An Amusing Story About the Country of My Birth: 30 Days of Blogging, Day 6

Don't get me wrong, there are some good things about the United States. I'll even say there are some great things about this country. We're the largest economy in the world, have high life expectancy, good education system, etc. That said, geography has never, ever been the strong suit of people in the United States. Maybe it's because we've been the strongest nation in the world for a good little while now, and we feel like we don't need to know about geography. Maybe it's because, unlike Europe, most people in the US don't live anywhere near a foreign country, and even those who do likely live near only one--either Mexico or Canada. Consequently, we're just not really forced to learn much about the geography of other parts of the world.

Today was a perfect example of this. I was getting my haircut at a place near my house, and the woman cutting my hair was making small talk. She commented that I look like a college student, to which I explained that I'd just graduated from ISU. She asked if I was looking for a job, and I told her how I was intending on going to China and all that. The conversation from there went like so:

Hairdresser: "Oh, I have a niece who almost relocated to China for her husband's work!"

Me: "Oh really, any idea where they were going relocate?"

Hairdresser: "I forgot the name of the city in China... started with an "S" I think!"

Me: "Shanghai?"

H: "No, that doesn't sound right"

Me: "Shenzhen? Shenyang? Suzhou?"

H: "No, none of those sound familiar either"

At this point I realized that the hairdresser was a typical USA-ian (I hate using American to exclusively describe someone from the US. America is 2 continents. American could mean you're Brazilian, Ecuadoran, Canadian, or yes, from the US). Anyway, so upon realizing this:

Me: "Did they move to Seoul?"

H: "No, don't think it was Seoul"

Me: "Was it...Singapore?"

H: "Oh, yes! That's where it was they were going to move in China. Singapore!"

At this point, those of you who know me well will understand what I mean when I say I did the "Blaine Curcio smacking himself in the forehead then running his hand down his face in a semi-exasperated show of disgust".

I hate to alienate one of my 3 readers by insulting their intelligence, but if you don't understand what's just happened, you should probably get out of the house (or country) more. In short, Singapore is a SEPARATE COUNTRY FROM CHINA ENTIRELY. It is not only a completely separate country, but geographically, it's NOWHERE NEAR CHINA! Now granted, Singapore is far closer to China than, say, Chicago. But it's still like a 3.5 hour flight South from Hong Kong, which itself is in a very far Southern part of China. For reference, it's about as far from China as Colombia is from the United States. That's pretty far. As in, >1,000 miles. Granted, Singapore is full of ethnic Chinese, but come on now.

I ended up just playing along, and saying how great Singapore is (which it really is, one of the coolest cities I've been to), and didn't really have the heart to tell her how freaking incorrect she was.

Regarding the map on the left, the "Singapore" label is covering up the scale, but the entire map is approximately 10,000 miles west to east and 7,000 miles north to south. i.e. Singapore is really freaking far from China.

At any rate, my God, welcome to the United States of America. Land that needs more geography majors.

Getting Back to Where You Once Belonged

So for those who keep up with this blog with decent regularity, you'll recall that my current plan is to head to Denver with my dad for a trade show in mid-October, then on to Vegas and from there on to LA, with the intention to fly to Asia from there. For those who don't keep up with this blog, that's my plan, you're now caught up.

Notice the plan was to fly back to "Asia", that is, there wasn't really a specific place I was certainly flying in to. Odds are I'd end up in Shenzhen at some point soon after my leaving the US, but I was dabbling with flying into Seoul, Beijing, Shanghai, Tokyo, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, etc. And who was I kidding? Last night I booked the airfare, and as was going to be the case all along, I'll be going back to the place where my whole Asia odyssey really took off, the greatest city in the world.

So now that we've all watched that really awkward Chinese girl play piano whilst singing... schedule is as follows:

Chicago--->Denver October 12

Denver---->Las Vegas October 18

Las Vegas-->Los Angeles October 23

Los Angeles->Hong Kong October 27

Hong Kong-->Shenzhen shortly thereafter

Other assorted things:

Huge thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes yesterday! It was overwhelming to see the outpouring of birthday wishes from everyone, I really appreciate it. Also big thanks to the Baseball Gods for making my 23rd birthday the best day of regular-season baseball ever. Thanks to the mailman for delivering a new National Geographic on my birthday. Overall it was a fantastic day, so again thanks to everyone who made it so!

