training tour vienna amsterdam

i never posted my training tour on here. so here it is. this was done in january 2006. I just haven't figured out how to put it back in january. This is an OLD entry.

The travel experience

I flew to Vienna with a cheap ticket by SN Brussels Airlines, a company that I like flying with. I arrived in the morning but I took me some time to get to the ship with the public transport. I took this fancy City Express train from the airport to the city centre, but I heard afterwards that I paid 10 euro more than the regular train which arrives only 5 minutes later. Get that one if your travel expenses cannot be reimbursed. Vienna is known as a city on the Danube, but the river does not really flow in the city centre. At least not the commercial and industrial Danube as we know her. There is water in the city centre which used to be the old Danube, but they sort of made it into a small canal and diverted the river outside of the city. So no nice walk on my own in the old town as it was too far away from the ship.

I had been on the ship before when it was docked in Antwerp, so I knew what to expect. It does not look big at all. There are two floors for the passengers and there is one upper deck. There is a lounge in the front part of the ship with a bar and comfy seats and there is a restaurant in the back which can hold 120 people. The cabins are surprisingly comfortable. I had the luck of having my private cabin so I had plenty of space. There are two beds that you can unfold from the seats which are surrounded by small drawers to put in clothes and other personal belongings. There is only one wardrobe, but that’s okay for a guy like me who does not really have shirts or dresses to hang somewhere. But the thing I liked most was the bathroom. It is very small, but it has everything you need. I was amazed by the efficient shower which I loved taking.

The visit to Vienna would be short. I had been in Vienna before, but I would have loved to stay longer than just 24 hours. The trip started well with a visit to one of those touristy Strauss/Mozart concerts at the Kursalon. I would prefer going clubbing in Vienna, but hey this is one of those optionals we have to sell to the customers. I had fun though getting to know some of the other candidates and laughing with the performers. One of them was this Chinese singer who had these incredibly funny facial expressions as if she tried to open her slant eyes as wide as possible to look more Austrian. Hilarious. The male singer looked like a cartoon figure with a Colgate sponsored smile. There was this one song that I absolutely loved and need to find on the net. I wonder if people download classical music…

The city tour on the next day brought us to the city centre. I like Vienna. It is a beautiful city. I love those imperial buildings and it is such a clean city. Heaven compared to Brussels. There was not enough time to visit the most important sights, but we did go to Grinzing, a small suburb of Vienna where there are a lot of bars and restaurants that serve their own wine. They call it Heurige and it is something typical Austrian. It was dead this time of the year, but I can imagine it to be very lively in the summer. The coach drove around the famous Ringstrasse on the way back to the ship which is the best way to get an impression of the city.

The ship sailed to this very small town on the Danube called Dürnstein. I did not see anything of the apparently amazing Wachau region we were sailing through as we had classroom training and it got dark very soon. We only visited the city on the next day, as a morning walk. I liked it. The village is linked to a Crusade legend that goes like this: Richard Lionheart of England was captured by the Austrians when he passed their country on his return from the Crusades. He apparently had spoken badly about the Austrian rulers who were not at all pleased with his remarks. Nobody knew were Richard was imprisoned and the English sent a minstrel called Vondel who performed everywhere singing a song with hidden questions about the whereabouts of the king. Vondel ended up finding Richard in the castle of Dürnstein (now a ruin) and he was released. The Austrians asked for a high ransom however with which they build a whole part of Vienna. Apart from that legend there is nothing much to see in the village apart from a beautiful baroque church and some cobbled streets with touristy shops.

Further on the Danube you have the magnificent abbey of Melk. The baroque monastery was an inspiration for Umberto Eco to write his Name Of The Rose novel. It is an impressive building complex with leaves you in awe, but the guided tour you get does not really live up to expectations. The first part of the tour gives you some historical info on the abbey in a modern way. Very interesting, but too long, as the visit to the church and the library are shortened by that introduction. The library is amazing; the church as well. Too bad you do not really learn anything about monastery life and the current life of Benedictines. The city of Melk is quaint but small. You would visit it of course as it is close to the Abbey, but it’s nothing more than a square with some side streets. Same thing for Grein, a small town on the Danube which does not really have anything interesting apart from the castle remains overlooking the Danube. I did the trip in the beginning of January and it was incredibly cold. The cool thing was that everything was covered with snow which gave it a very nice feeling. So far for the Austrian Danube stretch.

