Day 32 and another travel home day, although it has seemed like a very long week. Today was an early start as my UK colleague needed to be at the Brussels Train Station for his 10:00 train which meant we left Maastricht at 07:15. Good job we did as the one hour journey took two hours and fifteen minutes and two nervous breakdowns, mainly when I was trying to drive through the centre of Brussels during morning rush hour, there were cars everywhere. One roundabout reminded me of the Arc De Triumph with no lanes but cars four wide trying to get to the exit there were in the worst position for, including me. The upshot was that when I did finally drop him off I then had five hours until my flight so as you can imagine I had a lot of waiting around to do today.
My overall view of my first week of Genk is confusion. I cannot get around how they view privacy. For example, when you want to go to the toilet, the door to the loos are in the corridor, pretty normal, except that when you open the door for the gents you are faced with the wee bowls (couldn’t think of a better way to put it) direct in front of you and if you unlucky some bloke using them. On one occasion I was using one when another bloke left the room and left the door open and there I am stood with people passing in the corridor, so basically no privacy. However when it comes to work, in the UK and most offices I have worked in they are pretty much open plan with people working on desks able to see the whole office, but on the continent it seems everyone has an office to themselves and they keep the doors firmly shut when there are in their working. They don’t like to be disturbed and when I spoke about it to a local they said, yes people like to be private when they are working. So my conclusion is, if it’s a bodily function all the world can see you but if it is work then you are given total privacy. The strange things you see when you work in different cultures.
On the Maastricht front, it is a beautiful town. I was lucky to have the chance to have a few walks around the area and no matter what street in the centre you turned down you were faced with nice architecture and beautiful churches and based on that I thought it would be a lovely place for anyone to visit. The downside is that on an evening it seemed to change, there was a real feeling of intimidation with people screaming in the street well beyond midnight. With my hotel been based in the centre I could hear the noise first hand and it was really quite bad. Whilst I was happy to go out whilst it was light, I did not feel like going out after dark, which is a real shame as the place is lovely.
One funny thing that happened, or that I was funny. I decided to treat myself to a costa coffee at the airport and when I asked for my choice and paid it was one of those places that asks for your name. So I told him it was Garth and when the coffee was ready they were shouting out GARTH! GARTH! Which I found quite funny. It just goes to show how lonely you can be when you’re on your own.
That is all for this week
Night all
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