This year’s Back2Brussels was another smashing success. Great organisation, great location, great participants and a very hospitable CD were the main ingredients for a fantastic weekend. 75 Les Anciens members showed up, among them quite a lot for the first time. Three people even become LA member during B2B – Dorota Przyludzka, Ivan Stuger and Michele Antonini! Welcome!!! By the way, Ivan won this year’s squash tournament! Congratulations!
Some people really travelled a long way to be at B2B – Almut Brunckhorst surely hat the longest trip, coming from Afghanistan to the annual gathering in the Belgian capital. The youngest participant of the event was Alina Sattler – four years old. In general, this event was a great occasion to see children – Carolien brought her nine month old son, Bart came with his baby – this shows once more that Les Anciens events need better provision for children.
Back to the first day of the event: On Friday night about 40 participants gathered in the fancy restaurant/disco place Bazaar at 19.30 , enjoying very special food. At one end of the long restaurant table the consumption of vodka was very high. Guess who was sitting there… Around 2 a.m. the group moved to the dancefloor downstairs, where some the last people stayed until after 4 a.m.
On Saturday, eight people took part in the squash tournament, while the bigger part of the group decided to find out more about the secrets of chocolate making by visiting the chocolatier Manon. This was surely one of the absolute highlights of the entire weekend. The boss of the company explained in detail and with great enthusiasm all there is to know about the way to make chocolate. Our participants had the possibility to put their fingers in the chocolate and try it for themselves.
Afterwards the group went to have lunch at the former Thurn & Taxis post service territory, where they had lunch at the restaurant La Fabbrica. Around 4.30 in the afternoon the group split. Quite some of them went to the place of Egens, who was celebrating a pre-birthday party with a lot of people in his great flat in Ixelles – his real birthday is 30th of March. Egens showed a different side of his many skills – he cooked delicious Asian food in a wok for his guests.
At 20.00 everyone started to gather in Rue Nestor de Tiere 15, the home of the Comité Directeur. Due to the fact that B2B took place in late March and the weather was excellent with no rain and daytime temperatures of up to 20 degrees, the CD reception took place in the garden for the first time and not in the usually overcrowded headoffice. The CD members spent days on cleaning the house and shopping for this special night – and the efforts paid off. Barbecue in the garden, salads, fingerfood, drinks – and a great atmosphere. The CD reception was maybe the best in the past years, definitely due to the very friendly and hospitable CD members around Manos and his team.
While the night at the CD house progressed, a huge bucket of sangria got finished quickly. The last participants went home around 6 a.m. Some of them even continued partying at home, like Egens, Pater Daemen and Alexianne Galea, who stayed up until 7.15 in the morning. This was just a few hours before the brunch at Tanneur – which lasted itself until the afternoon.
A big THANK YOU goes to the organisers Carolien, Iulia, Agata, Isabella, Bart, Calin, Tanguy and Peter Daemen – and of course in first place LA event coordinator Susanna Ritala! Also, THANK YOU, CD, for your great hospitality! And of course, THANK YOU, dear participants, for the great spirit you brought to this event! See you again in Brussels next year! :-)
Check out the B2B photos of the participants!
Fabian’s pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?fbid=10150219028268327&id=655863326&aid=377316
Renés photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?fbid=10150127539907939&id=684857938&aid=287772
Gunnar’s photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=390481&id=757618573&l=07e57ad2be