The first German city on the Danube is Passau. I have to say that I had never heard about that city before even though I read and hear and studied a lot about the Germany. I liked it though. We got a nice city walk on which we discovered things that look not so spectacular for us but are quite amazing for American tourists. There is a horse butcher for instance in Passau and you find water marks all over the city because of the floods. The St. Stephen’s Cathedral has the largest church organ in the world, but I did not hear it play. I did go in and had some argument with a local there as I thought it was unfair that the men were obliged to take off their hats but the women were allowed to wear theirs. Equal rights now!! Oh yes, there is a castle in Passau, which I did not visit but looked interesting. And there are three rivers coming together in the city. There is the Inn, the Ilz and the Danube. We were there on a Sunday and the sun was shining although it was very cold. There were plenty of people strolling along the Inn which gave it a pleasant atmosphere. Other people decided to do some frühshoppen which means: drinking alcohol before noon. I visited the Museum Of Modern Art which had a temporary exhibition on the Nibbelungen Hallen that have been torn down after 50 years or so. Some artists were very creative with the remains of the building. Interesting fact: Hitler almost drowned in the Inn when he was a child, but he was rescued by a local priest in Passau. I wonder what that priest must have thought later on…
The next city on the Danube is Regensburg. The local guide who took us around was incredibly ignorant and could only point out things. Yes, I already start criticizing ‘colleagues’, but she was really bad. We did some sausage tasting in the oldest sausage house (always good) and then had a walk around. I liked the city. It has an old bridge, some beautiful old patrician houses with cute towers, nice little shops and a few alternative places (as this is also a student city). I don’t think you would book a trip to see that place, but if you are nearby you should definitely have a walk in the centre. A bit further up on the Danube you have two places of interest that the cruise takes you to. There is the Abbey of Weltenburg and there is the small town of Kelheim. The Abbey has a wonderfully restored church that looks more like a chapel and is decorated with incredibly nice figures and frescos. We got an explanation of the church by Father Leopold who is an absolute star. From the moment he turned on his torch light to point out some figures in the church, he got my full attention. His way of speaking and moving and his humour reminded me of a dear friend of mine. I never thought I would be so anxious to go back to church again, but I can’t wait to meet this monk again. His Gregorian chant and his blessings were divine. Honestly. The visit of Kelheim was pretty boring after that. We had a beer there and did a little walking around. Beer and sausages: is there another reason to like Germany? I had already gained 5 kilo’s after 5 days.

The trip goes from Vienna to Amsterdam and sails first on the Danube, than on the Rhine-Main-Danube canal, then on the Main and then on the Rhine. The canal is pretty strange because it is really artificial. It is crazy if you come to think about it. The canal actually takes you over mountain. So basically the ships are lift up via locks and then lowered on the other side of the hill with yet more locks. You should see it on paper how it works, it is amazing. The bad thing is that going through locks makes a lot of noise and you cannot really sleep that well if your cabin is near the propellers. When the ship has reached the top, it is called the watershed. Look it up if you want to hear more about it. Anyways, the canal made these river cruises possible. Now you can basically go from Amsterdam to the Black Sea on a ship which was not possible before.

I had been to Nürnberg before, but I somehow forgot what it was all about. We spent a lot of time in that city, which was worthwhile. It is definitely worth a visit. The city tour first took us to the place where the Nazis held their rallies. You don’t really see much of it anymore apart from this building that looks like the Colosseum in Rome and was intended to become a mayor hall for the Nazis. Nürnberg was called the most German cities of all Germany and was basically the headquarters of the NSAP. It did not really give me any shivers standing there, imagining Hitler addressing 300.000 people, but I did think about it. The tour then took us to Courtroom 600 where the Nürnberg trials were held. We didn’t get the chance to see the room as there was a homicide trial going on, which I would have wanted to see as well… And then we had some free time. I went up to the castle which was closed for winter but which was a very nice morning exercise as it was built on a pretty steep hill. I also visited the Germanisches Museum which only party interested me and I paid a visit to the Toy Museum, which I would recommend to everyone. It is pretty big for a toy museum and it brings out the child in you. I could have spent more time in Nürnberg which has a very nice centre with shopping streets and canals and old buildings and bridges, but we had to go to the Documentation Center in the afternoon. I did not really feel like going to a museum for two hours, but I had to rush to get back on the bus in time. The Documentation Center shows you the rise and fall of the NSAP. The neo-Nazi in me had great fun. Just kidding. No, I loved the museum because it was very objective. It doesn’t point the finger. They leave it up to the visitor to think about that part of German history. There was a temporary exhibition about the work of Leni Riefenstahl, which I absolutely loved. I had some discussions with fellow trainees about her propaganda films and her friendship with Hitler. I do not think she shared the same beliefs as Hitler, she was just really smart and grabbed her chance to become memorable. I really want to learn more about that person.

