So I have less than 24 hours remaining in the Netherlands. To say it's been a quick 12 weeks would be an understatement the size of Museumplein, and it's most certainly been a wonderful learning experience, in terms of both business and personal growth. I've met some incredible people from all over the world, and can honestly say that I have learned more in these last 3 months than I had at 3 years of university. I guess before I go into something of a reminiscence of the past few months, I'll briefly summarize the 2 weeks or so since my last blog post-
Company sailing trip was last week. My goal going into the thing was to not fall off the boat, which I succeeded at, with flying colors. We had 4 sailboats going around a chain of lakes near Leiden, and it turned out to be a very nice afternoon of sailing. Francois (our boat's captain) even let me captain our boat (albeit briefly), and I managed to not capsize the thing. So that was a success. Afterwards we had a few drinks by the water before heading back to our respective homes.
The weekend trip to Paris ended in terrific failure. Brief summary: I was to print out the ticket for the train, and I intended on doing that at the office, but it simply slipped my mind in the bustle that was my 2nd to last week at SES. I realized at the house Friday night that I'd forgotten to print off the ticket, so I attempted to print it off on the printer they have here, but I was unable to install it on my laptop. So I decided it would probably be alright to just show up in Rotterdam Saturday morning with my credit card I'd paid with, my passport, etc., and be alright. Rookie error, that. Turns out it wasn't sufficient, and I ended up not being able to catch that train to Paris. Not wanting to pay a king's ransom for a same-day trip to Paris, I decided to head to Brussels for 31.70 euros R/T. Brussels was... interesting. It was a nice city with some cool buildings and wonderful museums (including one with a special exhibit about trade between Europe and Asia over the past 2 millennia). It also had, however, arguably the highest per-capita beggar/gypsy population of any city I've seen. Absolutely mind-boggling, the number of people who were asking me for money for having done absolutely nothing of value to society. Get jobs, people. It's not THAT hard. And if you're not going to get a job, and going to ask me for money on the street, learn to play an instrument, juggle, etc. Don't just sit there looking like a degenerate asking for a handout. Seriously. I was able to buy a decently intriguing book in Belgium as well, about the C.I.A.'s covert war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. So far it's been good. Headed home from Brussels late Saturday evening. Sunday I mulled around, read a bit, etc. Standard.
This week was my last one at SES. All things considered it was pretty boring. I finished my report on Tuesday evening. In total it was 59 pages, 18,000+ words, and just a general novel about our European customer base. Hopefully more people have the patience to read that entire thing than this blog. Anyway- So yeah Tuesday finished the report, so Wednesday and Thursday I just sort of hung out at the office trying not to raise too much hell, which was exceedingly difficult. Friday was excellent. In the morning I gave a final presentation to about 15-20 or so people, lasted about 35 minutes. I was reasonably satisfied with the presentation, but more so, I was very, very pleased to see that some good conversation happened during the presentation (i.e. when I brought up some point about some market segment, that segment's Sales Director would chime in with their knowledge, and it seemed as though it was a good learning environment, anyway). So it was good to see that my presentation led to some good conversation between the sales directors, strategic marketing people, etc. The last lunch at SES was pretty typical, and in the afternoon we had my farewell drinks at about 4:30. Henning provided some wine, and his wife (on about 6 hours notice, no less) arranged for a few pies to be delivered, so that was a really great way to be seen off. I also got a ton of free SES WORLD SKIES stuff, and consequently the awareness of SES at Illinois State next fall should increase at least infinity-fold. Will be repping the blue and yellow with pride, most certainly. And any time I'm at a party and the satellite TV goes out due to rain... I'll slink into a corner and keep my mouth shut. So yeah, it really was a wonderful atmosphere at the farewell drinks, and I'll certainly miss all the people around the office that I've met these last few months. After my going away drinks, there were celebratory drinks (absolutely flabbergasting, I know, having DRINKS?!?! at SES WORLD SKIES?!?!?! unheard-of!) for Nihar's completion of his 11th masters degree, this one from Georgetown in their Masters of World Domination program. But seriously, yeah the man has 2 masters and has said repeatedly he's now finally overcome his crippling addiction to diplomas, and will consequently find a hobby (my money is on salsa dancing). Friday night I went out to Schevinengen with some people from the office and we watched some International Fireworks Display or something on the beach. I don't entirely understand the concept of having countries "compete" against each other for fireworks excellence, but I guess in a country without baseball they need a way to take up their time.
