The most difficult and interesting part for me when traveling is what to do
for dinner. At home I generally don’t have to make decisions about food let
alone where to eat. On the road, however, a diifferent story emerges. It
becomes even more interesting in a different country. There are several
restaurants in Oudenaarde and I’m working my way through them on this trip.
That actually makes part of the decision easier. When I got here, I drove
through the town noting a number of restaurants. I started at the one
furthest from my hotel and have been working my way towards the hotel one
restaurant at a time. No decisions about where to eat as I now have a plan
and a schedule!

Tonight I’m at the restaurant associated with the Cesar Hotel. It’s a
three-star restaurant, whatever that means. Since I don’t know who the
rating authority is, I can’t evaluate the rating, yet. Perhaps after
dinner…? There are quite a few patrons here which is a good sign.

The next problem is what to eat. Tonight I remembered to bring my Berlitz
language guide with me to figure out what the menu items mean in English
and then found that the restaurant had a menu in English. Maybe that’s part
of a 3-star rating? I’ve ordered a steak with a pepper sauce and am looking
forward to that. It’ll likely come with fries (most things do here in
Belgium, the inventor of French Fries). Then depending on how much food was
served and how full I am (sorry, Taco Bell, but you don’t have the
franchise on being “full”), I’ll order a Dame Blanche — vanilla ice cream
with a hot chocolate sauce. The chocolate is “to die for” in Belgium.

All restaurants are smoking allowed with no non-smoking areas. The guy at
the table next to me has lit up a pretty foul-smelling cigarette.
Fortunately, they look to be leaving soon. I’m still somewhat surprised at
how many peiple on my staff smoke. It’s a much higher percentage in
Oudenaarde than in Pocatello.

Last night I drove into Gent to meet a number of people for dinner,
including a couple of people on my staff from Pocatello who are also here
on business. We ate at a Thai restaurant and most of us ordered the “Chef’s
Buffette,” a selection of various Thai dishes which we then shared. That
place will stay on my list. It was very good, paticularly the “Thai Cake”
for dessert.

I’ve finished my dinner. It was quite good and I’d come back here again for
dinner. The pepper sauce could have been more “peppery,” but no other
critique. No Dame Blanche, however. I’m full (which is a good thing to
feel, but bad for the waistline). From here it’s back to the hotel and into
a bath. Then lights out for the end of another day here in Oudenaarde,
Belgium.

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Sleeping is often an interesting proposition. I was absolutely dragging
last night when I went to bed at 9 pm. By 5 am sleep was gone and I was up.
I called Nina because she wasn’t in bed yet (it was only about 9:30 pm in
Pocatello when I called). She had spent a good part of the day moving snow
around. I suspect she’ll sleep well!

After work I went downtown Oudenaarde to see if I could get a GPRS card for
my laptop and maybe have some internet capability. No such luck. No one had
anything remotely like it. I will continue to be disconnected outside of
the office except for my Blackberry. At least that’s something. I’d like
something more, but this will have to do.

Dinner was very good. That is, very good to the tongue but not so good for
the waistline! The new day will dawn in about an hour. I get to the office
in darkness and leave in the darkness. Actually, that sounds a bit
nefarious!

The weather here is unseasonably warm and very windy. No real rain
forecast. Yesterday got up to about 60 degrees and the same is forecast for
today. Good thing I brought my umbrella….

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Good morning from Belgium. It’s about 7:15 a.m. The dawn hasn’t arrived.
It’s been raining. When I drove back to my hotel about 9 p.m. last night
the clouds had rolled in and a light drizzle had started.

The strategy of going sightseeing in Brussels, taking a nap in the early
afternoon, staying up another 5 hours, and then sleeping all night has
worked. I slept very well and woke up when the alarm went off at 6 a.m.
Unfortunately, the breakfast room wasn’t open at 7 so I’m waiting until
half-past to see if it opens then. It not, McDonalds will get my business.
I’ve only eaten once in the past 24 hours and I’m right ready for
breakfast.

There is a small TV in the room with about fifteen channels including BBC
and CNN for news. This time of the day most of the CNN reporting is
recorded stories that were broadcast originally last night. That makes the
BBC have the fresher news as it’s the beginning of their day. Most of the
other channels, except for MTv are in Dutch or French and thus not
interesting. Well, time for food!

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After clearing immigration and customs, I picked up my rental car and drove
into downtown Brussels. There was almost no traffic and getting into town
and finding a parking place just off the Grand Market Place was no problem.
The Grand Market Place is considered one of the prettiest town squares in
thre world. I walked around the area taking several dozen pictures. A small
cafe beckoned me, so I stopped in and had a delightfully delicious hot
chocolate. My goodness, the chocolate sure is good in Belgium!