Had a solid 6 days in Philadelphia working a trade show this past week, it involved a number of very large meals, a lot of building/tearing apart of booths, and basically networking/practicing sales skills. Definitely a cool experience, and apparently I did such a respectable job that I've been asked to come down to Indianapolis to work another one next weekend, so a good way to make some extra cash before heading off to the Orient.

Interesting China fact of the day: I read online (i.e. questionable source) that the collective population of China consumes 50,000 cigarettes PER SECOND. Is THAT all?! I did the math and that equates to 4.3 billion cigarettes per day, or about 3 for every man, woman, and child in China. That number does seem a bit unrealistically high, but at the same time, anyone that's been to China knows that everyone there smokes, so it is possible. Either way, something to think about!

Ended up biting the bullet and taking the cheapest option to get back to Asia, my old nemesis Air China. I could have paid ~$75 extra to fly Air Canada, but that would have also involved a 7:00am flight out of LAX as well as staying like 1 day less in LA, so not worth doing. Consequently I'll begrudgingly be sitting on an Air China flight being the only white person (which will be awesome) and having the Asian guy in front of me immediately throw his seat back into my lap and leave it like that for the next 12 hours as we fly from LAX to Beijing. If nothing else, I get to spend a few hours in Beijing airport, which is a really cool place.

Well that's about it for now, main bit of news being the confirmed return flight to Asia. Big thanks again for all the birthday wishes yesterday, was really cool to hear from everyone. More news to come as it develops.

A Sample Cover Letter, and Some Other Updates

It's a long blog post, but maybe it's worth reading. If nothing else, there's some humor in it.

First of all, why aren't you watching this right now?! (and if you happen to have epilepsy, the good reason to this question would be, "it might literally give me a seizure", so if that's the case, you probably shouldn't watch it)

So all I've been hearing for the past few years is how devastating the job market is. "Oh man, it sucks that I'll be graduating soon, I've heard finding jobs nowadays is impossible", or alternatively "I think I'll just stay in college an extra year or 2, maybe get a master's, just to avoid going out into this job market". Well for those of us who don't have an unlimited sum of money from which to draw US$20,000 or so per year for educational expenses, the crappy job market is a harsh reality.

That said, upon graduation I felt pretty good about my resume--I've had international internships in the Netherlands and China, studied abroad in Hong Kong, did a business project in Thailand over Christmas, managed a US$300,000 portfolio as a senior at university, and speak 3 languages pretty well, with my Chinese also coming along pretty decently. The fact that I'm also willing to relocate anywhere in the world, and have traveled through 3rd world countries before, thus making it less likely that I'll experience massive culture shock, was also a plus, I thought.

All that considered, I have applied for 93 jobs since returning from China. And heard back from a whopping.... ZERO. Yes, 0. I've emailed old business connections in Hong Kong and the Netherlands asking them for help, and received some assistance but nothing promising yet. Have a fair number of the jobs I've applied for been out of my league in terms of experience, languages, or other aspects? Yes. Have a large, large number been well within my league? Yeah, probably. Moreso than anything, it's frustrating as opposed to tedious, disheartening, etc. That is, what the HELL am I doing wrong? I have no idea, so I decided for my 93rd job application, I would do something a bit different. I don't want to name the company, because that's probably just not a good idea, but in short, it's for a very good job in Hong Kong that I am, realistically, pretty well-qualified for. The only problem is that the company is one of the most respected in the world, and they simply don't hire people unless you went to an Ivy League school or some very, very highly ranked state school. So I went for the Hail Mary:

Dear Representative of XXXXX-XXXXX,

This is the 93^rd job I have applied for since I began applying roughly 3 weeks ago. Ninety-third. I have yet to receive positive word from any job applications, and have thus decided to try a new approach to applying. Consequently, this will probably be one of the more unique cover letters you have read.

Odds are you will not seriously consider this application due to my having graduated from a state school without a reputation for outstanding academics. You may also scoff at the fact that I do not have any connections within XXXXX-XXXXXX which would allow me to get to the top of the pile of applicants for this position. These preconceptions are no fault of yours, that’s simply the way the business world seems to work. That would be an unadvisable course of action in my case.

