Just like that

Today I was having a meeting with one of my new colleagues from the US who happened to be in Belgium. It's always good to meet face to face when we have the opportunity.
Half way through the meeting he told me he was going to visit our plant in Barcelona and talk to team there. I'm not exactly sure how but he suggested I join, and my new boss agreed to it, as I would have to go there as part of my onboarding at some point. So why not now, i.e. tomorrow?
Maybe because I try to have a life? but that was not strong enough vs. the great opportunity to start my onboarding with a visit in the plant.
Thus I'm packing again for a 2-day trip.
And I was looking forward for a week without travel, my only week without travel this month. I guess it will have to wait next year.

Brrr

First snow arrived last night... and it looks like it's going to last!

What excuse can I use to stay inside where it's warm?

Americans don't like roundabouts

Here is one those jewels you find now and then in the news.

According to the New York Times, Americans don't like roundabouts.
"Traffic is going in circles. Armed with mounting data showing that roundabouts are safer, cheaper to maintain and friendlier to the environment, transportation experts around the country are persuading communities to replace traditional intersections with them. There’s just one problem: Americans don’t know how to navigate them."

There are only 2000 roundabouts in the US. Given the size of the country that's nothing. I'm pretty sure Brittany has more than that on its own.

This article is hilarious, especially when experts explain very seriously that people are different, thus driving is different, thus roundabouts can work in some places (like Europe) and not in others (like the US). Given how different people's driving habits are within Europe, how come we all manage to handle a roundabout? Even UK drivers demonstrated it works the other way around.


Read full article here.

Embracing each other's traditions

Today is the first Advent Sunday. In Germany this is quite important and based on my understanding, families gather around an Advent wreath (Adventskranz for the Germans) to read stories or even sing carols. It's usually made of some evergreen branches and holds 4 candles, each of them to be lit on one of the Advent Sundays.
Given it's a German tradition, you don't find Advent wreath in Belgium and last time we were in Germany it was too early.
Today, I tried to be creative and presented to Wolfram our self-made "Advent wreath". Fair enough it doesn't have the evergreen branches and doesn't look like the traditional German one, but at least the 4 candles are there. And I've baked some cakes and Madeleine to make it a bit more festive.

Happy first Advent Sunday to everybody!

PS: for next year, I will buy in advance, i.e. this year, some (plastic or fabric) evergreen to be equipped.
PS2: this also means only 4 weeks to go before Christmas and I don't have a single gift :(
PS3: this also means that next week-end we will buy the Christmas tree, decorate the house and start baking Christmas biscuits!

Do you want some pudding?

Towards the end of an excellent dinner at SIX, a well known restaurant in Newcastle, which happened to be located on the sixth and top floor of one of the buildings in Gateshead giving you an amazing view on the river Tyne and the bridges of Newcastle, the waiter asked us whether we wanted some pudding. Surprised I asked if we could get the desert menu hopping to find something else on it than pudding.
I made the whole table laugh because, in the UK, pudding refers to desert in general. For me pudding was a typical English cake, like the traditional Christmas pudding.
After clarification of the meaning of pudding, my colleagues went for Sticky Toffee Pudding and I, safely, for a brownie. I may not have expended my desert menu that night but at least I expended my vocabulary :)

It's snowing in Newcastle

Consequences:
- Aircraft circled around the city 10 times last night and we landed with 1 hour delay.
- Taxi could not drive up the slope to the hotel so we had to walk down the hill in 5cm snow
- Technical center might be closed tomorrow which is not good for our meeting plans
- Flight tomorrow will very likely be delayed given the mess it is in the airport today - wish me luck
- Newcastle looks lovely covered with snow :)

7am

It's never too early or too late to see paintings from Monet. This year in Paris there is a huge exhibition gathering almost all the paintings from Monet. It's sold out, at least for booking. One can always get in line in front of the museum, queue in the cold and hope for a ticket.
Given the success of the exhibition the museum decided to open at night the last week-end. Most paintings are a loan from museums around the world and they could not expand the duration of the exhibition.
I've been wanting to see this exhibition but so far things didn't work out. Until this morning.
I've booked tickets for the night opening. Actually more for the morning as the tickets left were between 1am and 7am. I decided to go for 7am, thinking we'll have breakfast afterwards and it's probably easier to handle than the exhibition in the middle of the night (yeah, yeah, I'm not getting younger).
I'm very excited and can't wait January to see all my favourite paintings (last time was many many years ago in Chicago).

PS: for those who are not as lucky as us, you can visit the website of the exhibition, and take the Journey with your loudspeakers on.