I walked up to the St. Martins Cathedral and listened to part of the mass.
There were far more tourists than parishoners at the service which seemed
to be very disjointed. The organist certainy had her own idea of how fast
and when to play and sing!

About 12:30 I was tired enough that I left and headed for Oudenaarde. By
that time the Market Place was filling up with tourists. Only a few cafes
and souvenier shops were open on this Sunday morning.

Getting out of Brussels was just as easy as getting in — and luck played
well for me. The route I elected to take turned into the Expressway I
needed to be on to Gent and then to Oudenaarde. By 1:30 I was checked into
the small hotel and unpacking.

The Hotel Da Vinci is kind of a Bed and Breakfast place. It looks like they
have about 8 rooms available. The owner saw me and immediately asked if I
wanted “the big bed”. I’m glad I didn’t opt for anything else! The bed and
the room have seen much better days.

A short nap later and I’m now at dinner in a small restaurant on
Oudenaarde’s town square. I thought I had ordered a veal cutlet, but what
was served were lamb chops. They were quite tastey and I’ve made a note of
the menu item as I’ll want to order that again. It came with scalloped
potatoes, baked tomatoes, brocolli, and cauliflower. Everything (except the
bones, the brocolli and the cauliflower) has been consumed. I think I’ll
order a creme brulee for desert if I can get the waitress’s attention.

It’s about 8:30 p.m. here and after dinner I’m headed back to the hotel
room. I’ll be up until about ten and hopefully will sleep the rest of the
night. There’s a large bathtub in the room. A nice bath may be in order
before bed. Tomorrow is a full day at work.

Nina says the Big Storm has delivered about 8-10 inches of snow so far
along with huge drifts in Pocatello. The temperatures are now above
freezing and icecicles are starting to melt. The storm is over.

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The theory is that I can write this e-mail, save it as a draft, add to it
as we progress eastward, and then send it when I get to Brussels. So, now
we’ll test the theory.

I’m about 2 hours into the 7 1/2 hour flight. According to the display,
we’ve traveled about 1200 miles. We’ll arrive at about 8:30 am Belgium
time, 5 1/2 hours from now.

Dinner is finished and most folks are settling down for the flight. The
diiner started with an appetizer followed by a mushroom and carmalized
onion soup (I had that rather than a salad). I had the “grilled veal chop
enhanced by Mushroom Sauce, presented with creamy Polenta and grilled
Aspragus Spears”. There were other choices, but this was the best of the
bunch. That was followed by an ice cream sundae (with ice cream frozen
harder than a rock). Everything has now been cleaned up and we’re
approaching the coast of New Foundland to start our trip over the Atlantic.
I’m going to make a bathroom stop, get out my laptop, and see what I can do
with the rest of the night. It’s just 6:55 pm in Pocatello. Too early to
catch a few Zzz’s, even if I could sleep on an airplane!

Well, the theory must work. I’ve opened this message back up and can add to
it. Isn’t technology wonderful?

It’s just about 9 pm Pocatello time. We’re just off the southernmost point
of Greenland at 34,000 feet and an airspeed of 651 mph. We’re at 55.52 N
and 40.51 E. We’ve got about 3:15 left to fly. Time’s moving right along. I
can’t change my watch, yet, because Brussels is already on tomorrow and
I’ll screw up the date process in my watch! I’ve got to wait until the day
changes in the watch to tomorrow, then I can move it ahead by eight hours.

The cabin is dark. Only one other passenger appears to be awake. I think
I’ll turn the light off and see if I can doze for a while. The dang sleep
apnea usually prevents me from having any kind of a restful sleep.

Sleeping was certainly a bust. It’s an hour and ten minutes later. We’re
about a half hour from the coast of Ireland and two hours from landing.
Back to my book (after a trip to the toilet).

We’ve just overflown Belfast and in a few minutes will be over Scotland..
It’s 11:10 pm Pocatello time and in an hour we’ll be in Brussels. Breakfast
has been served to those who want it. Most folks up here are still
sleeping. In a few minutes the flight attendants will turn up the lights so
people will get ready to land and disembark.

It took just 25 minutes to cross the channel between Ireland and Scotland
and then fly across all of England. We’re now over the English Channel and
in about ten minutes will be over Europe. Right now we’re about 169 miles
from Brussels. Twenty-eight minutes to landing!