Next on the trip was Bamberg. I had read about the city and I had seen the pictures of the city hall that is built on an island in the river that splits the city in two. The nice thing was that the city looked more beautiful than on pictures. That city hall looks cool for a medieval building. There are a lot of details that you do not really spot when you just walk past it, so take some time to look at the building. The tour guide in Bamberg was really good. She took us to the cathedral and could keep my attention by telling the stories. It is amazing how I was paying attention this time, thinking about the visits you do with school when none of the students are really interested in what the guide is telling. Bamberg was an important city in the Middle Ages and that still shows. It was not heavily bombarded and got to keep its charming character. As this is a Bavarian city, the city has a typical German beer only brewed there. There are 8 breweries in that city by the way. We tasted the smoked beer, which I liked. It really tastes like smoked bacon or ham, it is called the breakfast beer and you eat it with Pretzen, another local breadlike delicacy. Try it.

Next stop: Würzburg. Just as with Passau, I had never heard of the city. It was always a small city, even in the Middle Ages, but the prince bishop who lived there built a huge residence building that had to equal castles like the one in Versailles. So the city did get some prominence. We visited the residence of course and although they were restoring the place it was interesting to get inside. It does not look impressive from the outside, but the staircase in the entrance hall with the largest fresco in the world, painted by Tiepolo, leaves you gasping. The other rooms are okay. Nice to see so many Belgian tapestry, but some rooms hurt my eyes with the gold rococo curls all over the place. It is not really worth the detour. We also had some wine tasting at Juliusspital, one of the most famous German wineries. I do not really like wine, but the ones that we tasted there were really sweet and totally my flavour. Up next was a trip to Rothenburg on the Tauber. It is one of the most famous tourist attractions of Germany as it is almost an open air museum. It is the best kept Medieval city of Germany as draws millions of tourists every year. I did not like it that much. Sure, it was empty now and it was freezing cold, but I preferred Bamberg. The nice thing about Rothenburg is that you can have a walk on the city walls. They are almost all intact. There is a torture museum that I wanted to visit but which was closed and you just have plenty of alleys that look very charming.

Nicer and more authentic is the little city of Wertheim. It doesn’t look as charming as Rothenburg, but it lives. It’s a small place in which we have to do the city tour ourselves, but that does not really seem that difficult. We attended a glass blowing demonstration by this funny glass blower and had some time to walk around. It really looks like a very unimportant city but you would be amazed how much you can tell in a city stroll. I would skip Würzburg if you ever plan to drive to Franconia, but I would recommend an hour stroll in this little town. Of course there are old bridges and castle ruins and churches, but you have them in every single German village. This city is already located on the Main river, just like Würzburg, and it’s the town where the river Tauber flows into the Main.

The absolute highlight of this training tour was supposed to be my visit to Heidelberg, where I studied already 9 years ago. Help I am getting old. The drive up there was pretty long, but the Neckar is a nice river and the land around it looks beautiful in wintertime when the sun is shining on the snow covered fields and hills. We unfortunately had a very bad tour guide there who could not give any interesting information and who was wearing this fur coat that upset me. Sure it was cold, sure the coat looked great and very warm, but it was fur and it was worn by an ignorant arrogant uptight bitch. I had trouble keeping quiet. We visited the castle ruin and went to have a walk in the city centre, but I learned nothing new. We had three hours of free time in Heidelberg and I was in heaven. Not much has changed. I felt like I was thrown back to the happiest time of my life. I strolled around the city centre going into the side streets looking for the student homes where I had fun in. I went shopping as well and did the philosopher’s walk which was necessary because the sausages and the beer/wine had made me fat and I needed some exercise. It was a pretty adventurous walk as well as it was freezing cold and the road was iced. Rushing down the stairs to the old bridge in order to be at the bus on time was risky as well, but I had great fun. I still love Heidelberg. I could live there. In fact, why do I not live there?