Mein Onkel Franz or the first book I read in German

While we were in Germany a couple of weeks ago I bought some books in German from the Easy Readers collection. These are books for foreigners who are learning a language with easy vocabulary and difficult words explained on each page. I had read books from that collection when I was learning Italian and found them a great way to learn a language. Believe it or not it is more interesting to read a full story than a grammar book.

While the story of my uncle Franz is not very exciting I quite enjoyed the reading experience and I'm very proud to have managed reading a full book, even a easy reading one, in German and understood what it was about.
I'm ready for the next one!
PS: a BIG THANK you to Wolfram who sat there patiently listening to my broken German, explaining a few words here and there.

It can only get better

I started the day by bumping my head against the ceiling (recall we have a slope roof) when getting out of bed. No idea why this morning it happened. Must have been tired.
Later on, half way through work Wolfram realized he had forgotten his laptop at home. He never takes it home, but the one time he does he forgets it in the entrance. We turned around. Luckily we live next to work.
1 min from work, trip #2, we realized we had taken the wrong car. I'm not insured on Wolfram's car and I need to go to the physiotherapist tonight. What were we thinking? Obviously not much, if not, not at all.

2 obvious conclusions:
- we need MORE sleep
- it can only get better. Honestly what else can happen after such a start of the day.

Finally

Finally this morning I could pick up my laptop. It is fixed in the sense that I can use it and the screen is showing more than the cursor I had last week-end. However it has become EXTREMELY slow in the process.
I guess next time I will have to specify: "Please fix the issue but don't create a new one at the same time".

It is true that with experience one becomes wiser :)

Highly frustrating

This morning I brought my laptop to the IT desk for repair. It was 8:30am and that's how my day started. 20min later I left the desk with a loan laptop. 10min later I was back at the desk as the loan laptop was not set to connect to the network!!!! Given all I can do with a loan laptop is check emails on the webmail acces I wonder what they thought I would do with it. Play games? Watch a DVD?
Around 11am a technician call me to let me know that the hard drive was dead :( they will try to rescue as many data as possible but it will take at least until tomorrow afternoon.
So here I am, desperate and pretty useless as all I can do is join meetings and do emails.
Did I mention the loan laptop has the old office installed and I cannot open most of the attachments!
Highly highly frustrating I'm telling you!

Lebkuchen

Lebkuchen is a traditional German biscuit baked for Christmas, somewhat resembling soft gingerbread with sugar icing or chocolate icing.
It's one of those things you get to see and eat only around Christmas time.
Last time we were in Germany we tried to buy some but the shop in Ludwigsburg closes at 2pm on Saturdays (why would they close the shop on Saturday afternoon remains a mystery).
This time we were in Stuttgart on a week day. No way we couldn't buy our Lebkuchen.
Wolfram found the shop and gave me a tour of all the varieties of Lebkuchen. As a consequence I bought all of them: with sugar icing, with chocolate icing, the best ones and some mid-tier ones also very good and the latest news, with marzipan. I can't wait to be home for Christmas and eat them.
PS: the marzipan one we tried the evening right after and seriously it tastes extremely good. We should have bought more!

Stuttgart, finally!

Finally after several trips to Germany and Wolfram's hometown (Remseck, less than 20km away) I got to visit Stuttgart. Crazy enough so far we never had the time to get to the city for a tour, joggling with shopping and family obligations. But this time Wolfram promised to take me to Stuttgart and hold to his promise.
Wolfram and his parents warned me over and over again that there is nothing special in Stuttgart.
This said according to my brand new Germany travel guide, there are things to see. For example the Schlossplatz (i.e. the castle square), the Schlossgarten (i.e. the garden of the castle), the Altes Schloss (i.e. the old castle), etc. In other words a lot of things evolving around castles :)
Truth be told indeed there is nothing astonishing to see or visit in Stuttgart but it seems to be a nice place to live. Like Evan said about LA, it's not a place to visit but a great place to live, I have the feeling it's the same about Stuttgart.
The whole center is pedestrian and I really enjoyed walking the streets, quickly taking a look at the historical highlights with my very own guide. Despite what he claims, Wolfram has a lot to say about Stuttgart, not always about History with a capital H but about the stories of when he was a kid growing in Stuttgart.
For sure I need to come back in warmer weather to enjoy the gardens maybe even have picnic there.
No pictures unfortunately because by the time we reached the center it was getting dark and I don't have the right lens to take great pictures at dusk. For sure I have to come back in sunny weather ;)

