Day 3, 4, 5, & 6

Hi all!
If you’re new to my blog, welcome. This is a place where I’ll be recording my travel stories and trying to give you a little insight into what it’s like to be a consultant. Some of my posts may get long or too detailed so feel free to skim, but I know Mom and Dad will want the whole picture so bear with me :) Please feel free to leave comments when you stop by too! You can do this at the end of every post. I’ll also try to post some pictures. Oh and I'm a pretty terrible writer so be prepared for spelling and grammar errors!

Day 3
Friday snuck up on me this week since my flight on Tuesday threw me off my routine schedule. But on top of that, it didn’t really feel like Friday since we were expected to work Saturday. Regardless, the day went by pretty quickly and Friday night was upon us. We’ve all been way too tired to go out (as in OUT out), but one of my colleagues and I have been wanting to visit Utrecht, one of the other big neighboring cities. Turns out, several other people from the project were up for it as well so we journeyed over to Utrecht for dinner. I would have liked to have eaten somewhere in the Centrum so that I could have really seen the center of Utrecht, but we ended up at an asian tapas place that was actually quite the happening spot. All the tables were packed when we got there so we headed back to the lounge area where we kicked off our shoes and sprawled across these leather couches. We ordered some very delicious cocktails including a European mojito and then proceeded to order enough tapas for a small village. In Europe, everyone eats very small portions and one of the first things the local clients say about us Americans is that they don’t know how we can eat so much. Well, I’m sure the staff at this restaurant was wondering what the heck we were doing ordering so much food! haha. It was yummy though and an awesome ambiance too...



Day 4
Saturday. Work day. More rain. A little snow. You can tell how super excited I was about working on Saturday. I thought it was pretty dumb since no one from the business side in Europe volunteered to work thus we had to do all the business stuff ourselves which was way out of formal process. The U.S. was working too, but only because in the U.S. we’re allowed to demand the business to work so they didn’t really have a choice. I think the U.S. should adopt the work laws that Europe has in place. Aaanyway, our project team did end up having fun; we joked around a lot and even found some beer at the office to drink. Lol. We all got pretty slap-happy near the end of the day and finally left around 5:30 back to the hotel. Then it was down to Amsterdam that night for a team dinner. We met for pre-dinner drinks at the Barbizan Palace where I had the most delicious Irish Coffee with stroopwafel (Irish coffee = amaretto + coffee):

...and followed that with an Indonesian dinner at Sarang Mas in the heart of the city. That’s another cool thing about being on business… it’s a great opportunity to try different foods! I don’t think I’ve ever had Indonesian before. It was actually quite good, a mix between Indian and Asian flavors. Oh wait, is that why it’s called INDO-ne-SIAN? I can’t say I know where Indonesia is on a map. ha. Here's a group picture though:

After dinner, I really wanted to make myself go out, but we were all too tired so those of us staying in Amersfoort headed back to the Klepperman. I actually hailed a cab for us. I’m not sure if you hail cabs in Europe like you do in NYC, but I did. And it worked!

Day 5
Finally a day off!
Woke up early today (still haven't caught up on sleep) to head down to Amsterdam with my client boss and another consultant that had never been to the city. The consultant and I were actually moving hotels too since we wanted to be in the city where all the action is. So we checked out and headed over to the 'Dam. I was the tour guide for the day! I was actually very impressed with myself by how well I knew my way around. It was a little stressful because I felt like I had to plan the day and entertain my boss, but I think it went really well despite the weather. It got really chilly and started snowing around mid-day and continued into the evening. It didn’t stop us though… we started off with a walk down Damrak (main-drag), saw some interesting creatures (Amsterdam is a PERFECT people watching city - even in low-season/winter), and then took the tram down to museumplein. Saw the IAMsterdam sculture the moment we got down there which was funny because I had been looking all over the city for that last August (found out that it was under construction). Here's a pic... not the best angle, but I can go back later to get another shot. I am standing in the "m" and if you click on the picture, I think it enlarges.

My boss wanted to go to the Van Gogh museum. I am not a museum person and I even contemplated going to the Diamond museum while the other two went to the Van Gogh, but I decided what the heck, it's her day. It ended up being really amazing! And by the way, Van Gogh is pronounced Van-Gaw or Van-Gawk(gotta get the Dutch accent to say it correctly). I got the recorded commentary which helped explain everything so well. I enjoyed hearing about the artist cutting off his own ear, but wow what a sad and crazy life he had. Oh and I saw his famous Sunflowers painting (one of them anyway - there were 5):

After the Van Gaw, we did a little shopping, ate a late lunch in Dam Square, and really just tried to stay warm. I bought a hairdryer (I wonder if I can expense it...) and made note of all the clothing and shoe stores that I need to go back to when I have free time :) We wanted to finish the day with the Anne Frank house, but never got to it since it would have been a long and cold walk up to the northwest side of town. Ended the big day in Amsterdam with hot drinks at my (new) hotel bar across from Centraal station... yes, I had the Bailey's & coffee and it was SO good. My new favorite thing is to get coffee + alcohol drinks at bars since all of the bars in Europe have espresso machines behind the counter. yummy. Maybe this can be my new Starbucks drink? haha.

Day 6
Monday. uggh! Day started off pretty terrible! Our train was cancelled so we had to take a Stop-Train aka the SLOW train so we didn't get in until 8:45am. Boss was not happy that we were 15 minutes late. oops. Half of us commute from Amsterdam though and it was out of our control! She got over it. Oh and the train station was a big embarrassment. I bought a smoothie, bottle of water, and crossaint beforehand, put then in a paper sack. So I was trying to get on the train and the doors were closing. I thought I would stick my paper sack full of my breakfast between the 2 doors (like an elevator) to keep them open. No sensors! Bag went squish and bottles fell into the train while I was outside on the platform. I panicked for a few seconds until my colleague found the button to re-open the door. Nice dutch people picked up my breakfast from the floor and handed it to me. sad times! Oh and then there was drama drama between the U.S. and Europe teams and I had to be in the middle of a very uncomfortable situation/conversation. Good experience I guess? Boss not in a good mood the entire day; luckily though, I think I am still on her good side because I majorly backed her up during all the drama!

Only one more day to go and then it's a few days off.:) HOO-RAY.
Now it's almost 11:30pm. Sleep time!