October 2006

Today I visited our office in the Netherlands. My company's European headquarters are based near Rotterdam, and I went there this morning by train.

We had interesting discussions. Early in the morning we spoke in Dutch, later a colleague from the U.K. joined us so we switched to English.

In the office there were clocks with both the time in Netherlands and the time in New Jersey. My company has its global headquarters in New Jersey.

So it's been nearly two years since I was in a Dutch train, and it's a nice experience to travel from Hoorn to Rotterdam today.

Traveling in this train is a real Dutch experience -- the moment I'm writing this the train is moving through farm fields and there are cows just a few meters from the train, staring and chewing while the train moves by. A few years ago some of our foreign guests enjoyed it a lot to take a train through the flower fields in spring. I understand now why.

I'm traveling on a 1st class ticket, and that is a good thing. It's so crowded! Even in 1st class there are too few seats and a couple of people didn't find a place to sit from Hoorn to Amsterdam. There is no reserved seating so when the doors opened there was a mad rush to get inside and get a good place to sit. The train itself is amazing -- better than any American public transport. Smooth, quiet, very clean and fast.

I briefly saw Amsterdam Central Station, a beautiful trainstation but I had only a few minutes to transfer to the train to Rotterdam. It's an all-service train, so it stops in small places like Abcoude and Woerden. My end point is in a suburb of Rotterdam where I have a couple of meetings for work today.


The train also drove through Duivendrecht and Amsterdam Bijlmer, where I used to live. I heard the familiar sound of the metro doors closing on Duivendrecht. The Bijlmer station has changed incredibly. From being a small, greasy train station it is now being transformed into something like Duivendrecht: huge, open platforms that are long enough to load and unload the large intercity trains.

Yesterday evening I had dinner with Ettie and my parents. I really enjoy being around them, after such a long time! It's especially nice to see Ettie and I hadn't seen her for so long. Gerben is back in Leeuwarden since Sunday evening for his work. We had stamppot andijvie for dinner, which was delicious. When I was little I used to dislike it but not anymore.

Cows from the train.

To Rotterdam.

An early morning again! I woke up, without an alarm, at 5.45 am, ready for a new day in the Netherlands and it's not raining.

My father will bring me to Hoorn at 7.00 am, where I'll take the train to Amsterdam, and from there to Rotterdam.

Today I had a schedule with a lot of miles, and it started early when we were quite on time at the consulate. It took a while (lots of waiting), but around 10.30 am after a short interview I was officially granted my renewal. Not surprising, but I'm still glad this is over. I'll get my passport with the visa stamp by mail.



We had lunch in Heerenveen. It was great to see my grandmother again. On the way back we went over the Afsluitdijk, so on my first day in the Netherlands I made a circle around the IJsselmeer already. The weather was pretty awful all day (rain, rain, rain).

Tomorrow I'll get up early again to go to Rotterdam.

My father and I are leaving for the Dutch consulate in a few minutes. I woke up at 5.30 am.

I went to bed at 8.00 pm Dutch time, and I although I briefly woke up at 11.00 pm and 2.00 am, I had a good night of sleep. Pretty cool, waking up at 5.30 and still having slept 9 full hours.