Not good, not looking good at all

Tonight the weekend is starting. Tomorrow is a national holiday in Belgium and our company decided to close also on Friday. This means a 4-day weekend!!!
But before enjoying this time away from work I wanted to finish a couple of things. One can't truly enjoy himself without having full peace of mind. At least that's my case.
Once home I switched on my laptop and... Nothing. Well not exactly nothing: it's a black screen with a white cursor on the top left corner. Blinking, like it's waiting for something.
Waiting indeed but not starting my computer :(
We tried all our tricks. We asked google for help. I even called IT sending a message in a bottle but nothing could be done.
For sure this weekend I won't work a thing as I have to wait for IT to open on Monday morning. For sure the cursor will keep blinking, waiting until some IT expert will provide the right answer.
For sure I will enjoy myself this weekend with the best excuse in the world: my laptop is dead.
For sure I've never been so happy to have my iPhone and be able to post this entry :)

Cut the rope

or a new additive game in the house.
Wolfram is already a lost cause and at level 4.
I'm slightly behind (someone had to cook :) ) but will catch up.

What is it about?

"A mysterious package has arrived, and the creature inside has only one request…CANDY! Help get the candy to Om Nom, the adorable monster, in this highly innovative and addictive puzzle game. Combining outstanding physics, devilishly tricky levels, and bright colorful visuals, Cut the Rope is one of the most original and fun-filled games on the App Store."

See it by yourself the trailer here.

For once fish was a safe choice

Tonight we had invited Nadine, Moustafa and his wife Sarah for dinner. Nadine and Moustafa are from Egypt and recently joined the recruitment team. Thus we were together in Cairo and I really enjoyed their company.
We had planned for scallops as a starter, chicken as main course and chocolate mousse for dessert. All very well appreciated dishes by different former guests. But yesterday morning, Nadine sent us an email explaining they only eat meat that is Halal. Luckily for us she told us in advance so we could adapt and avoid a very awkward moment for everyone.
Unfortunately we don't know any Halal butcher. I'm sure there must be one nearby, but we need to search for it. This drove us to change the menu to salmon as fish is always a safe choice, so we were told.

Dinner went alright. It was a bit uneasy at the beginning but quickly discussion got started, Wolfram made a few jokes and the kittens created animation. I was very stressed about the food and to be fair, next time we will go for meat. This said, chocolate mousse was a big success, but it is a no miss (at least with people who like chocolate).
I have to say it feels a bit weird to have guests and not open a bottle of wine (or try the new cocktails) but this proves we can have a good time without getting tipsy :)

Now, where is the nearest Halal butcher?

We're going to Disneyland!!!

This morning while checking my emails I saw that Ventes Privees had a sale on Disneyland. Similarly to the offer they had last year, we could book a stay for half the price.
I nicely woke up Wolfram at 7:02am so he could confirm he was ok to book and agree on the date.
After unsuccessful attempt online and a successful phone call, we're going to Disneyland on January 2nd and 3rd. What a great way to start the year! (and the day!)

Trying something new is sometimes a good idea

Lately, I've been getting the feeling that we were always eating the same, more or less, at home. Not that it was getting boring but I felt the need to experiment new recipes.
This week-end I took the opportunity of having my sister and Yann around to try 2 new recipes. I confess, it's easier to test on relatives than on friends, as if it is a disaster they will openly tell you :)
Recipe #1: Sliced beef with green pepper
Recipe #2: Farfalle with smoked Pancetta
Both of them were a success based on the reaction of the people.
Both of them were pretty spicy which was highly appreciated by this audience.
#1 works very well without coriander. We cooked with and without as someone doesn't like coriander and both versions were excellent. Different but excellent.
Both of them will now be added to our pool of recipes, broadening our selection.

NB: a BIG thank you to Joy and Yann who helped preparing the ingredients and cooking in the wok. It would have never tasted so good if it wasn't for the perfectly cut onions and the timely stirring.

This is what the ghost looks like after burning down

Last night we lighted up a ghost candle and this triggered quite some debate on whether the whole ghost would burn down, whether it would lose its head only, whether the wings / arms would burn in the end (i.e. will they collapse on the center or are there parallel wicks), and many more other scenarios.
24h later:
- head is gone and did partially fall back
- arms are still up
- there is now a huge amount of shapeless wax in the plate.

BOOM BLOX Bash Party

or the only game where everything is possible:
- the inexperienced (like me or my sister) can win against the experienced (like Yann)
- you can get negative scores
- I can push the boundaries of what you initially thought is not possible
but above all... you laugh non stop because it's a stupid game where all you need to do is push or smash blocks and literally everything happens especially the unpredictable :)