Job Search

My quest began last Wednesday. Being three days into it now, I have come to liken it to when the Buddhist monks go on a long journey by foot with nothing but their begging bowls. The people in the villages give them food as they seek further enlightenment.

So, here I am, taking a train to small towns outside of Brussels and walking for miles to find these little breweries. When I reach them, I throw caution to the wind and knock on the door. I've thoroughly rehearsed what I should say to them in Dutch, but when I have a person in front of me it's a different story. Anxiety takes it's toll and I have to fall back on "Sprekt u engels?" to switch the conversation into language I can actually use. Luckily, so far they have all spoken English well enough and have not been annoyed by having to do so.

My first day, last Wednesday, was particularly challenging. The weather was a bit poor and I had come unprepared for rain. But the solution was laid before me when I came upon a street-market at which I purchased a cheap umbrella. I used my large map of Belgium to get me to the vicinity of the brewery and then navigated by finding the town map which is generally posted in the center of town near the town's church.

The first brewery was intimidatingly large (they are famous for their line of Affligem abbey ales). When I walked by I could smell wort being boiled inside the brewery... a heavenly smell of malt and hops. I spoke to a lady at the reception desk who told me that there was no work at the moment, but I left my resume with her. Then I went to have some lunch. It had started to rain pretty hard, so I took my time. The tomato soup, ground-beef patty topped with two fried eggs, salad, and french fries meal was good fuel. Aside from the fantastic food available along the way, Kristen has been so sweet every morning by preparing a sensible breakfast for me so I can get the day started right. Good thing too, because of the amount of walking I've been doing.

After the rain let up, I paid my bill and headed back out. I constructed a map on a piece of paper by comparing my large map (lacking in fine detail like the names of the small streets) to the one in the town square. It is times like these that makes me wish I had brought the Civil War compass that Kristen had given me. Sadly, it is buried in her jewelry box in our storage room in Oregon. Anyway, to get to the second brewery, I took a narrow road through the countryside. The cows, sheep, and the odd car now and then, looked at me as though I was an alien. Not surprising. At one point, a farmer drove by me with his tractor, pulling a flat-bed trailer. He waved. Another twenty minutes later, I reached the brewery and, funnily enough, that same farmer was parked inside the brewery's courtyard. He was picking up "spent grain" to feed his livestock (spent grain is malted barley or wheat that has been mashed and discarded by a brewery). He recognized me and I was able to fumble out enough Dutch that he understood what I was doing. So, he went into the brewery to find the owner who came out a few minutes later to speak to me. He was not hiring at the moment either, but took my resume for possible employment in the future.

Two interviews down, it was time to go home. As the rain had picked up again, I didn't want to walk through the country-side again. Especially since my cheap umbrella was about to blow out from the gusty wind. Luckily, I found a bus that headed straight to Brussels in about 20 minutes. And it only cost 1.80 euros, though it took twice as long as the train.

Walking around the Belgian countryside is quite a peaceful experience. It is very beautiful out there and these little Belgian towns! Since I have a policy of not using the word "cute" to describe inanimate objects... how do I describe them? Well, at the risk of sounding trite, I'd use words like "quaint", "picturesque", and "rustic". Public transportation outside Brussels is still pretty thorough, though it's pretty much limited to trains and buses. However, since I have no local knowledge, it is difficult to take a bus when I don't know what stop to get off at. That's why I end up using my own two feet more often. Luckily, I am blessed with the ability to pretty much walk continuously and untirelessly for long periods of time. I just sort of "phase out" and let the kilometers fall behind me. It's been very cathartic and now that I have several brewery visits under my belt, it's not as intimidating.

I don't want to bore you with pedantic details of Thursday and Friday's journey, but there are a couple of good snippets I'd like to share.

The first brewery I visited on Thursday was a bit far from the train station I got off at. An hour's walk, to be exact. The map I had printed on Mapquest was inaccurate. The journey was fully worth it, however. Brouwerij De Smedt is in a beautiful old building on a breathtakingly amazing property, surrounded by farmland. The reception put me in touch with the owner who took a few minutes out of his busy schedule to speak to me. Then he introduced me to his brewmaster and had him give me a tour of the brewery! Though, Luc (the brewer) was busy filtering a beer, he spent about 20-30 minutes showing me around. We also went to the tasting room to try one of his beers. Then he went over my map of breweries and told me which ones were closed and which were easiest to find. He was very generous with his time. What a treat! And a good morale boost for me.

On Friday, I decided to have an easy day by only going to two breweries. I picked two in Leuven which was the town we were first considering moving to (a rather large university there). Since neither of us had seen this town, I convinced Kristen to go with me. Beautiful city. Lots of insanely old and immensely beautiful architecture, 15th - 17th century! The brewery in Leuven was more of a brewpub. We had lunch there and then I tried to speak to the brewer, but the brewery section was closed. So I just slipped my resume in the mail-slot. Then we took a bus to a small town just outside Leuven called Linden. This town could be described as "darling". It didn't take long to navigate to the "brewery", but I was a bit dismayed when we got there. It was in someone's house! There was a homemade sign hanging on the mailbox with the name of the brewery and a phone number. My thought was that if they operated out of a house, they/he/she probably was not looking to hire anybody. Oh well. We got back on the bus to Leuven, where we caught the next train back to Brussels.

That's it for now. I have about 20 or so more breweries to visit, so I'll be at this for at least one more week. Planning to start the week with a big day, visiting four breweries around Mechelen. I'll use Mechelen as my starting place and take buses out to the outlying areas. Now that I've fine-tuned my trip-planning and navigation by trial and error, I should be able to move around more efficiently. Luckily, the train and bus fares aren't too expensive or I'd need a much bigger budget to complete this quest. I'd like to get through it as soon as possible though. Time and money are starting to run low. If I'm not successful in landing a brewery job, I will seek out something "normal" which shouldn't be too difficult what with all the job agencies around here. There's even an Adecco here!

--RP--