It's been a couple of days since I updated this so here we go.
On Friday it was business as usual, except that I had to say goodbye to some of the guys. They had their last day in Budapest and had to return home. I miss them very much. We spent two weeks having fun, discussing life, share stories, ... That's why I made a promise to visit them if I have the chance. The situation in the office is just getting worse. These people are kind, sweet, funny, interesting, ... they don't deserve this kind of situation. They shouldn't be overworked, stressed out or clueless. I also found out that I need to keep my eyes open as sometimes they are blind to certain things. Being too strict on a moral code might cause me to loose good opportunities. I got to shake the determination in sticking to certainties. A gamble once in a while is needed in life.
In the evening, we went with all remaining Cargill people out in the city for some dinner. We went close to the hard rock café in order to eat and walked three times through the same street. Three times we were addressed to hold a party at the PP. We declined three times and he still didn't get that we were interested.
As for yesterday and today I had a quiet day in the hotel. I needed some peace and rest for myself. I did went to an international dinner party on Saturday evening. The food was great, the people were amazing. It was a good time, but it felt incomplete. I missed a couple of people who would've made it an even better party. Afterwards, we went to this club called Sodastream. It wasn't as good as the dobosz club. We arrived back at the hotel around three in the morning.
Yesterday we arrived at the office. Of course there was the usual questions. We also had a couple of meetings in which my stay here in Boedapest was extended. After work we grabbed some food and drinks at the hotel and then we went for an early night rest.
I've been to busy to update my blog these last couple of days.
On Sunday, we went out to visit the citadel and the castle of budapest. It was a steep way up, but the view was worth it. You had this amazing view over the city, it was just incredible. We walked afterwards to the castle where there was a festival going on. They had their annual Palinka and sausage festival. We stayed there for a while before heading over to the Hard Rock Café. We ate something and then went back to the hotel by eight as we agreed to meet up with the other SME's and the management that was arriving that day. We had a couple of drinks and went to sleep.
On Monday the two towers of TCS and Cargill met face to face. We didn't se our management that much, but we had our own problems. It was quite busy and my head was bursting at the end of the day. We were invited for a farewell drink of one of the Cargill SME's as we didn't have any time later this week. Although I didn't feel like it, I went anyway. The first bar we visited was quite nice. Open space, not too crowded and a cover band that was playing very well. Afterwards we went to another bar where they were holding a quiz night. We were too late to enter so we decided to go to Morrisons. This disco was definitely not my kind of thing. It was too crowded, good belgian music that was ruined by the bass and so we left quite early to catch a late night snack before going back to the hotel.
Today we went back to the office where I paid more attention to one of the new joinees in order to get here skills up quicker. Nothing special happened until we got to dinner. TCS management had invited us for dinner at a place nearby. It was an all-you-can-eat grill restaurant. 7 different birthdays were celebrated there. We had quite some laughs nd good conversations but as all work related dinners go, the heated discussions about work also came up. In the end we decided to order taxi's to bring us back to the hotel so we could end them. We also heard that we might need to stay one week longer than planned.
On Friday we had a busy day at work. But if you work hard, you have to play hard. The agents from TCS organized an event for us at a bar that was called lokal! We drank a few, ate something and then went upstairs in order to dance on some latin music. We got the party started there. I had a great time dancing with some of the best looking women I've seen so far. after a while it got boring to dance to the same tune so we changed the venue for something a bit more modern. We went to this club called Doboz. Here they played hip hop and pop music. We danced, we laughed, we had a great time. We finished the night at one of the TCS agents' place for a last drink.
On Saturday we slept out and went sightseeing. The plan was to meet up at a park called Heroes Square and then visit some places. But we only left at two o'clock in the afternoon and arrived at the first stop at 16.30 . This was the railway museum where we had some great fun with a push cart and with a mini railway attraction. Afterwards we ate something at a local restaurant before preparing ourselves of the main event of the day. There was a gig of two Hungarian Heavy Metal bands: Chrome and Kalapac's. Although I couldn't understand a thing they were singing, we enjoyed the concert very much.
