Week 2 Updates

I've been living in the Netherlands for 2 weeks now and I feel like I'm quite settled in. Said settling has caused me to neglect my blog once again...Here are some highlights from the past week or so.

Friday August 27: My first Kanalhuis party! I went over to another AIESEC house, appropriately named Kanalhuis because it's right by a canal, and had a really fun night dancing to Egyptian, Tunisian, and Brasilian music with a mix of Europop. Also that night I discovered the deliciousness that is fries with mayo and curry ketchup. It sounds disgusting but it actually is a great combination! I don't why we don't have this curry sauce in Canada...

Later on, Peter tried to drive 2 of my roommates at the same time...however the test drive didn't end well so we abandoned the plan.

Saturday August 28: I had a city tour with my AIESEC buddy Laura and then explored the downtown on my own. This was the first sunny day I experienced since arriving and it felt SOOO nice to feel the sun on my face! I can definitely understand how the weather influences your mood as I felt so much more alive and happy than I had the pervious week. My mood was further uplifted by discovering the beautiful flower markets by the canals and some very yummy pizza ;) I can't wait to go to Italy!!

Here are a few pictures of Utrecht so you can get an idea of what the city looks like:

Saturday September 4: I took a day trip to Den Haag (The Hague) with 3 of my roommates to attend MuseumNacht. This event is really cool because you can visit over 20 museums and galleries between 7:30 pm and 2 am for only €10. My favourite museum was the Mauritshuis, most famous for housing Vermeer's 'Girl with a pearl earring'. I think this was my first experience viewing a large collection of 17th century European art and it was quite stunning. After wandering around the city and visiting a few different museums, we went to the MuseumNacht afterparty but soon got bored and decided to try to catch a train back to Utrecht. However, upon reaching Den Haag Centraal, we found out that the station was closed until 5 am. Being excellent hobos though, we did not despair and napped outside at a restaurant terrace. Upon walking back to the central station at 5, we were very sad to see that the first train was not until 7:26 am but a station attendant told us that there was a night train running every hour if we walked to another station 15 minutes away. After following a nice Dutch guy to the other station and then running to catch the train 3 minutes before it left, our tired crew finally made it back to Utrecht at around 7:30 am.

Tekla (Hungary)

Skylar (Vietnam) and Wojtek (Poland)

Key learnings from the past week:

• In the Netherlands, most shops are closed by 6 pm on weekdays (with Thursday being the late shopping night) and almost everything is closed on Sunday. Plan your shopping carefully!
• Night trains do exist, just not where you expect them to be!

My new wheels!

Wednesday was probably the best day yet! After work, I went downtown and purchased a secondhand bike so I am now on my way to an authentic Dutch experience riding to the office everyday :) Here is my new bicyclette near the canal!



Later, I went bowling with about 7 other people and almost won but Manuel beat me in the last frame by 3 points! Sneaky guy comes up from behind with a strike and a spare to take the game...geez...

Then it was off to Zak's birthday party. Zak is from Greece and he used to live in my house but he has since moved to a much nicer house a few blocks away. There were so many different countries represented tonight: Malaysia, China, Vietnam, Tunisia, Greece, Italy, Argentina, Brazil, Indonesia, Finland, Germany, France, Portugal, Poland, India, Morocco, Slovakia, Russia, Netherlands, and Canada! It was like a mini United Nations! And all of these people are pretty much fluent in English and speak 2 or 3 other languages! I really wish I was born a non-native English speaker! It was also really cool to meet some of the old trainees who have been here over 1 year and hear about how they've enjoyed it so much here. Two of them even met in Utrecht and are getting married in September! I really can't believe how many trainees are here. I came on Sunday night and already 3 more trainees (Poland, Tunisia, Estonia) have arrived with a Hungarian girl coming on Thursday or Friday. I always thought it was cool to have 5 or so trainees in Edmonton at one time but Utrecht is insane! I can't wait to develop deeper friendships with all of these amazing people!

First Impressions of the Netherlands

Rain. I woke up Monday morning to heavy rain. "Ahh this is a nice welcome to Dutch weather," I thought to myself. Florentine from AIESEC showed up at my house soaking wet and then we took the bus together to my office. After introducing me to my manager Nicole and explaining some bus stop names in Dutch that I will never remember, Florentine was off and I was alone to start my first day of work.

Monday was spent mostly meeting different co-workers and going through some of Sara Lee's onboarding materials for new hires but I got a very good first impression of the people and the work environment. Sara Lee has a very strong focus on talent development and I like that they make you create a whole personal development plan with objectives and stretch goals and KPIs...brings me back to AIESEC year planning :P Another very cool thing about my office is that the employees get an unlimited free supply of Sara Lee's coffee and tea products at work. I can see myself becoming addicted to morning cappucinos very very soon!

At lunchtime, I headed down to the canteen and was quite surprised by the variety and quality of food they offer. All kinds of fresh bread, cheese, salads, yogurt, quiche, soup, fruit...and everything is quite cheap too. I had previously thought that food was very expensive in Europe but you can have a filling lunch for under €4! It must be subsidized by the company but I am still impressed by the relatively low prices. This was my lunch for Day 1:



After work, I went exploring a bit and was pretty shocked to find houseboats on the canals. Then I went to my neighborhood grocery store for the first time and had a fun time looking at all of the cheese, yogurt drinks, and toast sprinkles! I can already tell that I'm going to eat a TON of dairy products this year :P

I made it!!

After driving to Calgary, a 9 hour flight to Frankfurt, a 4 hour train ride to Utrecht, and hauling all of my luggage to the house, I am happy to be finally sitting in my new Dutch bedroom! My roommates at the moment are from Russia, Brazil, and China and I was thinking to myself that it's pretty cool to have 3 out of the 4 BRIC countries represented. I heard from some of the AIESEC members that several other trainees are arriving this week from Tunisia, Finland, and Hungary so it should be interesting to meet them too!

As for me, time to sleep for a few hours so I won't be a zombie tomorrow. Eeek first day of work!

Farewell Canada!

I'm leaving again. 24 hours and I will (hopefully) be in the air, on my way to Europe for the first time. I land in Frankfurt and then I'm taking an express train to Utrecht in the Netherlands, where I'll be working for 1 year. I'm excited but also scared to be jumping into another adventure with so many unknowns. I feel like I'm going to have more culture shock in Europe than anywhere I've been in Asia.

Here's what I know about the Netherlands so far to demonstrate my lack of preparedness:

- tulips
- lots o' CHEESE
- everyone cycles all the time
- windmills
- "Gezellig"
- very liberal country
- canals
- clogs
- black licorice
- the Dutch language has some pretty awesome swear words

Wish me luck!