Team Claire - Victorious yet Humble

Last night we went out for a Global Mobility dinner (with all the short term secondees and some of the Dutchies who had recently returned from long term secondments).

The food was really tiny and posh, and the boys all complained that it wasn’t really a meal. We had a course of bread, a course of mostly raw tuna steak, a course of fish with a pasta noodle (yes just one), a course of onion soup (weird) and then a course of some sort of steak (tiny of course). Dessert was a course of some custard-type thing with ice cream on it followed by little chocolates/sweets.

There was a game of ‘human bingo’ where the characteristics were like ‘someone from NZ’ or ‘has more than three kids’ and you had to get a different person to sign off each box on the bingo. Claire (from South Africa) and I teamed up and were the first to complete the challenge.

Later in the evening all the entries were drawn and we won!!! The prize was two free entrances to Keukenhof, this cute little tulip park where you can cycle through and look at all the flowers (LINK). Plus, we get a free poster each when we go. Which is brilliant, because we were already planning on going for my birthday weekend! Very nice indeed.

Here's some of the others enjoying the food (not) -

Canal Cruise Take Two (this time with dinner)

Last night we went on a dinner canal cruise organized by work (no, not the same as the one we missed on Valentine’s day but kind of similar). It was pretty cool, but the moving boat wasn’t exactly conducive to getting good photos.

Here's a couple. At the end of the night, we also nicked off with all the flowers from the boat. Winner.

Best meal I’ve had in ages though. For sure.

Disposable Holland

Ok… not too sure if these guys have heard about global warming and the impact on the world from all the rubbish we throw out all the time.

Other than the readymade pancakes that you just have to heat up in the microwave (which I love, by the way), there are all sorts of strange things that you can buy here that seem to be a little too far in the direction of convenience.

However….. this latest development is something that we are going to put to good use. At the supermarket, you can buy……. Disposable barbeques!!!!!!!!!!! Yes you buy them, you grill on it once, and then you throw it out! Can you believe it?!!? We are hoping to use them at our farewell party at the end of April.

Woohoo!

Gebak

On the first Thursday of every month, the Financial Services team put on some Gebak (cakes) and pastries to celebrate all the birthdays of that month. A list goes up on the door of the names of those who are turning a year older with ages and pictures! I am curious to see whether us short-termers get included in the picture thing (given that my birthday will happen while I’m still over here!

The cakes and pastries were amazing, even better than Melody’s leaving morning tea (Sorry Mel!). They’re these huge cakes that are kind of like cheesecake, and little sugar pastries. Everything is also smothered in whipped cream. So good and yet so glad it’s only once a month!

(No piccies as I’m still missing a camera – hoping to purchase soon!)

Dutch Food

The food in the Netherlands is kind of similar to home, but some things are quite different. There are pastries everywhere, and it seems like every day at Philips it is someone’s birthday, and there are boxes and boxes of pastries being shared around the staff. They hardly ever offer them to the auditors though….. mean, huh.

There’s this new year’s pastry called Oliebollen, which we ate already. It is only around at the beginning of the year, and then they disappear for a few months.

Another Dutch specialty is the Kroket (plural is Kroketten). Kroketten look like they’ll have mashed potato inside them, and are long and skinny and deep fried. When you bite into it, it’s a meat/gravy combination. I ate one at the tenpin bowling alley, and I don’t think I’ll have it again.

One thing I will have again is Bossche Bol (think I spelled it right?). It’s basically a big creamy donut, but if I can get away with saying I’m eating it for cultural reasons then bring it on!

The breakfast at our hotel in Eindhoven is fantastic though! There’s bacon, sausages, meatballs, potato/cheese gratin, grilled tomatoes,four different juices, four different milks, cold meats, cheese, breads, bread rolls, muffins, croissants, pain au chocolat, cereals, three types of muesli, strawberry jam, raspberry jam, honey, peanut butter, chocolate spread, four types of yoghurt, rice, Chinese food like dumplings, sweet and sour chicken on a stick, pancakes, French toast, and you can also ask the chef to make you any eggs you like, such as an omelette or fried eggs or whatever. Then waitresses come around and fill up your coffee as often as you like.

There are also little handmade chocolates with nuts in them, and mini glasses of some port or something at the front desk of the hotel in the evenings. It’s great. Cherilyn and I have been making up excuses for going to the front desk and asking questions so that we can get more little chocolates!!!

Over here, all large employers have their own cafeteria (which I think is subsidized?). All the employees buy their lunch there, and it’s social suicide to bring your own from home. There’s bread rolls, and soup, and salads, and deep fried stuff like kroketten and cheeses, there’s a selection of salad items, chocolate bars etc, and even an ice cream freezer (and its seriously 5 degrees celcius outside). Everyone drinks milk at lunchtime, which I doubt I will ever do.

Worst lunch incident yet happened yesterday, when the guy in front of me in the line managed to dip his sleeve into my salad without me noticing. So the counter lady explains to me (in rapid Dutch) that his sleeve was in my food and that I would probably want to get another plate. Of course I just looked at her blankly and said ‘pardon?’ So she had to tell the next person in line (luckily my manager, Marc) and he had to explain to me that some random man had totally assaulted my lunch. Some people, seriously!

2008 commences…

New Year’s Day is a pretty quiet occasion in Amstelveen, with no shops open anywhere. We went into Amsterdam to see the sights in the daytime, get some food, and see if we could pick up another NZ secondee, Andrew, who was arriving on the train from France.

I ate a chocolate and nut covered waffle…

And Milli ate a giant hotdog…

We did actually manage to make our way to the train station, where the “Help” desk told us that Andrew’s train didn’t exist. We waited around a while, but didn’t manage to find him.

But we did see bikes. Many, many bikes. So we pretended these ones were ours.

There was a Burger King in the train station, and this was the first time we saw THIS sign…

Which of course we found hilarious. I guess it’s the Dutch version of our ‘Whoppertunities’ posters.