I went to Illinois State University because I didn’t give a damn about grades in high school, and my parents could not afford the tuition for the smaller private schools I was accepted into. It’s safe to say I made the most of my opportunities at Illinois State—my GPA was over 3.50, my major GPA over 3.70, I won two awards including the Outstanding Junior in International Business, appeared on the College of Business Dean’s List, completed a study abroad in Hong Kong, and participated in international internships in the Netherlands and China. I also managed a stock and ETF portfolio of over HK$2,500,000 as part of a senior seminar course.

As a human resources representative, the next aspect of my resume that you’re likely to sneer at is my perceived lack of work experience. This is correct. I have only worked a combined 6 months when not considering my restaurant job from high school. However, it is important to consider what I accomplished at these jobs. During my internship in summer 2010, I analyzed just under HK$1 billion of contracts for a satellite company and created, without assistance, a long-term sales plan with the goal being to increase the company’s share-of-wallet with key customers by 25%. Additionally, during an internship in summer 2011, I traveled to Hong Kong and Shanghai to conduct a market-entry analysis for a company looking to expand into Mainland China. This analysis included detailed research on real-estate and labor markets in Shanghai and Dalian, as well as a considerable deal of information on legal and regulatory considerations when expanding into China. I also have experience with supply-chain logistics, having traveled as a consultant to Bangkok to help arrange the creation of a supply chain for a startup company in December-January 2010-2011.

Overall, I understand that my pedigree is probably not typical of a XXXXX-XXXXX hire. My university is not top-tier and my work experience at this point is minimal. However, I encourage you to at the very least consider this application with some degree of seriousness. I assure you that, given the opportunity, I will exceed all expectations put upon me by my superiors. If you do indeed decide to seriously look at this application, I expect to hear from you soon. If I seem under qualified for this job in particular, I would be willing to consider other jobs within the company if they are a better fit for me.

So that's the old Blaine Curcio Hail Mary on a cover letter. I will keep you all informed as to whether I hear back. I'm not holding my breath. In other news, I may have lucked into a cheaper way to get back to Asia. In short, my Dad has a trade show in Denver, Colorado (for those not familiar with the geography of the US, that's further west than Chicago by a wide margin) in mid-October. They need some extra help in terms of just laborers, so my dad says I can fly out there on his company and get paid to work 5 days there. Not bad. From there, I can fly to Las Vegas for what's essentially free. I would be able to stay with Dan, my very good friend from HS/University that I went to Japan and Thailand with, in his beautiful, ~400sq. meter house in Vegas for a few days. Not bad. From there, Dan could drive me to LA, where I would be able to have a few days of great times with the lovely Ms. Catherine Bumble and her legendary future husband Maximus Stompf, both absolute superstars of Hong Kong. From there, I would be able to fly to Hong Kong for ~US$150 cheaper than from Chicago. So I think that's what I'll do. This plan does have some drawbacks, the main one being that I'm returning to China a bit later than I'd previously hoped (was hoping to get there by like 2nd week of October, this would be 4th week of October), but the combination of being paid handsomely to work in Denver, being able to see some friends out west, and being able to save money on the airfare, makes it worthwhile. So it looks like this young man may be heading west to go back to the Far East. Is that all?

On a related note, I also came up with the debatably insane idea of bicycling from Shenzhen into the inner part of China yesterday, which I may end up doing at some point soon after my arrival if the opportunity arises. Given that the main reason for my return to China is to learn Mandarin, this would probably be a decent idea, as I'd certainly encounter a lot less English as I got up into places like Yangshuo, and maybe even as far north as Hunan province, Sichuan province, etc. Anyway, all preliminary. And again, quite possibly (or even probably) insane. I have no idea if there's even a way to bicycle through that part of China.

Other than that, things just continue to saunter along here in Chicagoland. I'll be heading to Philadelphia with the padre for a trade show next week to make a bit of extra cash and hopefully network a bit. I'll be seeing a friend who works for True Value Hardware and spends ~120 days per year in China, so hopefully I can pick his brain a bit on how to find a job in Asia. I've recently discovered a job posting with the company I worked for last summer--position would involve me being rather underqualified in terms of work experience and language skills (it's located in Singapore, and they request at least one Asian language), however the general gist of the job is pretty freaking similar to what I did competently last summer, only now I have another year of university, a few consulting projects, and more confidence on my side, so maybe, just maybe I'll luck out and get an interview with that. Have already emailed my supervisor from last summer asking his thoughts on my prospects of getting the job, so we'll see how that goes. Well this blog post is getting obscenely long. If for whatever reason you've decided to read up to this point, I hope it's been entertaining! And if not, feel free to let me know about it through hate mail. Really, though. Until next time, stay hungry, stay foolish.