We had no time to visit Frankfurt which I like by the way. I really want to go out there one time but the ship is never docked in Mainhattan. The company prefers Offenbach where there is nothing to do. Frankfurt is on the Main and so is Mainz. It is a small town, not really worthy of being the capital of Rheinland-Phalz, but I like it. I especially like the mix of old buildings like the cathedral and modern sculptures and buildings. You can easily spend a few hours there, but it is not as recommendable as a place like Bamberg for instance. They have funny specialties like the street signs. The blue ones run parallel to the river, the red ones cross it. You cannot get lost. I do want to visit the Gutenberg museum there as it was closed when we were there. That looks interesting. The city rivals Cologne as carnival city which I did not know so I was amazed to see people walking around in costumes on a Sunday morning mid January. The passengers are offered an evening out in Rüdesheim, which we visited as well. It’s this small city on the Rhine that draws thousands of tourists who just go there to get a bit drunk. There is a small street called the Drosselgasse that is lined with bars and restaurants where tourists drink and sing along with musicians playing humpapa music. There was nobody when we visited the city, thank God, but we have to bring the passengers there and walk them back to the ship in polonaise style, singing the song Rosamunde. Can you imagine? Help! No idea why Rüdesheim is so popular. Maybe I should go back when it is busy.

Rüdesheim is already located on the river Rhine. My God, what a river! It is not the longest river in Europe, but it definitely is the widest one. And it carries most of the traffic. It looks like a war fleet on its way with all the ships travelling on the Rhine. The first big city we visited on the Rhine was Koblenz. The first thing you will notice, apart from the castle, is the statue of Emperor Wilhelm on his horse. The statue was erected to commemorate the unification of Germany in 1871 and restored for the reunification in 1989. The nice thing is that it is standing at the corner where the Mosel meets the Rhine. We have to do our own city tour in Koblenz which does not look that difficult. There is the funny ‘manneken spit’ as I would call it, which is this statue of a local hero who spitted at the enemies. The four towers in the middle of a shopping street are also worth looking up the sky for. It’s an okay city, heavily destroyed in the WW and not that charming as the Bavarian places. Leaving Koblenz to Cologne shows you a nice stretch with tons of ruins and castles and whatever you find on the hills along the Rhine. There is the famous story of the Lorelei of course, the mermaid who managed to have many ships hit the rock and sink because of her beautiful singing. We stopped at one castle ruin called the Marksburg. It was closed so we did not get to see the inside but it is apparently one of the most intact Medieval castles in Germany. The visit is combined with some more beer tasting in a brewery near the village Lahnstein. The tour is boring and not informative, but the beer tasting is fun. With even more sausages!! Hooray.

We did visit Cologne on this trip but I had my evaluation in the early afternoon and had no time to explore my favourite city on the Rhine. I really like Cologne. I could live there too. I want to go there for the carnival this year. Rio on the Rhine. The city tour just shows the cathedral, the old market square, some old remains and that’s basically it. I am not sure if there is much else to see on a city walk. People just need free time in Cologne to go shopping or to go to the Romanisch Deutsches museum which I visited a long time ago. I had no time to do that as I needed to talk to my trainers about the trip. My evaluation was good and we set sail for Amsterdam later in the evening. We partied a bit on the ship with the beer, whine and sausages we had collected during the trip and arrived in Papendrecht in the early morning. We had to take the bus to Amsterdam where it rained like it can only rain in our low countries. Amsterdam is one of my favourite cities, but we all felt a bit down as it was the last day and also because of the booze of the night before. We started with a canal tour that we need to comment ourselves by the way. It was the second time I was on one of those boats and it really sucks when it rains because you can’t see anything. The guide we had was incredibly boring and could only talk about gabled houses (which we could not see). No idea what I will talk about when I do that trip. The boat ride ended at the diamant factory Gasan where we got an introduction in the making and the rating of diamants. I wasn’t interested at all when we got there but when she started showing 10.000 euro diamants, I somehow paid attention. Who wants to wear 10.000 euro rings is my question? Why do people need to show off all the time? Anyways. From the high maintenance visit to the diamant store to the more lower class red light district, where we need to take our conservative passengers to. I have no idea what that must give. I do not like the red light district. There are nicer places to visit in Amsterdam than that area. I’m thinking of the Jordaan. But apparently that’s what the Bush voters want to talk about going back home.