So yeah, I've just been packing the last couple of days. Turns out I have a lot of stuff, so I'm looking forward to paying some absurd amount to the Leprechauns at Aer Lingus for being able to bring like 120lbs of luggage onto their airplane. I'll be hanging out with the family at O'Hare for a few hours, as I said, then heading onward to Colombia. Should shorten my life expectancy substantially.
Anyway, now comes the time where I should write a meaningful goodbye to SES WORLD SKIES, so I guess I'll do that. As I've said exactly three bazillion times this summer, I've learned so much here, and can't say enough what a great opportunity it's been. I can honestly say I couldn't believe how international the company really is, which was best exemplified when my Grammy asked me a few weeks ago if I've learned any Dutch here. I said that, at the office, I hear more of the following languages than Dutch: Russian, Spanish, French, German, and English. It really is incredible. I'll certainly never forget the good times had at World Skies (notice the lack of capitalization, take THAT marketing! Now that I no longer work there I'm no longer in your clutches!) and can't say enough how welcome I felt every single morning upon walking into that office. It was a perfect first office job to have, though in a way it's a bit of a negative, because I'm 100% certain that my first real job out of university will not be able to hold a candle to the experience I've had here and the general office atmosphere. In fact, it will probably be a thoroughly soul-crushing experience to work in an office that isn't SES World Skies. If nothing else, I've still got some time until that day comes, so we'll just take it one day at a time for now. I felt before I came here that I'd likely make a bit of a unique impression on the place with my generally eccentric behavior, and I feel like I probably did that. So that's a win, in a manner of speaking. I can honestly say that the only thing I will not miss about this job is riding home 8-9km in the pouring rain on occasion. That was not fun. But other than that, my goodness was this just an awesome, awesome (Henning, if you're by some chance reading this, that 2nd awesome was for you) work and life experience. The once-weekly goodbye/celebratory/summer/wednesday drinks didn't hurt either. I'm starting to ramble, so I guess let's close with something like I wish each and everyone one of you the best of luck in your future careers and lives, and hope that my work helps to contribute in some way (preferably positive) to SES World Skies. It's truly been a pleasure working with each and every one of you, there are more characters in that office than should be allowed, for Chrissakes, but I feel like that's what makes SES what it is. So again, a big thank you to everyone, especially Henning Horst, my brilliant and equally eccentric mentor throughout this entire project. Not only did you attempt to teach me the art of keeping it brief (I say attempt because it may just be a terminal illness that I suffer), but you taught me a ton about satellites, marketing, strategy, etc. It's been great. Also a huge thank-you to the entire Sprague family for their truly absurd hospitality. I would have never been able to come here had it not been for you guys, so thank you, thank you, thank you for letting a complete stranger come live in your house for 3 months. I can't tell you how much that means to me. Signing off for the last time in the Netherlands, for those who have read all this, I extend you a big thank you and a hearty tip-of-the-hat. It's you guys that I write this for (who am I kidding, it's really just for my own ego, but eh). More to come from Bogota, it's been real, folks.
Showing posts with label Netherlands. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Netherlands. Show all posts
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Saturday, July 3, 2010
So Just How World Cup-Crazed Is Holland?
As many of you probably saw yesterday, Holland made a Herculean comeback against the mightiest of mighty national soccer teams in Brasil, coming back from a 1-0 halftime deficit to streak past the heavily favored Seleção in a thrilling 2-1 victory. As I've made very clear, the 7 people that read this blog aren't reading it for my World Cup analysis, so that's all I'm going to say about the match itself. More importantly were the activities going on around me before, during, and after the match.
First off, let me just say, thank God this match was on a Friday. I shudder to think what's going to happen Tuesday when the Oranje play Uruguay in the semis. I showed up to work with Hunter, I was wearing the orange NL National Team jacket and had my orange vuvuzela, Hunter had on an orange shirt, orange scarf, and orange Heineken hat. We were not the only ones, to say the least. Basically everyone in the place was wearing some form of orange, with the exception, of course, of Hunter's boss, Gerson, who is very much Brazilian. The day went by quickly, and before we knew it it was 4:00pm, starting time for the match. Hunter and I headed downstairs to the boardroom, where there were about 30 people with bowls of chips, platters of cheeses and meats, a fridge full of soft drinks, wine, and Heinekens, and a guy with an airhorn. Yeah, he had an airhorn. Like a foghorn. Anyway, so NL went down real quickly (10th minute or thereabouts) and the place sort of died as Brazil appeared to be in complete control. Early on in the 2nd half, though, Netherlands equalized, and out came the cheers, air horn, vuvuzelas, etc. The office went nuts. About 20 minutes later, Netherlands scored the go-ahead goal, and, once again, it was pandemonium. Yelling, cheering, air-horning, vuvuzela-ing, other verbs followed by -ing, etc. Absolutely huge.
