Day 9

Thursday

17.02.2011 8 °C

Another night in where things didn't go quite to plan, got back early from work as Jeroem had a headache and wanted to leave at 15:55pm, anyway got into my hotel room, sat on the bed and it collapsed, what next!. Brian leant me the box set of Extras and I watched all of the first series which finished right on the kick off of the Arsenal v Barcelona match, had another night of sleep - trains - sleep, and after getting up wrestling with the broken shower again, packed up my stuff and went down for breakfast.

What a laugh that was - not, I went into the restaurant downstairs to find a little old lady, 80 if she was a day, sat there in almost darkness, apart from a dim wall light behind her, with a small table of breads, waffles and croissant, she asked me in a very unfriendly way if I wanted a coffee, I said Oui, and she brought me a double espresso, mmmmm, just what you need in the morning, I had about 10 minutes before Steven was due to pick me up so I drank the coffee and put a waffle and a croissant in my bag for later.

By the time I got to the office I had just about enough of France and Belgium, the problems getting places to stay, the ridiculous cost of everything, and the lack of any one giving a damn at Microsoft, they just seemed to take the attitude of - your here now sort yourself out.

I had to get Karel, the on site Microsoft team leader, into a room and explain the problems I'd been having, we agreed that I would go home and think about what I wanted to do, and to ring him on Sunday.