion were a bottle of Czech absinth (70% alcohol) and a book titled "101 nights of grrreat sex", which we found on the bookshelf in the apartment.




As previous president of AIESEC in Belgium I still have an advisory role in which I can give the organisation a helping hand. On Thursday we had the first official Board of Advisors meeting with the new MC team, now that they have hosted their first conference and planned their year. The meeting was a big success, with 6 out of 9 BoA members present.

On 11th of August I arrived to Czech Republic to start my internship. In case I would have signed up for the minimum duration AIESEC offers, it would be time to go back home now. (In fact I even am back home but that's on a business trip.)

However, I feel that for me this adventure is just starting and that I have a lot of things to learn. I am really happy that I have taken the opportunity to spend a year in Czech Republic and really have the time to get to know the country.

Thanks to Jiri, Judit, Lukas, Katka, Martin, Sirle, Ofi, Majka, Ondra, Menia, Jirka, Roman, Tereza and all the others who have already been part of the very nice time I spent as an AIESEC intern so far. I feel really welcome in AIESEC Czech Republic.

Today, I am 4 AIESEC years old.

It's exactly 4 years ago that I walked into a classroom in Antwerp, together with Christophe Lemmens. We did this because Marie-Laure, who was studying with me, was worried that nobody would come to the infosession she was organising. We were getting a free sandwich and we had nothing better to do, so we went to fill 2 chairs.

I can hardly imagine what I would be doing now if I would have had something else to do on that day. AIESEC fascinated me from that moment on and it has determined a lot of my choices over the past 4 years. Sometimes fun, sometimes difficult, the past 4 years have changed me as a person.


Thank you, AIESEC!
Special thanks to Eva, Marie-Laure, Florian, Xavier, Stijn, Adelina and Ellen, the team that recruited me and introduced me in this wonderful organisation.

This morning I woke up and decided to make some nice instant pancakes. Unfortunately I screwed up the water/powder ratio so turning it over in the pan became impossible. The result was still tasty, but it wouldn't score many points in a beauty contest.

What would you do if you receive a mail like this?
-----Original Message-----
From: Maria Calleja
Subject: Boban's here - dinner for old time's sake on Thursday!

Dear all,

As we all know, our dearest friend Boban is coming back to Brussels again!! (Boban, I wonder why we had a farewell party for you :):):) you always seem to come back :) ) So a get together dinner will happen this Thursday at 8pm at Cabraliego - (next to the club Havana).
Cabraliego is good for tapas! Please do not expect a funky/stylish restaurant... however the tapas are excellent.... :):):)
See you at Cabraliego on Thursday at 8:30

Cheers,
Maria
--------------------------
As I wanted to catch up with Boban and I like tapas, I headed to Brussels right after work yesterday. Unfortunately I found Cabraliego closed and covered with elections posters.
After some phone calls I ended up for dinner at "Sultans of Kebab" with Boban and Eduardo and afterwards in the weekly drink at Mezzo. It was officially not taking place as we already had a drink yesterday, but I think there were even more people than most other Thursdays. It was also Anju's birthday party (Happy birthday, Anju!) so in the end I still had a very nice evening.

Here we go with some pics:

Obviously in Mezzo they think that AIESECers smoke a lot. The staff kept bringing on ashtrays.


Paola, please update your blog soon. If you don't have inspiration you can write about me :-)


Find the future New York citizen...


The tallest and shortest AIESECers put together. Never mind me being average in the middle. ;-)


I was surprised to see Juan and Daniela in this drink, and they felt the same.

Challenge AIESEC Leuven, the newest Local Committee in the Belgian AIESEC network organised a drink yesterday night for the InBev interns, their managers and all others who wanted to join.
First, we met up in bar Den Exit near the Oude Markt to enjoy some InBev beers and have a chat. Later in the evening we still continued the party in a place called Rector, on the Oude Markt.

I wanted to share some pictures:

A week with a lot of travel within Belgium, but I don't mind taking trains when I have a good reason to do so.

I spent the weekend at home with my family. This time I thought about taking pictures, but only in the last minute, so the shots are a bit random. Anyway, here we go...



On Monday I was working in Leuven. Coincidentally, this was the first working day of Zdenka, a member of AIESEC CZU who is now starting her internship in Belgium. As usual on a first working day, all the InBev interns were having lunch together to welcome the newcomer. Notice Rachel in the picture below, eating from her lunchbox with chopsticks. I know it's not very culturally sensitive, but I really found this funny.



Yesterday I went to Brussels for the evening, to meet Norica. As she is no longer living the internship life, I hadn't seen her in the weekly drinks, but I really wanted to know how she is doing.
I had to wait a bit for her French class to finish, so in the meantime I met Elena, Paulo and Vishal. THe MC was quite busy as they were being visited by Mairi from AIESEC International.





I didn't take any pictures with Norica, but I'll make sure to do so next time. Sorry, Norica!

Tonight I will be in Leuven for the AIESEC and InBev drink.

Hope to see some of you there,
Kevin