Here's where it gets interesting. By this time it was around 6:00pm, so we left the office. And we basically went out into another world. There were cars honking. People yelling. Kids on motorcycles flying Dutch flags. The only thing I can really compare it to was being in Italy during Euro 2008 when Italy beat France in the final group stage match to advance to the knockouts and I was on Isola d'Ischia, which was a pretty crazy scene. But that really isn't comparable, as this is the World Cup Semifinals that Netherlands now find themselves in. The entire ride home, we encountered cars honking and people just celebrating in the streets. So as to not give away the fact that I'm in no way Dutch, any time someone honked/yelled in our direction, I'd just blow the vuvuzela rather than say anything. Fair call, I think. Anyway, we got home and immediately began planning for the evening. We were going to head into The Hague with some friends of Hunter's which we ended up doing. It was a solid atmosphere in The Hague, with people in a generally celebratory mood. We watched the extra time and PK's of the Uruguay-Ghana match in some bar in The Hague, then headed elsewhere. We went back home relatively early because it started drizzling a bit, and we wanted to get back before it started raining badly, as we were biking home. Tonight the one and only Iain McMahon is going to be in Amsterdam, should be a good one.
Work update: it's been going very well lately. Booked my airfare to Colombia the other day, so I'll be going there. Found out I need to do a write-up for ISU for this internship, unfortunate but you've got to do what you've got to do, as they say.
More later, and many thanks for reading this far.
First off, let me just say, thank God this match was on a Friday. I shudder to think what's going to happen Tuesday when the Oranje play Uruguay in the semis. I showed up to work with Hunter, I was wearing the orange NL National Team jacket and had my orange vuvuzela, Hunter had on an orange shirt, orange scarf, and orange Heineken hat. We were not the only ones, to say the least. Basically everyone in the place was wearing some form of orange, with the exception, of course, of Hunter's boss, Gerson, who is very much Brazilian. The day went by quickly, and before we knew it it was 4:00pm, starting time for the match. Hunter and I headed downstairs to the boardroom, where there were about 30 people with bowls of chips, platters of cheeses and meats, a fridge full of soft drinks, wine, and Heinekens, and a guy with an airhorn. Yeah, he had an airhorn. Like a foghorn. Anyway, so NL went down real quickly (10th minute or thereabouts) and the place sort of died as Brazil appeared to be in complete control. Early on in the 2nd half, though, Netherlands equalized, and out came the cheers, air horn, vuvuzelas, etc. The office went nuts. About 20 minutes later, Netherlands scored the go-ahead goal, and, once again, it was pandemonium. Yelling, cheering, air-horning, vuvuzela-ing, other verbs followed by -ing, etc. Absolutely huge.
Here's where it gets interesting. By this time it was around 6:00pm, so we left the office. And we basically went out into another world. There were cars honking. People yelling. Kids on motorcycles flying Dutch flags. The only thing I can really compare it to was being in Italy during Euro 2008 when Italy beat France in the final group stage match to advance to the knockouts and I was on Isola d'Ischia, which was a pretty crazy scene. But that really isn't comparable, as this is the World Cup Semifinals that Netherlands now find themselves in. The entire ride home, we encountered cars honking and people just celebrating in the streets. So as to not give away the fact that I'm in no way Dutch, any time someone honked/yelled in our direction, I'd just blow the vuvuzela rather than say anything. Fair call, I think. Anyway, we got home and immediately began planning for the evening. We were going to head into The Hague with some friends of Hunter's which we ended up doing. It was a solid atmosphere in The Hague, with people in a generally celebratory mood. We watched the extra time and PK's of the Uruguay-Ghana match in some bar in The Hague, then headed elsewhere. We went back home relatively early because it started drizzling a bit, and we wanted to get back before it started raining badly, as we were biking home. Tonight the one and only Iain McMahon is going to be in Amsterdam, should be a good one.
