Parisians I Have Known/Best Beer In The World

I was in Brussels for the last couple of days. I love Brussels. I love the art. I love the architecture. I love the mussels, and I especially love the beer. I was giving training, and it went well.

I can tell already that this is going to be a bit scattered. Oh well. If you pretend I'm talking really quickly it will probably help it seem a bit more natural, though still just as scattered.

Anyways, the nature of training that we give to new people in our company is that someone, and perhaps everyone, is bound to be confused. To do the kind of work I do, you just need to understand two things, roughly: computers and banking. But it turns out that most of the people who know any amount worth knowing about one of these topics know next to nothing about the other. Not that these are stupid people by any means - these are just not two streams that meet often.

As a result, what tends to happen is that, when I am talking about the business concepts, especially the details of the day-to-day activities of private bankers, the IT people either glaze over or look frightened. And when I talk about the technical side of things, the bankers either glaze over or start making phone calls. But no matter what I talk about, somebody is threatening to glaze over. I hate the glaze, but I'm never far from the glaze.

Most of the people I "train" are more experienced than I am, are older than I am, have been working longer, and know much more about either one side or the other (business or technical) than I do. But the good news is I like to talk, and I love to help people understand things, especially if they are also interested in understanding them. So I'm more than happy to dive in and give it my best shot, and every once in a while it works. After the final session today, one of the men who had been there told me that he had done a lot of training, and he knew the challenges in it, but that I had been flawless. To be honest, I would trade "flawless" for "impassioned" every time, but from a banker from Luxembourg, flawless is not too far down on the scale of possible compliments.

And, as usual, it was an interesting mix of people. Also, as usual, in the interest of keeping my job and professional reputation (such as it is) intact, I'm not going to say much more about it than that, but I will say that last night I had dinner with three absolutely lovely Parisians.

Now, the three of them had just come to Brussels on the train that morning, sat through my training in English all day, and were still kind enough to allow me to tag along with them for the evening. And here's the kicker: they continued to speak in English. Every once in a while they would lapse into French, but as soon as one would see me approaching the glaze, they would apologize, recap what they had been talking about (!), and then continue in English.

Now, make sure you get all the sides to the story, here. They had been through a long day of fairly demanding training. There were three of them, and one of me. We were in a French-speaking country. Yet they made an effort to make me feel comfortable and included. So it turns out that Parisians are not rude, self-absorbed and insensitive. These ones, at least, were very much the opposite. They were great.

And it was truly a wonderful evening. When we arrived in the grand place, I kicked myself for not bringing my camera. The old town hall was lit up in a brilliant white light, and though the sun had gone down a little earlier (the reason I left the camera in my room), but sky behind it was still a brilliant, rather light blue, and framed it perfectly. It was breathtaking. I just stood and tried to drink it in, knowing it would never last in my mind the way that I was seeing it, but determined to try. What a beautiful city.

And then there's the beer. Wow. If I had any doubts before, they are gone now. If I could only have beer from one country for the rest of my life, it would be Belgium. So much variety and depth and complexity in the flavors... it's just incredible. I had a beef stew with new potatoes, made in Leffe Brun, and, for dessert, my very first Belgian waffle, which was good but not as good as the beer.

Then I had a wonderful conversation with a new colleague (who had been in my training) on the way home. When I got back to Geneva I went to spend some time with a friend and had a bowl of homemade soup and another great talk. Then I came back to the apartment and had yet another lovely chat with Nathan.

Unfortunately, I need to get up in a little under four hours to get the train to Milan with some friends. So it's been a wonderful few days, and I think the weekend is going to be absolutely spectacular, and I wanted to write about it because I appreciate you coming here to read. But I'm pretty tired now and need to get to bed. Right after I pack. Uggghhh.

More in a couple of days, if I make it.