Budapest is a very beautiful city. A lot of history and beautiful architecture. It reminded us at Praha, although less touristic and with more ‘modern’ buildings in between. You could easily stay here a couple of days for the medical baths and swimming pools in Jugendstill only because there are more than 50 of them! The transition from East to West is almost tangible, and although we enjoyed this city, we didn’t take much time to visit it. We were too tired from travelling and sightseeing. A little decadent, don’t you think? Maybe next time!
A little overview of our live on the road
The local host makes reservations in hotels for us since we not only need internet access to be able to write these messages, but also a parking place for the Experience truck (that is a little bigger than the average car). Because of these requirements, our hotels are most of the time on the outskirt of the cities.
Most are real big business hotels of the Sheraton genre. Europe’s finest tailor-made suits spent the night here. Samsonite suit-cases with matching laptop bags are crossing the broad hallways of the hotel, followed by shiny shoes of fine Italian leather. The size of the watch and tiepin determine the status of the person. In the lobby of this type of hotels is not spoken but whispered, extraordinary considerate. Unfortunately also very impersonal.. Then we enter the hotel. Also covered in brand-names…. Our big red canvas stuff bag from The North Pace, the green backpack from Hagloffs and the black water-resistant suit-case of Pelican. Most of the time we also bring some fleece-sweaters and an extra pair of shoes on top of our luggage. On our feet mountain boots from Scarpa…
With our Experience Truck in front of the hotel people look at us like we just arrived from Mars. ‘One room please!’ In our room we are welcomed by the television ‘Welcome Mr Cuijpers and Mrs Smolders’ and introduced to the 7 channel national selection. We turn the tv of unless BVN is in the package (a collection of Belgian and Dutch television programs). We open a window, stop the air-conditioning and replace the fancy drinks in the minibar with our own beer and white port. All welcome-information is put in the box of our desk, so that we have place for our 2 laptops, extern hard disks, administration, and paperwork. Then we start looking for plugs so that we can load the video camera, photo camera and laptops to communicate with Jaga.
We put our suitcase on the floor and open it, emptying it would be too much work for the 3 days that we will be here. In the morning we will have breakfast between 6.30-10.00h where there’s always a lot to choose from: coffee, tea, juices, bread, croissants, butter, jams, cheese, meat, sausages, egg, bacon, tomato, champignons, lettuce and some local specialties. In Belarus we got dishes based on potatoes, in Scandinavia smoked salmon and herring, beef teak and Polish sausages in other countries. We enjoy a nice breakfast, dressed in our white polo shirt, red body warmer and white sweater with JAGA logo’s, surrounded by the tailor-made suits from the night before. While their laptops and cell phones accompany them, we talk about the forum and brainstorm that we will help organize that day.
The experience learned that we barely have time to have some lunch, so we try to eat a lot in the morning before we start our full time job. Most of the days we won’t come back in the hotel before 18.00h, accompanied by other Jaga people. In the evening we will go in town to search for a nice place to eat (we always try to find local food!) and have a drink in the (hotel) bar before going to sleep. After 3 days we load our stuff back into the truck and start our trip to the next country, next hotel and next forum…
The Forum in Budapest
Jaga all over...
Jan Kriekels reads climate - newspaper
Our Experience Truck in Budapest in front of the building
where the forum was held
Jaga's Building Bridges symbol at the restaurant
Building Bridges; Magda, Jan, Zsolt Renyl from Arli,
Ivana (export Jaga), Marco, Veerle (website)