Work update: it's been going very well lately. Booked my airfare to Colombia the other day, so I'll be going there. Found out I need to do a write-up for ISU for this internship, unfortunate but you've got to do what you've got to do, as they say.
More later, and many thanks for reading this far.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Work Update and Goals for the Next Year
Work has been pretty excellent lately. I've been more in my element than ever before, as work has been less data collection and more writing about said data this past week and a half, and we all know that I enjoy writing (and am pretty decent at it). I've been interviewing the Sales Directors about their largest customers, and had a wonderful conversation today with Ludmila, the SD of Russia+CIS. We discussed some of our business in that part of the world, as well as the governments and policies in the CIS in general. Certainly the most interesting conversation I've had all summer, really was great.
This past weekend was pretty good. Friday night was the company beach party, which was fun. There was a beach volleyball tournament (our team went 1-5, I did pretty badly, having never played beach volleyball. Henning was an absolute juggernaut, though, which was slightly surprising, as he's probably not any taller than like 5'5", but he really was by a wide margin the best player on our team). Afterwards we watched the World Cup matches (we being 50 or so employees) at a beach bar with a huge buffet and open bar. I had a fair few pints with the English boys from the office, and it was a late night which was not my finest performance. Saturday morning I woke up around 8:30 somehow, despite not getting home until about 2:45. I biked about 15-20km through Wassenaar before going into "town". This was actually really cool. A brief aside: businesses here in Holland have inconvenient hours. They close at like 5:00pm, and open at like 9:00am, which means that every time I go into "town" (i.e. after I get off work), everything is closed except for like 2-3 restaurants that I eat at when I go there. However on Saturday morning, it was absolutely jam-packed and bustling, which was really, really cool to see. Bought a few post cards of Scheveningen Beach from a store in town, bought SuperFreakonomics and read a bit of that Saturday, and just sort of had a lazy afternoon of World Cup watching. Sunday was another day of biking, reading, getting a bit of sun, and watching the World Cup.
Monday was good at work. Hunter returned from the States, which was excellent as I've now got another person about my age to hang out with. I continued to do some data collection and start the writing. Tuesday and Wednesday have been more of the same.
Looking likely that I go to Colombia, I'll probably book that airfare tonight or tomorrow afternoon. I've decided on my 4 goals for next school year, in order of increasing difficulty:
1) Win either the Outstanding Senior in International Business or the International Business Service Award
2) Get a 4.0 GPA while taking 22 credit hours (7 classes) fall semester
3) Participate in the Student Export Project. Explanation on export project: basically a midwestern company wants to expand abroad. The ISU College of Business selects about 4-6 COB students to do a market analysis for the market the company wants to expand in to. These students do this the entire spring semester. After the end of the semester, the students travel to whichever country the company wants to expand into for about 4-5 weeks (sometimes as many as like 7 weeks). This year they sent some students to Germany and another group to Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. The internship I'm doing here in Holland will be excellent practice for this project.
4) Establish a College of Business study abroad program in Istanbul, Turkey, hopefully with the help of Dr. Aysen Bakir. I brought this up to Dr. Bakir about a year ago and she expressed modest interest, so I'll be looking forward to hearing back from her about this, but to my knowledge no student has ever done this before, so we'll see how this works out. It would be a wonderful legacy to leave at the ISU COB, so we shall see. Again, lofty is this.
Other than that, Mr. Iain McMahon is coming to Amsterdam this weekend, so that'll be fun. Next weekend Hunter may go to Munich, though that's not looking promising, but if he does I'll come along. I'll probably post something if I end up buying tickets to Bogota, as that's sort of a major-ish thing. Hopefully I'll be able to take off Friday a few weeks from now and go visit Henna Helsinki and The Village Man in Finland, as the Old AlanKey is coming here from Hong Kong to see them then tour Europe for a bit, so meeting them would be excellent.
More to come as I keep hanging around the Netherlands...
