Utrecht - Holland

I’m in Utrecht at the moment, helping one of our consultants with running some workshops for a client.

I get the feeling that these days and nights are going to be very long.
There are 4 of us here in Utrecht at the moment but last night there were 7. We all went out for dinner last night, entrée, main, desert and coffee – we didn’t leave the restaurant til midnight… and then up again at 7.45 for breakfast (6.45 London time)

My colleagues tell me that this is normal and by the end of the week they feel a wreak. I’m thinking tonight I will have a look around Utrecht but try and get an early night. There are less of us here now so perhaps dinner will not be such an occasion. Really though - I would never have guessed I would be an international consultant hehehe

I guess the think I have really noticed so far with international clients is the exceptions that have to be made due to language barriers. For example the test scripts for my client are all written in Dutch however we are training in… English (of course) so we can not be sure we have covered all the necessary topics – all trial and error really

Lunch today was very different to anything I have experience before. Our clients building has a lunch room the size of two of our office. In fact it would have been 10 times as big as the essential offices (just to give the people back home some idea)
We had a choice of a sandwich or a tortilla or a hot dog for a main meal plus any other fruit, yoghurt or rolls. It seems that nearly all the employees eat there and that the meals are subsidised (costing the employee only €1,5)

I have also noticed that the Dutch are much more direct than the English. I was asked if I would like a drink of water and replied ‘Oh I’m fine thank you’ to which I was laughed at for giving such an odd response, a ‘yes thanks’ or ‘no thanks’ was expected.

Last night I went for a walk around the shopping streets of Utrecht, LOTS OF SHOE SHOPS!
You all know I love shoes and well when I came over to London I could only bring ¼ of what I own… and now I have worn them through… so I treated myself to some new ones = ) yeah!
3 guesses what style… black, pointy, low heel.. you got it!
I found the equivalent of a wok in the box on my travels and I got honey prawns – yum!

They are mad for bikes here – 1000’s of them are lined up at the train station and it seems they have old bikes for the week day and fancy bikes for the weekend. How they find their bikes amongst the 1000’s that are in the stations bike parks is a mystery to me.

Tonight I’m meeting Nick at Camden. He is having a drink (or 10) with on of his fav comic book authors and so I thought I’d go along to meet the star(?) hehehe I’m looking forward to it but getting there before 10pm will be a bit of a mission (note mission is used for things that take a lot of organising/planning and at least 2 tubes) Taxi to airport, plane to London, queues at Heathrow… moan… express train to Paddington, tube to Euston and finally tube to Camden and a walk to the pub… I will need a drink when I get there!

I think homesickness is starting to kick in for me over here. Tho I get lots of lovely emails from you all I miss the smiles and the hugs, the laughs and drinks with my friends and the cups of coffee and tea with the people I love.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m loving it here – Nick and I are having a wonderful time and its something I’ll only ever get to do once but well I miss you guys, and I miss Adelaide and watching the sun set from my house.

Love you Cx