Training for threemonths in a foreign country is a big commitment. What arrangements did you have tomake before you were able to go?
Ben Bentvelzen I was 22 back then and pretty much fresh out of school. I worked my socks off for a year between my trip to Blaine's school and starting at Alexandre school to save the money for the course, tools, housing, and my living expenses. I worked for half a dozen different jewellers and goldsmith companies as an independent contractor during that year. After explaining my plans they were all pretty enthusiastic about it and they saw the benefit for them as well after I came back with the new skills. (Little did I know that I would stay for 1.5 years in Antwerp and never come back to doing bench jeweller work for them like before). SterlingHofmann Foreign travel can be hard, especially for 3 months. I've traveled around before, but a long term stay like this required more preparation. In my specific case I had to get special permission from the Belgian Consulate just to enter the country. Once there, I rented 3 different Airbnb's (one for each month). I didn't want to feel cooped up in the same place for too long so that's why I rented 3 places. Other arrangements included preparing for the cultural differences as well as having my credit card companies aware of my 3 month absence to a foreign country. I also had to set up special training for my employees back home to make sure they could manage without me there 24/7. It was a huge commitment, but worth every ounce of stress involved. Maxime Carriere I made a very good friend from the goldsmith school. We both decided to take the program together, this made it easy since we lived together for the 3 months. Robert Robins Arrangements I had to make were mostly financial, had to sell a car I loved, leave employment, leave my partner and dog. But three months is not really a huge amount of time. Financially I coped well without earning for those months, it’s only 3 mortgage payments for example. After making the sacrifices and committing to the time, I realised it’s much easier than you originally think. Plus I was there for 4 months!
Kevin Biehn That was actually kind of an interesting one, because it happened to fall directly during all the COVID restrictions and everything. I had to do the normal the Airbnb and the travel, flights, and all that stuff. I was very fortunate to have gained my good friend Zach during the courses at GRS that first year. We decided to enroll in Alexandre’s school together. So that made setting up all the arrangements much easier, as well as just made it an all around more enjoyable experience to have someone to share the time with while we were there. I was supposed to go over and I had actually given up my house, my life in Colorado, and I was ready to go to Belgium for three months. I drove across the country to leave my dog with my family and once I got there, about 2 days afterwards, COVID happened and the world shut down internationally. So there was no chance of traveling or anything. I ended up staying with some family because there really weren't many other options. I already had the course scheduled and it had passed, so I had to figure out how to get over there in a time span that they didn't have courses scheduled and stuff like that. It was basically just a whole year of limbo and not knowing. It worked out because I was able to gather some more funds for the trip and really hone some more skills before I went. But yeah, it wasn't an ideal situation.
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Ben Bentvelzen instagram.com/benbentvelzen/
SterlingHofmann instagram.com/ster.in.the.shop/
Maxime Carriere instagram.com/mcthejeweller/ mc-jeweller.com
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