Shopping Spree Before FOSDEM 2025

The decision of arriving to Brussels a day before the FOSDEM 2025 fringe events began was a smart one as that not only allowed me to catch up on some sleep due to the major timezone shift I faced but also to connect with my fellow community members. While the jet lag did not hurt me as badly as it did the last few times I have been to Europe, I did find myself waking up a little earlier, at around 0500am Central European Time. After getting through some physical exercise in the morning routine, Sumantro Mukherjee got in touch with me to hatch some plans for exploring Brussels and purchasing goodies. We made it to the dining place around the reception area of the Moxy Brussels City Center hotel at around 0830am Central European Time to have our meal, which mostly consisted of Oatmeal Bars, Golden Hashbrowns, Chicken Sausage, Scrambled Eggs and Apple Juice.

Even though we were through with our breakfast by around 0900am Central European Time, we realized that most locations would not open before 1000am, and therefore, I decided to head back to my hotel room after waiting for Justin W. Flory for a while. I headed back down at around 0945am Central European Time, and with me gifting Justin a small bag of Vakadwadi snacks that he loved and sharing some conversation around the Fedora Mindshare revamp - Sumantro and I headed out on a shopping spree. Our first stop was a Kiko Milano outlet, where he made a couple of purchases for his wife before we crossed the road to make it to the ICI Paris XL outlet. After purchasing a couple of incense from there for my family members, we decided to head to a Primark store to pick up some clothes - only to find that we were probably one of their earliest customers.

Admittedly, we ended up picking up quite a lot of things from there, which made me wonder just how we would be able to carry them all back on our return trip. Sumantro was in constant touch with Saheli Das Mukherjee while I was connected with my uncle and my mother over call to ensure that we made some well-informed decisions on apparel sizes. We joined the queue one after the other once we were through with making our choices, and we decided that it would be for the best if we were to head back to the hotel to drop these things before we continued with further exploration. On our way out, we headed into a nearby video game store where we looked into a bunch of retro consoles, arcade cabinets and action figurines while discussing whether Sumantro should purchase an archaic Nintendo Game Boy Color and searching for some Genshin Impact official merchandise.

At around 1230pm Central European Time, we headed into an optometrist shop as Sumantro wanted to make a purchase of some shades from the acclaimed Versace brand as a gift for his wife. We headed into another video game store located beside the previous store, where we explored some more arcade cabinets, videogame cartridges, anime merchandise and archaic computers. We were sure that we were not going to make a purchase here anyway, so we decided to depart from there after obtaining a couple of energy drinks imported from Japan. In another computer peripheral store, Sumantro and I explored some transistor radios and feature phones that were going out of fashion swiftly before we realized that it was around time for us to head for lunch. Even though we initially planned to visit the Tintin store, we decided against it due to the lack of interest.

We found ourselves heading into a Belchicken joint at around 0200pm Central European Time, and after I made one more purchase of trenchcoat from a UNIQLO store, we decided to get a couple of takeaways. We elected a no-brainer combo of some Chicken Tenders and French Fries with Garlic Sauce and decided to have our food together in my hotel room #610. Sumantro left at around 0300pm Central European Time after we were through with the lunch for his hotel room as he wanted to prepare for his Fedora Mindshare part of the Fedora Council meeting that was going to happen in an hour from then. I decided to catch up on some more of the rest before joining the Fedora Council meeting remotely with other folks from the Red Hat Community Linux Engineering team, represented by Brendan Conoboy and those from the Fedora Council and CentOS Board.

In the evening, Sumantro made some impromptu plans to throw me a birthday party in the evening - which surely came as a welcome surprise to me. Among my thankful declination and his brotherly insistence, I had to give in, and we decided to leave from Moxy Brussels City Center hotel for Delirium Village at around 0600pm Central European Time. On our way out of the hotel, we ran into Matthew Miller and Luis Bazan, who were returning from their rental workspace - with whom we shared some conversations before we were on our way again. The weather was on the drizzlier side, and while we thought that it would get better in some time, we were soon proven wrong as we kept proceeding closer to the Grand Place. The Decathlon Forclaz jacket proved to be useful when the rain took a turn for the worse, and we had to stay moving constantly to ensure that we were not drenched.

After clicking a bunch of photographs around an absurdly vacant Grand Place square, we went through a row of memorabilia souvenir shops and luxury chocolate shops. While I could resist the temptation of making purchases from there as this was not my first time in Brussels, I could not help myself when I came across a conveniently tucked away Manga Cafe store when Sumantro and I were seeking shelter from the rain. The only reason why we could make it out was because of the distinctive Pikachu plushie and some Spy X Family posters visible from outside of the shop. Unlike the couple of shops that we visited earlier that day, this seemed like the place where we could find exactly what we were looking for - with the catch being that most merchandise available here, including the Genshin Impact Official Artbook, was localised to French, which was not helpful to me.

They had the entire manga collection of Horimiya (2021), which I would have purchased immediately had it been in English, but I did understand the reason why they were so. After spending almost an hour exploring the store until closing time of the store - I decided to get myself one unit of Kimetsu No Yaiba themed Sakuma Drops and three Gacha Boxes of metal plates with Spy X Family themed backgrounds. After clumsily dropping the cutter that I borrowed from the store receptionist a couple of times, I was finally able to pull plates with Loid Forger, Anya Forger and Yor Forger from the three boxes that I purchased. I wanted to buy out the entire stock to ensure that I ended up getting one of each kind possible from Spy X Family Code White (2023), but I decided not to go all out because that was most likely what the merchandise makers wanted us to do anyway.

Sumantro purchased a Daruma Doll after I dropped a lore about what they are about and a reference to those from the popular anime Doraemon (1979), and we departed from the store at around 0800pm Central European Time. We ordered a couple of beers when we made it into the hustle and bustle of the Delirium Cafe, and I decided to keep mine non-alcoholic to ensure that I was on top of my hydration game. The vibes within the Delirium Village were amazing, but as it was growing colder, we headed to The Belgian Fries Co. outlet for dinner once we were done with our drinks. We departed from the restaurant around an hour later for the hotel on foot, with me taking care of the navigation this time. We walked swiftly back to the hotel to ensure that we had enough resting time and woke up healthy to participate and assist with the CentOS Connect 2025 event the next day.