Recovering From the Most Devastating Injury Ever, and Some Assorted Other Musings

First of all--why aren't you watching this now?

Please be warned--further graphic medical explanations. Enjoy without krispy kreme's, as Ben Don learned the hard way

So I've now been home like a week. With a few urologist appointments, a surgeon appointment, 4 prescriptions, 1 ultrasound, and more hours of sleep than I had in 5 months in Hong Kong (probably not too much of an exaggeration) under my belt, I can safely say that I AM BORED! In short, it seems to be an unfortunate catch-22 that I desperately want (daresay need) to get back to Asia, and thus need to raise money, but any temp job requires a decent bit of physical labor, which I'm really not in any shape to do at this point. I'm also massively reluctant to find any sort of careery (new word) job at this point, due to the horrible proposition of settling into the suburbs of Chicago. So anyway--an update on what's been going on.

About 4 days ago out of absolutely nowhere I got a pretty shocking case of the chills. It was unlike anything I'd ever experienced--up to that point I'd been feeling better and better every day, and earlier that evening I'd been feeling fine, and then at about 9:30 I just got goosebumps all over before basically passing out. 3 hours later I woke up and started vomiting pretty profusely, which continued throughout the night. What a wonderful edition to the medical issues I'd previously been having. I woke up the following morning and nearly fell over due to the dizziness/lack of balance I was experiencing. This horrendous illness continued for a few days before mysteriously vanishing yesterday/this morning. My theory (which was backed up by my doctor) was that I'd simply taken too much of my pain medication (definitely possible, given the amount of pain that shattered testicles involves). Anyway, got a different pain medication, and now I feel pretty fine in terms of the fluishness.

The urologist told me yesterday that things seem to be moving along pretty well. Arguably the most unsettling good news I've ever heard came when he told me "the left testicle appears to be completely in tact". Well "it appears to be", that's wonderfully inconclusive. He recommended that I continue to do what I've been doing (apart from OD-ing on hydrocodone... disgraceful), and we have another examination in 2 weeks. Again, not the most optimistic report, but could be worse.

Upon arriving with Asia, I met up with one of my best friends from Hong Kong, John Scutt, who was doing the same teaching program I was doing. I was absolutely shocked (and frankly envious) when he showed up with his medium-sized suitcase and nonchalantly told me that "my entire life is in this suitcase". Assuming he was just using a figure of speech, I asked him if literally everything he owned was in that suitcase. "Yeah". I was awestruck, and sort of realized how much absolutely useless crap I have back home. Mind you, a lot of my useless crap (mainly my absurd collection of souvenirs from here, there, and everywhere--photo to come tomorrow morning) is very important to me, but a lot of it isn't. Consequently, to solve my problem of having too much crap, while also solving my problem of needing money to get back to Asia, I'm selling loads of my crap on eBay. Here's the link! http://www.ebay.com/sch/ferrari928/m.html?_trksid=p4340.l2562 And a note on the eBay account name--made the account when I was 15, and since then I have indeed driven a Ferrari several times, so I'm ok with it! Anyway, so I've been keeping myself busy going through my house finding things I can sell. I've thus far sold ~$625 worth of stuff, so not bad! Hopefully by this time next month I'll have a couple thousand dollars plus birthday money to start living in Asia. Incidentally, my wallet currently contains 1,435RMB and $9US, so I guess I've already got a little bit of a start, but nothing grand. Either way, as Douglas MacArthur once said upon leaving (I believe) the Philippines, "I shall return". Despite having had to leave Asia under morbid circumstances, I'm quite convinced (even more so after my week back home) that Asia is where I will be for the long-term.