This past weekend was pretty good. Friday night was the company beach party, which was fun. There was a beach volleyball tournament (our team went 1-5, I did pretty badly, having never played beach volleyball. Henning was an absolute juggernaut, though, which was slightly surprising, as he's probably not any taller than like 5'5", but he really was by a wide margin the best player on our team). Afterwards we watched the World Cup matches (we being 50 or so employees) at a beach bar with a huge buffet and open bar. I had a fair few pints with the English boys from the office, and it was a late night which was not my finest performance. Saturday morning I woke up around 8:30 somehow, despite not getting home until about 2:45. I biked about 15-20km through Wassenaar before going into "town". This was actually really cool. A brief aside: businesses here in Holland have inconvenient hours. They close at like 5:00pm, and open at like 9:00am, which means that every time I go into "town" (i.e. after I get off work), everything is closed except for like 2-3 restaurants that I eat at when I go there. However on Saturday morning, it was absolutely jam-packed and bustling, which was really, really cool to see. Bought a few post cards of Scheveningen Beach from a store in town, bought SuperFreakonomics and read a bit of that Saturday, and just sort of had a lazy afternoon of World Cup watching. Sunday was another day of biking, reading, getting a bit of sun, and watching the World Cup.
Monday was good at work. Hunter returned from the States, which was excellent as I've now got another person about my age to hang out with. I continued to do some data collection and start the writing. Tuesday and Wednesday have been more of the same.
Looking likely that I go to Colombia, I'll probably book that airfare tonight or tomorrow afternoon. I've decided on my 4 goals for next school year, in order of increasing difficulty:
1) Win either the Outstanding Senior in International Business or the International Business Service Award
2) Get a 4.0 GPA while taking 22 credit hours (7 classes) fall semester
3) Participate in the Student Export Project. Explanation on export project: basically a midwestern company wants to expand abroad. The ISU College of Business selects about 4-6 COB students to do a market analysis for the market the company wants to expand in to. These students do this the entire spring semester. After the end of the semester, the students travel to whichever country the company wants to expand into for about 4-5 weeks (sometimes as many as like 7 weeks). This year they sent some students to Germany and another group to Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. The internship I'm doing here in Holland will be excellent practice for this project.
4) Establish a College of Business study abroad program in Istanbul, Turkey, hopefully with the help of Dr. Aysen Bakir. I brought this up to Dr. Bakir about a year ago and she expressed modest interest, so I'll be looking forward to hearing back from her about this, but to my knowledge no student has ever done this before, so we'll see how this works out. It would be a wonderful legacy to leave at the ISU COB, so we shall see. Again, lofty is this.
Other than that, Mr. Iain McMahon is coming to Amsterdam this weekend, so that'll be fun. Next weekend Hunter may go to Munich, though that's not looking promising, but if he does I'll come along. I'll probably post something if I end up buying tickets to Bogota, as that's sort of a major-ish thing. Hopefully I'll be able to take off Friday a few weeks from now and go visit Henna Helsinki and The Village Man in Finland, as the Old AlanKey is coming here from Hong Kong to see them then tour Europe for a bit, so meeting them would be excellent.
More to come as I keep hanging around the Netherlands...
Thursday, June 10, 2010
First Couple of Weeks in Holland, Italy, and a Potential Hong Kong Throwback in an Old 970X Run
So my last blog post came on one of my first couple of days in Holland. I’ve now been here a bit over two weeks, so I figured another blog post was in order. My first couple of weeks of work have been a bit monotonous. I’ve more or less been told to read up on the industry, learn about the different services SES offers, etc. I have, however, achieved a clearer vision of what exactly it is that I’m supposed to be doing here. From what I gather, I’m to analyze SES World Skies’ 20-25 biggest European customers, tell my supervisor why they buy from us, why they buy from competition, are they buying from us and from competition for different purposes or the same purposes, what is our share of wallet, etc. So yeah, that’s about it on the work front. Had a scavenger hunt around The Hague one of my first days here, we got 2nd out of 6 teams, would have been first had it not been for the raging incompetence of two of our team members, but let’s not go there. Afterwards we all went to a bar (and by we all mean like 40 SES employees) where it was open-bar, paid for by the company. Fairly late night spent talking pre-world cup analysis with the Englishmen.
Last weekend I got to see the family in Italy. I flew down to Rome Thursday night, and was met Friday morning by the 4 in my family, 4 in Uncle Fred’s family, 3 Gabanski’s, 4 Lane’s, 3 Caputo’s, 1 Grammy, and 1 Pop. Yes, that’s 20 people. From there we went to Formia via minibus before taking the ferry to Ventotene. I was there with the family until Monday morning, and on Sunday afternoon we were joined by Uncle Fred’s business partner from Hong Kong, Chanwa, who I hadn’t seen since February, and who has been stranded in France for a few months due to a passport issue. So that was a nice weekend. Also, it turns out, Monday on my journey back to Holland, I did the following: boarded a ferry, which dropped me off at a dock, where I was picked up by a private car, which dropped me at an airport, where I boarded an airplane, which dropped me off at another airport, at which I boarded a train, which dropped me off at a train/bus terminal, where I boarded a bus, which dropped me off at a bus stop from where I walked home. Public. Transport. For. The. Win. Boat to car to plane to train to bus to foot. I then rode a bike to work the next morning.
