16th International Workshop - USA: Part 1: Of planes and stuff

Finally, it has begun. After way too much preparation sessions, setting details, packing and sending messages to friends who might want to meet up when I’m at the other side of the Great Atlantic, April 6 came. The beginning of the 16th International Workshop – USA edition.

Waking up has never been one of my strongest points, so waking up at 5.30 was probably the hardest thing I did this week. Liesbeth and I took the first direct train from Mechelen to Zaventem airport (in only 11mins!). Once at the airport we met up with my Belgian team members at the Starbucks in the departure hall.  Just for your info: Team Belgium consists of 7 people: Evelien and Levie, representing Belgium’s  women; Benjamin, Seppe, Pieter-Jan and me, representing the Belgian men, and Vera, our accompanying teacher (and to be honest a truly nice and entrepreneuring teacher).

So we checked in at the KLM check-in, said goodbye to everyone and left for…. Amsterdam… ‘cause yes, flying directly would be too easy… 45 mins flying and we got to Amsterdam around 9AM. We then had to wait for about 2,5hours, had some decent breakfast and started to get to know each other well. We had all met up several times to prepare for this trip, but we never really got to know each other, so that was nice to do.  Around 1PM we left from Amsterdam Schiphol, together with about 30 other participants, as the Dutch, Swiss, Indonesian and whoknowswhatelse teams had joined us as well. 8 hours, 3x times food, 2 movies, 1,5hours of sleep,  1 CD (White Stripes!), and half a Knack magazine later we arrived at Washington Dulles Intl. Airport. It took us about 1,5hours more to get passed border control (they actually check all 10 of your fingerprints nowadays) and retrieve our luggage.

At the arrival hall, we met up with everyone of the Workshop. My team (as all the teams/companies are mixed up by nationality) consists of: a Dutch guy and an Indonesian and Finnish girl. We were supposed to be six in our team, but apparently in last instance two girls (from USA & UAE) did not join us. –So now, if we don’t happen to win the Business Game, we can blame it on having “2people short”. We left the airport and got into two busses (as we are +70 people, no bus in the USA is big enough to host us all). As said before: Finally. It has begun.  

Keep it up and stay tuned for more.