Speaking of long-term Asian prospects, the job apps are coming along pretty well. I've applied for ~25 jobs in total in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Shenzhen, mostly for recent graduate roles in international consulting firms, with some finance jobs thrown in for good measure. If they all fail to come to fruition, expect me crashing on a couch near you in HK/SZ within a month or so. If nothing else, I'd have to assume that given the reasonably customized resumes I've been submitting, and the nearly completely customized cover letters, should be enough to not have these companies laugh at my applications. And as we all know, once it gets to the interview stage, I'm either getting the job with immense enthusiasm from the hiring manager, or I'm getting a restraining order put upon me from the company. Not much point in having a mediocre interview. Go big or go home I guess (though my god do I hate that phrase). So we'll see how all that goes.

On a random note, this entire medical issue and having to essentially return home in what I view as shame (though others would probably view as a necessary treatment of a medical emergency) seems to have provided a much-needed crushing blow to my hubristic (which spellcheck says is not a word) tendencies. That is to say, prior to this whole incident, I was far more arrogant about my traveling, intellect, guile, and just life in general, than I probably should have been. So in a strange way, this whole debacle has managed to knock me down a peg. Don't get me wrong, I will still likely waltz through life with an ego larger than it should be, but this somewhat puts things in perspective. Realistically, it also has something to do with the mental hurdle of turning 23--I guess it's more about coming to terms with one's own mortality, something I had never really considered before this whole shinding, and something I very much realize now. So in short, I really do feel the need at this point to apologize to anyone that I've really, truly hurt or offended by being a completely self absorbed and arrogant bastard. In particular a positively lovely Korean princepessa. You know who Yoo are (though you're probably not reading this. Fair call).

In other news, I've recently discovered that I have the ability to see how many people view my blog, from what countries they've viewing it, etc. Which has led me to a few really cool discoveries (basically, blogspot opened up a Pandora's Box when they allowed me to discover this. I love numbers and geography, and when they provide me with color-coded maps of my viewership, it's just asking for trouble):

1) My blog recently surpassed 1,500 views all time. So a big, big, big thanks to all my readers! Obviously, 1,500 views is nothing remarkable, but I'll take it. Really big thank you!

2) My blog is pretty popular in Slovenia. That's the country with the 9th most blog hits, despite being the world's 145th most populous country. So hvala to Slovenians everywhere for being mad-dogs and reading this blog!

3) There appears to be a pretty frequent reader from Russia using yandex.ru to get to this blog. I'd be really really interested in hearing from this Russian (if you do indeed exist, and it's not just me misinterpreting the data), so if you'd be so kind as to drop me an email at blainecurcio@yahoo.com, I'd be really interested to hear how you found the blog, what you enjoy about it, what you hate about it, etc. (that goes for everyone who reads this blog, really, do feel free, but the random Russian in particular!)

4) My blog about the testicle injury became the 3rd most viewed post after about 2 days. Go figure :-D

Some other assorted musings:

Manchester United play Arsenal tomorrow. Chances of Arsenal winning that match are probably about 10%, so let's see United go out there and run them over

My www.battrick.org team is coming along nicely. I've managed to import a few excellent players, and I'm pretty pleased with the progress

As the baseball season comes to a close, my Chicago Cubs are once again going to miss the playoffs. For my friends abroad that aren't familiar with the Cubs futility, their last championship was...get ready for this...

1908

Yes, 103 years ago was the Cubs' last championship. They haven't even made the championship since 1945.

I'll likely be taking a day-trip this week to visit my brother at Northern Illinois University, he's currently living in a frat house there (phi something or other), and given my immense boredom at home, lack of a job, lack of a drivers' license (wallet being lost in Beijing saw to that), and lack of car insurance (given that I was planning on leaving for >1 year, my parents took me off the insurance), why not just drive an hour out to NIU and back?! So that should be a good change of scenery. Apart from that, things are just continuing to move right along here. It's been a mortifyingly boring week, but I've only spent like $4, so at least I'm saving some coin for Asia. More rants to come as I feel like telling them.

And thanks again for 1,500 views! Pretty cool stuff.

A Perfect Example of the Wonders of Globalization, and an Interesting Excerpt

So I was talking to a friend of mine the other day about fake ID's. Any college student in the US surely knows someone who has one, and loads of kids have their own. When I was in High School, the going rate was usually $100-$125, maybe $150 if it's either a very high-quality ID or if you're being ripped off. Even nowadays, my brother told me $75-100 is pretty decent. However, when I posed the question to a friend of mine of "how much would you expect to pay for a fake ID?", her response caught me so off-guard that I had to do a double-take.

