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