Belgium Trip

Mid-May I traveled to Antwerp and Beerse , Belgium for work. J&J PRD has three early development pharma research sites (PA, CA and Belgium) and there are finance groups at each site that support the researchers. The trip was for us to coordinate and align on how we are measuring and forecasting across the three sites. We needed to be in person - because the time zone issue between Cali and Belgium usually only allows for 1-2 hours per day for conf. calls. Anyway, enough of that - the flight over started out normal, but then about 4 hours into it, a bladder infection set in. Needless to say, the remaining 4 hours on the flight were the longest ever!! Now, in all my travels I have been so lucky to never need foreign medical attention, but I guess there is a first for everything. Once we landed, we got through customs and got our luggage and then rode another 30-40 minutes to the hotel (all of which felt way longer). The front desk woman was my life saver! It was a holiday in Belgium - thus most everything was closed. But, the woman at the front desk at the hotel found me a doctor who would see me within the hour and then also a pharmacy that was open on call. So, Rachel, my friend and co-worker came with me. And thank goodness- because the doc only accepted Euros as payment, no credit card. Funny thing was that Rachel called on Sat before we left to see if I needed her to pick up some Euros to have on hand and I said, no thanks, I'll get some there if I need them. The doctor confirmed the infection and wrote a prescription and we were off to the pharmacy. Once the antibiotics started to work - I was off onto exploring. We spent the afternoon exploring. Then, we spent the next 3 days at the Beerse facility. Beerse is in a rural area. Driving each morning we saw that nearly all the homes were brick (our colleague said that Belgians are born with a brick in their stomach - meaning they tend to own homes and prefer brick :)..). Also on the drive to work every morning we saw a pet deer in a pen next to one of the homes.

Of course we finished off our last day there at the chocolate store - Rachel and I had quite the weight in chocolate on the plane :). My boss told his wife he bought 2 kilos and she said what are you a "drug lord" buying kilos :).

Here's some pics from "The Cathedral" right outside our hotel in Antwerp. As well as other sites along the way.