Prowling my world, camera in hand

9 March 2023

Week 09: Brussels, Eri and Malatesta

Filed under: — Administrator @ 21:36

I was in Brussels on February 28th for a meeting with our private stakeholders that we hosted there, so most of the pictures are from there, with a few from Alicante at the end. The trip to Brussels was short–I was in the city for just under 24 hours, but I still managed to squeeze in quite a bit of work and fun.

9_1
I landed in Brussels around 7 p.m. and took the airport express bus to the city. Across the isle was this delightful pair of passengers:
R007671

9_2
Having checked into my hotel, I met up with our Polish secretary Kasia who was in charge of organising the meeting. She is not that familiar with Brussels, so we took the metro to Gare Centrale and walked down to Grand’ Place. Along the way, we passed this low-end shopping gallery:
DSF4224

9_3
Not far from there is the Galerie Saint-Hubert, an altogether nicer proposition:
DSF4223

9_4
Grand’ Place was beautiful as always:
DSF4227

9_5
Tuesday morning I woke up early as I usually do and went for a walk in the neighbourhood to get some fresh air before the meeting. It was a nice and cold morning, and I looked for various ways to photograph the morning light:
DSF4228

9_6
I then walked to the European Parliament; the main esplanade was still largely deserted:
DSF4237

9_7
DSF4238

9_8
It always pleases me to see this plaque explaining why the esplanade is named after the Polish Solidarity trade union:
DSF4239

9_9
It seems that Brussels is a city under perpetual construction:
DSF4240

9_10
An advert for one of my favourite beers:
DSF4244

9_11
Then it was time to walk back to the hotel, change into the business uniform and start the meeting. Kasia was already there, somewhat nervous–this was the first time she had the responsibility for the logistics of an important meeting like this (it all went well in the end):
DSF4243

9_12
The meeting ended around 4 p.m. My flight home departed at 9, so I had time to visit the Bozar art museum to see a major exhibition of Swedish art, not least paintings by Hilma af Klint:
DSF4260

9_13
DSF4263

9_14
I came back to Alicante around midnight, and then it was back to work. On Thursday, one of my collaborators, Marie-Hélène, invited us for lunch to celebrate her 25th anniversary at the office. She chose one of my favourite restaurants, called Tabula Rasa. Here she is with Carolina:
DSF4274

9_15
I occasionally photograph my male colleagues too ;-), such as our trainee Said here:
DSF4275

9_16
Tabula Rasa is slow food, our lunch took more than 2 hours and consisted of many small dishes like this one, Torta con Boquerón, Espinaca y Queso Tostado:
DSF4276

9_17
On Friday, I did another portrait shoot with Eri, this time on a designer bench in the courtyard of our office:
DSF4284

9_18
DSF4285

9_19
DSF4281

9_20
On my way home from work, I stopped for a beer at my favourite bar, Malatesta:
R007674

9_21
You can ask the bartender for chalk and help decorate the bar:
R007676

9_22
This little dog and his humans are there every Friday:
R007680

9_23
And staying with the canine theme, I finish the week with a cute beagle in the supermarket vestibule:
R007672

More photos from Brussels, especially from the Swedish art exhibition, can be seen here.

No Comments

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.

Powered by WordPress