"Oh, well I wouldn't pay any more than like $40"

"$40?! I've heard $100 pretty standard"

"Yeah, but people get them in China for like $30"

At this point, it should be noted that the person making this claim has traveled only (to my knowledge) through the US and Peru. She has never been to China, or Asia for that matter. Additionally, fake IDs are not something that you'd expect to see the going rate for online--you're certainly not going to go to Amazon and check how much fake IDs cost worldwide. However, through the magic of globalization, and more specifically the proliferation of knowledge and information across national borders with astounding ease and efficiency, people are able to know these things without ever having been to these places. Certainly, the most obvious result of this is that middlemen get killed--you can no longer have a guy going to China, buying 100 fake IDs at $25 apiece, and selling them in the US for $100. However, it also leads to more educated consumers, and at the end of the day, greater value for them.

But anyway, rather than going on a tangent about how globalization is changing the marketplace, I will simply leave it at this: how remarkable is it that someone who hasn't ever been to Asia, doesn't really know many people who have been there, and who isn't by any means an expert on the market for fake IDs, without hesitation knew that you could get a fake for far, far cheaper in China than one would expect. It's an amazing world we live in, that is unquestionable, and it's only getting more so.

The second part of this post is a quote from the book "China Inc." by Ted Fishman. As anyone who read my last post knows, I am moving to Shenzhen shortly, and Fishman had some interesting insights about it in his book:

"Shanghai, for all its wonders, may not be China's most amazing urban transformation. Those honors almost certainly go to Shenzhen, the city near Hong Kong that until 1980 was a fishing town of seventy thousand people surrounded by rice fields...Everything changed in 1980 when Deng Xiaoping selected the city as one of the country's first experimental centers for market capitalism and dubbed Shenzhen China's first Special Economic Zone (SEZ). In a godlike stroke--or better yet, the keystrokes of a computer gamer playing SimCity--China's paramount leader gave rise to a city that in short order would be bigger than Paris, Montreal, or Los Angeles."

Incidentally, Fishman also makes the rather interesting comparison of "There is no perfect historical analogue to Shenzhen's growth. Chicago may be the closest. The midwestern city took fifty years to record its millionth resident. Shenzhen took less than a decade, and after only a quarter century Shenzhen was a city of 7 million people".

To paraphrase (i.e. change the word India to China) another quote, this time from Slumdog Millionaire, "China is at the center of the world. And I am at the center, of the center"

Missing the Exotic Vibes of Asia in the Disturbingly Normal Netherlands

Regarding the title to this blog post:
Asia is a different world. No where else that I've been can you just see something absolutely ridiculous happening (elephant walking down a street, street sign preventing bringing Durians into a subway system, bullet holes in bus windows, etc.) and just dismiss it nonchalantly as "well, that's Asia". Everything is abnormal, and your senses simply get overrun by the pandemonium that is everyday life going on in the world's largest continent. After awhile it becomes a bit of a nuisance, but overall it's a pretty beautiful way to live your life, as far as just having absolutely perfectly structured anarchy going on all around you. Europe, as I knew beforehand, is extremely different. It's just normal. Yeah, you'll see some weird things in Amsterdam, but overall, the Netherlands is just incredibly normal. Everyone bikes, which is odd for an American, but that's not shocking or offensive, its just different. Also, pace of life is very much slower than ANYWHERE in Asia. This could be a result of the time of year (Europe goes on holiday in late July-early August. Yes, the continent of Europe. All of it), but in my other experiences in Europe its been much the same. What I'm trying to say here, is that I'm sort of missing the absolute sensory overload and pandemonium that was, and still certainly is, Asia. We'll see how this goes in the next 6 months once I'm back in the states. ANYWAY:

So I've got about three weeks left in the Netherlands. All things considered, it's been a pretty crazy year so far. As both regular readers know, I'm heading to Colombia after this for about 9-ish days, much to the general chagrin of my family, but in fairness, I'm graduating college pretty soon and have few opportunities left to travel recreationally. Plus, cheap airfare is a powerful motivator. This last week here has been pretty good:

Friday of last week, Hunter and I went to a friend's house and hung out for a bit before heading out into The Hague for a night out. Not a bad time at all, except for one of our friends who fell off his bike on the ride into The Hague and was bleeding profusely for the next 3 hours or so. Rookie error, as they say, but eh, pretty hilarious nonetheless.

