Fun at the Sudden Death Café

Brussels, Belgium

Music: Paul Simon, American Tune; Pearl Jam, Off He Goes; Dire Straits, On Every Street.
Books: Alexis de Tocqueville (“Democracy in America”), Thomas Friedman (“The World is Flat”)
Beers: Grimbergen Blonde, Mort Subite

Once again, woke up to a cold house and an unsatisfying shower. Still not quite getting the hang of it, but making the best of it anyway. And again, the day begins with a quick homemade breakfast with Sara and Pablo, and after a few wrong turns in the Metro (I won’t discuss it, so don’t ask), we get to our lecture room. The day is oriented towards the EU’s legal system, and we are visited by an American ex-pat lawyer who specializes in the intricacies of Belgian commercial law. He is interesting, but fails to bring it home to this room of MBAs—or at least to me.

A few questions towards the end do manage to elicit the insights we were looking to get: that though it may hold certain advantages from an individual’s point of view, the system is less amenable to rip-roaring entrepreneurship like we see in the US. Employment law, in particular, has to be a huge point of concern for any US firm seeking to establish European operations. But enough of this stuff. The real noteworthy details of this day are out of the classroom, and found in the storied Café À la Mort Subite.

After another spectacular dinner courtesy of Sara (chili con carne), we set out to meet some drinking buddies on the Grande Place, but first, we stopped for a quick gaufre on Place d’Espagne (flambée au Grand Marnier with ice cream, and that “rough-looking” girl from Quebec seated behind me). We then go on to meet up with Mike Queally, Professor Murphy and Ann Casey. It’s there that we’re informed that we will be meeting Brian Lohr at the Café À la Mort Subite, and that he’ll be bringing an MBA graduate from the class of 2000, a Ukrainian girl named Alla Giabovska, who now works for Johnson & Johnson international in Antwerp.

Well, this is one of those situations where you almost wish you hadn’t met, but not because the person is unappealing. Quite the contrary: Alla, on top of having a beautiful name, is absolutely charming. What’s more, she wears the same perfume that CCMS wore (“Rush”, by Gucci). Now, I’m not of those poor saps who gets lost in the numbing haze of nostalgia, but smells have always had a powerful effect on me, and this one hits me right in the gut. All at once I’m overwhelmed by memories of Paris in the spring of 2003, and though these particular memories have an underwhelming ending, it takes nothing away from the potency of the feelings that come flooding back.

And though this would have been enough on its own, Alla also had to be completely charming and adorable, just to make things worse. She’s off to Martinique now, a perfectly poignant obstacle to any further progress, which makes me think this meeting was either inevitable but star-crossed, or just plain unlucky.

And I think I know which one it is …