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.