We’ve crossed the coastline of the Neatherlands and have begun our descent.
The sky to the east is a brilliant red. There are some high clouds
otherwise it’s pretty clear. The city lights from Amsterdam are off to the
left. It’s ten to midnight Pocatello time and landing is in 20 minutes.

We’re on the ground in Brussels. It’s 8:12 am (twelve minutes pst midnight
in Pocatello). Welcome to Brussels!

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In the next few minutes my flight to Brussels will start boarding. The
flight time will be about eight hours or less, depending on routing and
winds. I’m in seat 3C which is in business class near the front of the
plane. I think the flight is nearly full but with some empty seats. A
fellow was just able to score a move in economy class from a middle seat to
an aisle seat.

This is the first time I’ve flown to Brussels from Atlanta. The previous
trips have all been through JFK in New York. This is a much nicer facility
with better amenities. I’ll probably do this routing more often, even
though it’s about 45 miinutes longer from departure in SLC to arrival in
Brussels. The check-in folks just announced that it would be at least 5
more minutes before boarding starts because the cleaning crew isn’t
finished cleaning up the airplane. No flight delay, yet…. People have
started crowding around the door to the jetway.

I spent the three hours between flights in the Business Class lounge, a
much nicer facility here than in New York. I read through a few remaining
personal e-mails and read all the news on the web.

I’m now in my seat on the airplane. The crowds are coming on and it still
looks like a pretty full flight. It looks like Business Class is full.
There is no 1st class on these Delta flights. The boarding process will go
for at least another 20 minutes, meaning that we’ll be a few minutes late
leaving for sure.

The guy sitting to my right has been unloading all kinds of work stuff —
spiral bound books, papers, manila and plastic folders. At least right now,
it appears that he plans to work on this flight. Me? I plan to read, listen
to some tunes, and if the power plug works at my seat, watch The
Manchurian Candidate. I bought that movie as I was walking down the
concoiurse at a shop called “Altitunes”. As long as I’ve got power, I can
watch the DVD on my laptop computer. Otherwise, I’ll watch it in the
evening sometime this week (maybe). There were a lot of folks in that store
buying stuff, so I think they’re doing a good business.

Well, the doors are ready to close so I will send this and sign off until I
get to Brussels.

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According to the schedule, we would arrive in Atlanta at 2:26 pm Atlanta
time, or about an hour from now. We’ve got a tailwind and should arrive
about 20 minutes early. I like early!

Someone near me has their cell phone turned on as my Bose noise cancelling
headset picks up the phone trying to find service. I’m always a good boy
and turn off the cell phone radio on my Blackberry when I’m supposed to and
turn it back on when it’s allowed. So far as I know, there really isn’t any
risk to the flight instruments, it’s just that the ground-based cell phone
system isn’t geared for the speed at which jet travel goes past cell towers
and the number of towers visible at the same time.

Got an interesting comment posted last night to a weblog entry from about
18 months ago. Dave had been stationed at Johnson AFB in Japan during the
Korean War (some 50 years ago) and is once again living in Japan near
Hiroshima. He was searching the Internet looking for references to Johnson
AFB and found my blog entry featuring a picture of James and Momo (the dog)
outside our rented house when we were living off base at Johnson AFB in the
late 1960’s. Dave posted a comment wanting to know how to get there and if
the base was still in existance. I sent him back as much info as I had. The
base is now a Japanese Self Defense Forces facility and is named Iruma Air
Base after the nearby city. I hope he gets back there and shares some
pictures! It’ll be many years before I get back there, if ever. Good luck,
Dave.

The flight has been very uneventful. I’m in an aisle seat on the inside of
this 767 airplane. In 1st class the seats are arranged 2 on the left, an
aisle, 2 in the middle, an aisle, and 2 on the right. The woman sitting on
my right is flying in 1st class for the first time. She’s going with her
husband (who gave up his upgrade to sit in the back so his wife could be up
front — what a guy!) On a business trip to Ft. Meyers, Florida. She’s
sound asleep — perhaps because she’s completely undisturbed because her
two children are at home staying with grandparents.

Speaking of grandkids in a round-about way, Peter and Maurene called to let
us know that they are expecting twins! At least one of them is a boy. The
other fetus was playing hide and go seek thus making determination of the
sex indeterminate. Very exciting news!

We’ve started our serious descent into the Atlanta Hartsfield Airport so we
should be on the ground in 20 minutes or so. We must not have made as good
time as forecast from the cockpit at the beginning of the flight as that
puts us pretty close to on time. No early this leg.

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