Yesterday, after our regular routine of getting up, eating breakfast at 7 and arriving at the TCS office at 8, we received a lot of questions. It was much more busy than usual. A lot of people were saying that we should try out the magic burger. So when we went out for lunch, we found some people willing to show us where it was. When we entered we were amazed. You were able to customize your hotdog, salad or hamburger to a certain degree. You could pick out which kind of bread and how big, the portion of meat was either 100gr, 200gr or 400gr and you could also choose which kind of meat: beef, pork, chicken, ... Besides that you could throw in additional bacon, cheese, jalapeno, ... We told our other SME's about this place and went the next day with one of the other guys there. The rest of yesterday went smoothly if not for the fact that we had a cab ride of more than 45 minutes. At dinner we were very much amused that the waiter's english was so bad that we couldn't stop laughing. Although it had a downside as well. When ordering a final drink, one of us was charged with a serving fee, but it was more of an excuse to hide their ability to calculate.
Today we arrived early at the TCS building and were again overwhelmed with questions. We noticed that some tools were not correctly configured. We alerted management so that they could perform the necessary steps. At noon, me and two other cargill SME's went back to the Magic Burger. One of them ordered both a hot dog and a hamburger. We were amazed that he could almost finish it. After work I decided to go for a walk and try to take some pictures of Budapest by night. Too bad there is not much to see on the Pest side.
On the second day, we got in the office at 8h00 in the morning. It took me 45 minutes to start up my laptop because I already received many questions about cargill procedures. During the day we didn't have much to do. Less tickets than monday so less work for me to do. The most frustrating part is switching between keyboards when I want to explain something or if I want to show them something. I also received an invite from our boss who wanted an update on what we were doing. It was a rather needless meeting as there was not much to tell him. Since the meeting was at 13h00 we had to go on an early lunch. Today we went to a restaurant nearby which was called Cheese. It was a crowded self service restaurant but it offered much more variety than the cafetaria at the office garden building. The quality was about the same. After work we went to a park where we sat with some TCS people and talked for a while. We also visited a sportsbar close to that park where we met up with some more people.
On Sunday I took my flight at 15h00 from Zaventem to Budapest. The arrival time was shortened due to the professional flighing ofour captain. I took a cab to the hotel and tried to have a conversation with the driver which led to a very funny conversation. During the trip I saw some posters for elections, I asked the cab driver about it and he told me that I could eat good at McDonalds. At least the radio was playing good music. When I arrived at the Helia Hotel in Budapest, I found that it's a very nice hotel with a spa which I can use. When I arrived, I asked the receptionist which other colleagues have arrived and if they already checked in. After some very difficult discussions we were able to get together for some drinks at the bar. It was nice to catch up with them.
Monday morning, 6 in the morning, I woke up. My alarm told me that I had 30 minutes left I could use to catch some shuteye. I failed. I went down for some breakfast and got in a cab together with Kamil in order to get to the TCS building. We drove through the town and did some sightseeing during the ride over to the TCS building. When we arrived there, we were greeted by Ida and Jorn who just arrived to start working. We got our badges and got our seats. We were just installed when we were bombarded with questions ranging from: so you are bart? up to can you help me with this ticket? Not so long after we saw Luis from SD South coming in. There was a planned fire drill not much later. During lunch, which took an hour by the way, we went down to the cafetaria and talked about our stay here and what to visit.
After multiple questions later, we got back to our hotel at six. I agreed with the colleagues to get some drinks in at 19h00. As agreed we got some drinks, ate some food, got some more drinks in and then we each went to our rooms because we were tired only to agreeing we got breakfast again at 7h00 in the morning. With this I will leave the blog behind and try to catch some sleep.
Only two days left before my departure I start pondering if it is a good thing or a bad thing. My conscious drifts away fantasizing about Budapest and how it is going to go. Who knows? Maybe I'll enjoy myself by visiting the capital of Hungary and the nightlife.
Chatting with the people who've come here re-assures me that it's gonna be fun. We have some laughs about things not concerning work, we discuss the weather. Ooooh, that reminds me to go buy another sweater My suitcase is already packed for warm weather so it might be good to pack a sweater or two. Anyway, as the day is closing to its end, I come to the conclusion that they only know my good side. They haven't met my other side.
Well you need to understand that BOFH is one of my favorite stories. You should look it up on the register if you haven't heard about it yet.
Anyway, I still got some preparing to do, so I'll toddle off and get to it.
