Dan is coming to visit!!

Yay!! I received good news today - my friend Dan from Chicago is coming to visit!! (Hi Dan!!)

Dan was my first visitor to come see me when I lived in Dublin! He was there during September 11th back in 2001.

The funny part of his coming to visit is that I really did not know Dan! I knew his family, but had only met him once yet when I offered my hospitality if he wanted to come to Dublin, I was shocked when he accepted! When he arrived I had made plans to meet him in the airport. As I had only met him once, and late at night when I was locked out of my apartment to boot, I could not remember what he looked like....I must have passed him 5 or 6 times in the airport before we finally realized who the other person was! LOL

Since that great visit, we have stayed friends and kept in touch, including when I lived back in Chicago only a few miles apart!

I was amazed to find an e-mail from Dan asking if May was good to visit....of course I said yes, and so the plans are in the works for him to jet on over for a week....yippee!!

Can not wait to see you in Brussels Dan! Oh the fun we will have!

I work with some characters!

One reason that I've loved working in Europe is my colleagues here. They are awesome in their own ways! I have the English colleagues with their British humor (which I find highly amusing). There are the Germans and Austrians with their oh so strict and polite manners.....except when you (or someone else) do something wrong and then you are 'Stoopid, Stoopid, StOOOOOpid!' There are the Italians with their 'But we are Eeeeytaly. Wes do nots do it likka dat here in Eeeeytaly' The Spainish with their 'We will get back to you right away' which basically means never. Everyone is so different, but all for the most part are wonderful people!

Today giggle came one of my British colleagues. I was asking him for a file that he had prepared via our internal messaging system (similar to MSN, AIM or Yahoo but only for my company)

Kimberly Hello there! When you get a chance can you run and send over the new customer data for xxxxxxx? Please?
Ian already sent it to Mme Smith
Kimberly Any chance you could be super wonderful and forward it on to me?
Ian no probs
Kimberly Merci beaucoup!!
Ian murcky buttercups to you aussi

'Murcky buttercups' LOL

Tis a boring life....

Yes folks, its a boring life that I lead. I am sure that you are all saying 'No way! You live in Europe! How cool is that?' But let me tell you, at the end of the day it is still a boring life! Or at least the day to day living is! Sure, I get the fun of being able to travel around Europe and see different places...but everyone back in the US has that same opportunity to travel around the US (which I might say is bigger than Europe) and see just as many places and things! Is it not funny how little travelling most people do in their own country / area?

Anyways, back to the boringness of my life. On my way back from Zurich a week ago, I sat next to and talked with a guy from Luxembourg who was living in Brussels for several years now. We talked about why we were both in Brussels, where we worked. Then he started in on the what did I like to do in Brussels...and that folks is when I realized that I have a boring life. Perhaps we all do, mine just struck home with a vengance when I realized that I did very little here outside of work and sleep!

Yes, until recently I had Zori here to go out to dinner with, and go out for drinks and dancing on the weekends. But you take Zori out of the equation, and life is very dull. I work, go home, surf the internet, do some reading or crocheting and thats about it. I don't go watch movies. I rarely turn on my television (it was out of order for 2+ months before I got around to getting the cable fixed). I don't go to museums and plays or the opera. I will occasionally meet up with some friends or colleagues for dinner or drinks after work and on the weekends. I do a little bit of shopping on the weekends on Saturdays.

There is no drama or fast living in my life. No excitement. No flare. Its boring.

My mission for the next 1.5 months until my vacation to Florida is to try to spice up my life a little bit. I am not exactly sure how I am going to do this....there has to be a way!

Computers and HR

I really dislike computers somedays!! I spent the past 30 minutes writing out my quarterly update e-mail to all of my family and friends. I was literally adding in the addresses when bam! My work e-mail program crashes and I lose the whole entire e-mail. *sigh*

So if you are on my e-mail list, it will be coming, just not today! Although, if you read my blogs, you probably already know everything that I am going to write!

HR called me into their office today to inform me that my work contract expired back in March! Ummm...did they not know that when I asked them for the papers to re-register, which they gave to me? Sheesh! Loved the conversation!

HR:'So, how long will you be staying?'
Kimberly: 'I don't really know'
HR: 'You don't know? Can you guess?'
Kimberly: 'No, depends on the project and when I decide its time to go back'
HR: 'Hmmmm...well, how long will that be? 10 years? 20?'

Huh? Why on earth would I want to stay here for 20 years? What kind of a question is that one? I wonder what he would have done if I had said for the rest of my life? I like Belgium, but not for the long term! Way to transient with people constantly coming and going!

Final decision is that they would put down 2 years in my new contract, although I of course have the option to leave whenever I want the same as they have the option to terminate employment when they want!

Happy New year 2006!!

Happy New Year to all of my friends and family! It was wonderful spending some time with some of you over the holidays back in Muskegon - I only wish that I could have spent more time with more people, especially the gang back in Chicago-land! I never did make it to that side of the lake!

I am off to Zurich on Friday for a meeting on the status of my project that I am working on. Who knows, by Monday I could have some more news on how long I am going to be over here for! I also have my year-end review coming up which should also give me some sort of time-line. After the meeting I am going to stay in Zurich and help my friend Kim apartment hunt over the weekend! It should be fun and interesting to see what apartments there look like...who knows, maybe I'll end up in Zurich for a little bit! *grin*

My mailbox was a bursting with postcards when I came back to Brussels. I had postcrossing cards from Finland, Germany, Switzerland and Texas back in the US! Many thanks to all for the wonderful postcards! I am moving offices this month, but once I am settled into the new office, I will take a picture of my wall of postcards to show all of the great cards that I have been receiving the past months!

Have a great day - its back to work I go!