And with Amsterdam the trip officially ended. The Flemish and Dutch candidates had three more days to go bringing us to Antwerp, Brussels, Bruges (in one day), Willemstad (cute little town) Schoonhoven (boring), Nijmegen (ugly and uninteresting), Hoorn (nice), Enkhuizen (ok), Aalsmeer (flower auction: more interesting that I though) en de Zaanse Schans (tacky but fun).

The training experience:

I had absolutely no nerves about my upcoming training tour until I had a phone call with a friend who does the same kind of job. He had warned me about fellow trainees who would be very knowledgeable and well-prepared having read all the tour books before going on the trip. He also warned me about the trainers who would test everything: knowledge, social behaviour, stress, aggression, maturity, etc… I sort of panicked the day before I left to Vienna and went to the library to at least read a bit of all the places we would visit. I had also read a book about art in Europe and a book on the history of Germany. That was basically the preparation I had done for the trip. Thank God I did not invest more energy, because the other trainees appeared to be less prepared than I was. And they all looked as nervous as some of those untalented nitwits who go to these auditions for Idols or Popstars.

I actually had to think a lot about reality tv shows when I arrived there. You know a lot of participants will be eliminated and you have the feeling that you are watched all the time. It was like a Big Brother experience. I sometimes thought there were camera’s in the cabin. It also reminded me of Survivor, as the group of 46 was divided into two groups, being re-divided later on in the trip. I actually would have loved the trip to be part of a reality tv show in the style of Airport for instance. Camera’s would record our training and then make it into this docu-soap. That would have been cool.

The first introduction was a bit awkward. All candidates were assembled in the lounge and we had to introduce ourselves. However, this one guy started to present himself as an American and soon everyone introduced himself as a fictional American tourist on the ship. That was fun for a while but some people thought it was really the first task, to see if we could improvise. There were already a few people getting panic attacks because they did not come up with a nice fictional character. I thought ‘my God, who have they invited to this training trip’. (I was a war veteran from Austin, Texas living in a retirement home in St. Petersburg, Florida in case you wonder.)

The group was very mixed. There were the people who had worked in tourism before as tour guides or hotel managers and there were IT-specialists who just wanted to do something totally different in their life. There were upfront arrogant Mr. Knowitalls and shy art history sweethearts. I was more looking forward to study all these different characters than to learn about the places we would visit. My favourite pastime is after all: people watching.

The City Tour we got in Vienna was pretty basic. We did learn a lot of practical stuff to conduct an entertaining city walk, which made me think about how unprepared I started that US touring thing. If you look around, you will always find something to talk about. Even the silliest things like garbage bins or street signs can help you come up with a story. Strangely enough, the trainers were not afraid to tell lies or come up with a plausible answer if they did not know the answer. Good tip: if someone asks you what is, you throw back the question to the rest of the group in the hope a fellow traveller will know what it is.

There were plenty of tips like that which will come in pretty handy. We had four and a half trainers. There was this German guy called Jan who is probably a very good Program Director, but who is so fake that it almost made me throw up. We ended up getting along in the end, but I really did not like his style in the beginning. He is an expert in avoiding answering questions and the way he addresses to people looks very passionate but you cannot help but think that he only does it for the money. I’m sure he is gay, but he would rather die than come out to the conservative Americans. The thing is: being gay leaves you without tipping. Duh. Anyways, the woman who was his co-trainer was Bernadette from Switzerland. I never quite got her. She sometimes looked really nice, but at other times she had a graveyard face. I did not really trust her that much and kept an eye on her. She excelled in giving remarks to people who did not follow the rules (no smoking during city walks, no cell phone calls, no sleeping on the bus, speaking English at all times). I ended up dancing with her on Abba one of the last nights on the ship, so she wasn’t that bad. The two other trainers were Dutch and got along very well. They both had worked for ATI before, the company I went to the States for. I always expected them to know how I left the company last November, but they never really talked about it until one of the last days. Bart is the one who interviewed me in Antwerp and who really wanted me to do the training tour. He is incredibly funny. His is very knowledgeable and just talks about everything. He even explains how the Aldi was founded and stuff like that, but always in an entertaining manner. He also talks to local people which I will do as well. That is hilarious. He is explaining something to the group, this old woman passes by and then he asks this woman: isn’t that right? Miriam was an ex tour guide who now only trains others. I never got along with her. No idea why, because she was liked by all the others.

