Week 5 of Internship in Brussels, Belgium
by Shahin Soltan '09

This week at work was a little bit different than the other weeks. I had been working on a power presentation for all the Food Lion interns in Salisbury, N.C. I was supposed to present what I've learned so far and how those results compared to what I had expected to get out of this internship. Also, I talked about how Food Lion had prepared me for coming over here and whether that was adequate preparation or not. My presentation which I presented on Tuesday over a conference call went really well. They had all been given copies of my power point since I had e-mailed it to them in advance. As I was presenting my work, I would tell them when I was on another page so that they could follow along on their own sheet of paper.

Also this week, one of the Delhaize's most committed employees, Michel Vanoberrghen, has decided to retire after almost 30 years of service for the company. The reason for his retirement was that he and his wife have decided to move to the west African country of Senegal. Senegal, a former colony of France, is French-speaking which will make his transition to Africa a bit easier. So Thursday afternoon, we had a nice gathering of people at work to show appreciation to Michel for all the work he had done for Delhaize. From the accounting department, we gave him an electronic photo frame which automatically changes the picture in it. We all took pictures of ourselves and uploaded them on the photo frame that we gave him so that he we will be reminded of us when he is in Senegal and looks at his gift.

Sadly, this weekend was the last weekend that my mother would be staying with me. I had lots of fun while she was here and we laughed together quite a bit. Saturday evening, the other intern from Livingstone and I took my mother to the bus station here in Brussels. We waited a while to make sure she knew which bus to take and after that we went back our hotels. When we came back we decided to go out and take some pictures. As usual, there were lots of people and cars moving around in downtown Brussels; and to be honest, I am afraid to cross the streets sometimes because people drive a bit crazy over here.

That was a summary of this past week, for next week Chad and I have already made preliminary plans to go to Paris. Whether we actually do it or not remains to be seen.

PHOTOS: Business Internship in Brussels, Belgium