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pvaneyndYesterday I went to the gala-opening of the annual car show here.
I went to work later, expecting to leave at 18:00 to be there at 19:00, grab something to eat and enter before 20:00. At 17:00 my brother (you was working there and offered the ticket) called me to say he was waiting there already, so I started leaving. I checked the traffic map for the situation and they just claimed problems upto a certain entry to the 'ring' (the circular highway round Brussels) due to a oil spill at our entry.
They were lying. There was a oil spill for kilometers and all entries were closed, the only reason the display said 'no problems, green' was because there was no traffic. So I had to bypass the highway, together with zillons of others. It took me 2.5 hours to reach the expo with an average speed of 2 km/hour.
So there, at last, I changed into formal dress and quickly entered, bypassing all the queues. "Stand contributor"-cards and a separate fast queue are so nice :-).
Inside, the stand of my brothers employer (Hyundai) was impressively large, with much fine food to be had. Their cars were also looking nice. We then went for a walk about, directly across was the fiat stand and the new Croma looked nice. The ugliest car we saw was without a doubt the new C6. From behind it is just plain ugly. The insides are pretty small and for the external size it has a tiny trunk. It was nice talking to people in the know and seeing stuff behind the stands.
The new rav4 looked a disappointment. The back door still opens to the right, so if you want to take your shopping and go inside you have to either walk on the street, close the door or walk round the open door. Stupid. Why can't it open to the left like it should? The best food was at the Hyundai stand (no doubt standing next to the bosses helps), followed by Peugeot and Citroen. The nicest cars I saw have to be at the Ferrari and the Porsche stands.
Returning I wanted to take the A12, but my brother wanted to take the faster and closer to home E19, so off we went. I swear, not 50m after the point-of-no-return I hear that the problems were still not finished and we slammed into the queue again. I used all my knowledge of the zone to bring us about and 40 minutes later we had left the death-zone of traffic and were on the A12 heading home.
All in all very nice, but shame about the traffic. I read this morning the problems lasted until 03:00 this morning! Some truck has spilled sunflower oil all other the ring and the E19 and the fire department was unable to remove it as due to the cold weather it would solidify too fast.
Many thanks to my brother for the ticket!
I went to work later, expecting to leave at 18:00 to be there at 19:00, grab something to eat and enter before 20:00. At 17:00 my brother (you was working there and offered the ticket) called me to say he was waiting there already, so I started leaving. I checked the traffic map for the situation and they just claimed problems upto a certain entry to the 'ring' (the circular highway round Brussels) due to a oil spill at our entry.
They were lying. There was a oil spill for kilometers and all entries were closed, the only reason the display said 'no problems, green' was because there was no traffic. So I had to bypass the highway, together with zillons of others. It took me 2.5 hours to reach the expo with an average speed of 2 km/hour.
So there, at last, I changed into formal dress and quickly entered, bypassing all the queues. "Stand contributor"-cards and a separate fast queue are so nice :-).
Inside, the stand of my brothers employer (Hyundai) was impressively large, with much fine food to be had. Their cars were also looking nice. We then went for a walk about, directly across was the fiat stand and the new Croma looked nice. The ugliest car we saw was without a doubt the new C6. From behind it is just plain ugly. The insides are pretty small and for the external size it has a tiny trunk. It was nice talking to people in the know and seeing stuff behind the stands.
The new rav4 looked a disappointment. The back door still opens to the right, so if you want to take your shopping and go inside you have to either walk on the street, close the door or walk round the open door. Stupid. Why can't it open to the left like it should? The best food was at the Hyundai stand (no doubt standing next to the bosses helps), followed by Peugeot and Citroen. The nicest cars I saw have to be at the Ferrari and the Porsche stands.
Returning I wanted to take the A12, but my brother wanted to take the faster and closer to home E19, so off we went. I swear, not 50m after the point-of-no-return I hear that the problems were still not finished and we slammed into the queue again. I used all my knowledge of the zone to bring us about and 40 minutes later we had left the death-zone of traffic and were on the A12 heading home.
All in all very nice, but shame about the traffic. I read this morning the problems lasted until 03:00 this morning! Some truck has spilled sunflower oil all other the ring and the E19 and the fire department was unable to remove it as due to the cold weather it would solidify too fast.
Many thanks to my brother for the ticket!
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Date: 2006-01-18 09:00 am (UTC)