Saturday we headed to Amsterdam to play tourist. We started the day at the Heineken Brewery around 1:30pm or so. It was a pretty awesome place, for 15 euros you got a tour, 3 free Heinekens, and a wristband similar to the LiveStrong ones, except instead of endorsing cancer research, they endorse alcoholism. Welcome to Holland. After a 2-2.5 hr tour, we headed from there over to Leidseplein (probably misspelled). This was just sort of a square with some restaurants, touristy shops, etc. From there we had dinner at the Hard Rock before going to a pub crawl organized by some company in Amsterdam, and, for 20 euros, offered a free t-shirt, entry+1 drink at 6 clubs, and some "vodka" between bars. The quotations there indicate that it was basically 95% fruit juice and 5% vodka in 2L bottle that they just poured into your mouth. The alcohol content was so pitiful that it could have easily passed in a Madrasah without anyone blinking an eye. The bar crawl was rather disappointing, and the night ended with us jumping into the canals of Amsterdam with some Serbians. Yes, you read that correctly. To my knowledge I do not have any intestinal parasites as a result of said actions, but I'm no doctor...

Sunday we went to Zaanse Schans with Samer and Laura. Basically, imagine the most incredibly stereotypical Dutch town you can think of, and multiply it's Dutchness by about 7. The place was shocking. Just tons of picturesque windmills caressed by canals which extended into fields of tulips and other such things. Cottages where they showed you how Dutch cheese is made, a place where you can see how they've mechanized the creation of Dutch wooden clogs, just really really touristy Dutch. Overall it was a great time, I got some good photos and bought a pair of wooden clogs (which I intend on wearing with disturbingly decent regularity upon my return to the States). We also got some magnificent weather during the day at Zaanse Schans, which made the day all the more excellent. One problem was the fact that the entire town had a whopping one ATM, which was conveniently out of order (those Dutch, can't take them anywhere), so I had to borrow a bit of money from Hunter for about 6 hours.

The work week was interesting. Henning, Simon, and Mr. Sprague were all out of the office, so I had no one to report to. Consequently, Monday consisted of me just putting random variables into graph format to see if I could discover anything meaningful among our European customers. Tuesday I did a fair bit of editing on my final project, as advised by Henning via phone. Wednesday and Thursday I did some editing that was suggested by Regina. Sidenote on Regina: she works in Market Development (I think?). Her comments on my paper were extraordinary. The sharpness (for want of a more existent word) of her critique was literally unbelievable. Absolutely incredible how valuable the critique was. Anyway, Friday Mr. Sprague returned from Singapore. The flight was 13 hours, he arrived at the house at like 7:45am, and was in the office before 9:00am. The phrase "Is THAT all?" got thrown around a lot in Hong Kong, but I feel like that's about the only thing to say here. Hunter's work week was a bit hilarious. Thursday and Friday his 3 immediate bosses were all gone on various excursions, and at one point I went down to his desk to say hello. On his side of the floor there's about 12 desks, and 11 of them were empty. He was literally the only person on his side of the floor. Absolutely hilarious.

This weekend should be pretty quiet, it's been a good, long while since I've just had a day to relax, which will likely be tomorrow. As I'm typing this, Hunter has just woken up, and I think the plan for today is to go to some other town in NL, either Utrecht (home of the Peace of Utrecht in 17?? which ended the War of Spanish Succession, if AP Euro serves me right), Nijmegen (home of Treaty of Nijmegen in 1678? which ended something?), Rotterdam (Europe's largest port), or Delft. We'll see.

As I said at the beginning of this blog post, I've got three weeks left here. It's incredible that I've been here 2 months already, and that I've been away for about 7 months or so. It should be interesting to re-immerse myself in American culture after this whole world tour. Not a whole lot more to say at this point, I'm beginning to get a bit road-weary, if you will, for the fact that I have not seen my closest friends from home since before Christmas (with the exception of Dan, who I obviously saw during the entire trip to Japan in January). Turns out I've travelled to 11 countries on this trip not including Dubai (where I only had a layover). I've flown about 33,000 miles, and I have a fair few more to go in the coming month. And I wonder why I've spend about 60% of my money during the past 7 months...

Missing the exotic vibes of Asia a fair bit in the terribly normal Netherlands