And then you had the other candidates as well. There is something special about (potential) tour guides. Most of them are adventurous and funny and very social and knowledgeable. Yet a lot of them are part crazy or weird too. The least thing they are is boring. I really got along with the Flemish candidates. There were five more: this Italian macho guy from Ghent who already works for the company but on other tours, a lesbo looking Night Of The Proms singer who loves beer, a self made woman of 51 who looks much younger and hangs out with Roland, Arno, Urbanus and people like that, this incredibly eager learning translator who comes back from a walking tour in the red light district with details on prices and services etc (excellent) and this sweet girl from Mechelen. We got along great and had great fun preparing a presentation about our country. We are all Flemish and brainstormed about the Belgian thing. I ended up imitating the chief trainer who was interviewing new candidates in Brussels for the job. There was a Flemish candidate. A French speaking one, a German speaking one, a Morrocan and an Italian immigrant. The show was excellent. It was infotainment deluxe with a lot of funny facts about Belgian (French fries is derived from the word frenched fries which means cut in pieces) and a lot of humour. My imitation of the chief trainer was risky but they all liked it and I got a boost in self esteem after the performance.

The Dutch started out with 7 or so and only 3 got a contract. One was this silly ex hotel manager who could only boast about having two houses in Hungary while he was supposed to talk about the area around Heidelberg. Duh. There were Hungarian crew members on the bus and they were very upset by the description he gave about their country. Exit the keeskop. The four other did not get the job because one of them fell asleep on the bus more than once, the other one never took notes and the last one because he lacked passion. I got along very well with this Dutch girl who seemed the coolest of them all. She liked Pearl Jam and Duran Duran.

Most of the Germans and Austrians were very nice. I really get along with German speaking people. Most of the trainees were different from the cliché cos they were very open and funny. Haha. But some were very shy though and nervous and all of them just do what people tell them to do. Like one rule is always to speak English. Well they do that. You have 6 Germans at one table and they speak English. You put 6 Flemish at one table and it is only Flemish that you hear. The funniest of them all is Alex who is just the coolest German I have ever met. And the funniest one. Here is one of his jokes: Hans and Klaus want to go out and have only one euro. Klaus has an excellent idea and talks Hans into doing it. They buy a sausage with that one euro, go to the first bar, order two beers and when they are almost done drinking the beer Hans stands up and simulates giving Klaus a blow job, sucking the sausage in stead. The bar tender is furious and tells them to leave the place as soon as possible, which they do without paying. This works great and they go from bar to bar doing the same trick. By the 10th bar Hans is a bit tired of having to simulate the blow job and he says. Klaus, I think it is your time to get on your knees because I really cannot stand that sausage anymore. But Hans, Klaus says, I lost the sausage 7 bars ago.

Hm does not sound as funny written like this. You should hear him say it with the german accent.

The guys who did not make the end were peculiar to say the least. One was this old publisher who got drunk one night and left the next day. Another guy was an experienced tour guide who was so bored by the training that he started drinking as well and flirting with all the women. Andreas was a real Hungarian/Austrian mix who looked like he composed classical music and had no idea how to talk to people. This half Texan half German left the ship because he did not feel up to it, but I guess the trainers did not like him as was stuck up. Another guy left the tour too because he was absolutely not right for the job BUT he was incredible funny. He was so nervous to talk to the group that he got a panic attack but then he sort of got self confidence and he started a stand up comedian show making everyone and everything ridiculous. He was like Conan O Brian and everyone had to cry laughing. Unfortunately none of the passengers would be able to laugh at his jokes.

People I really got a long with came from Cologne (this dry Wouter Deprez lookalike who had graduated in Mandarin), Hannover (this super hot tall cold Arian beauty who gave a lecture on Jewish life in Germany starting to tell about her Nazi grandparents. Really cool), Garmish Partenkirchen (yes, people actually live there), Brechtheim (a Star Wars fan, always good conversation material), Moerfelden-Walldorf (are those German city names not cool) and Vienna (Austrian humour is VERY weird, but cool)

Oh well. I have been writing too much now. You will all be bored by now. Greetings from Lisbon where all is well. I did sign the contract for that company and I will do these training tours as of march 1st. I am back in Belgium for most of the month February and will get in touch with you guys soon. I am moving out of Brussels, which will be weird. I am moving to Wevelgem city as I do want to save money and it is no use of paying a high rent in Brussels when I am only there maybe 10 days a month. So hope to hear from you soon.