Next weekend I’m debating pulling the old 970X Special (those from HK, in particular a one Raphael Holca will know why it is so appropriately named) and going to Amsterdam Centraal rail station (or, as Madlien pointed out, Amsterdam’s main bus station, as busses will be much cheaper), and just boarding the next internationally bound bus/train and taking it to the end of the line. This idea would really only work if I was able to take off next Friday, which definitely seems possible. Should I do that, it appears the odds are decent that I’d end up in Paris, as there are something like 12 busses daily and 9 trains, which is vastly more than anywhere else. Other intriguing destinations could include Copenhagen, Berlin, Munich, etc. That being said, I will not be taking a train/bus to Russia if that is the next train/bus, due to visa issues (something like $130 for a visa and you need to do it in advance). As much as I don’t mind doing things on the fly, I don’t like my odds of getting into Russia without paying an arm and a leg should I show up at the border with no visa.
At this point I’ve sort of unexpectedly come to accept the fact that I left behind something great in Hong Kong. Realizing that everyone had their own places to be, things to do, etc., I’m sort of at peace with the fact that we’ll never, ever have that entire crew in the same place ever again, barring some very unexpected series of events. More than anything, however, I miss the stupid random nights where we just either did nothing, played monopoly at uhall, or went out and wrought havoc on HK like only our crew was able to do. If nothing else, I easily take solace in the fact that several solid people are living just north of the border in Canada (Rapha, Divyan, Racist Henry, Caitlin, Mawuena, Matias I’m looking at all of you!), and will be relatively accessible next year. Additionally, I figure anyone who studied abroad in a place as off-beat as Hong Kong will probably be traveling a fair bit in their lifetimes, so I’m sure my path will cross randomly with a fair few people that I met in HK in some odd places over the next few years at least.
Now that what is most likely my last “I miss Hong Kong” rant is over, let’s get back to Holland. Yesterday during my bike ride home from work, I saw the following modes of transportation utilized: car, bus, tram, bike, motorcycle, scooter, ATV, horse, foot. Welcome to Holland. Additionally, the considerable use of horses leads to bike paths being littered with piles of their defecation. Fun. It’s been rainy the last few days. Two days ago I left the office around 5:20pm, when there appeared to be a good break in the rain, blue skies, etc. Rookie error on my part, about 7 mins after leaving the office it started downpouring. Thankfully I was near a bridge, so I just went underneath there, joining about a half dozen other people sheltered from the rain. Luckily, because its Holland, the rain stopped after like 5 minutes, so it was alright. The cafeteria at work continues to be free. This is a result of enormous incompetence by the planners of the place. After a 6 month, several million euro renovation, no one had thought of a way to get money from the employees, so basically last week they ordered the equipment they need, and it takes three weeks to get here. So I’ll be having free lunch for the next 2 weeks or so. It’s also a very high quality of food, and the chef is more or less a legend among men.
These next few weeks have potential to be difficult. Hunter left for the States last weekend, and he won’t return till like the 28th of June, and Sierra is leaving for the States Saturday, so at that point I’ll know a whopping zero people in The Hague under the age of 30. Mr. and Mrs. Sprague are also leaving for the States this weekend, so I’ll have the house to myself for a couple of weeks, which may sound decent, but I anticipate it to be rather boring/lonely, as I don’t really know anyone here of my own age group at this point. Therefore, I ask you all, be available on Skype, as I’ll be bored presumably.
It occurred to me today that I currently know people that I met in HK that are on 6 continents. As said earlier, people who study in Hong Kong apparently enjoy traveling sometimes. A sick part of me is considering going to South America from the 16-22 of August to visit Madlien after her internship, as airfare to South America at that time of year is quite reasonable. This would involve returning from Holland at 3:15pm on the 16th and flying to Bogota at 6:55pm on the 16th, before returning around 4:00pm on the 22nd, and starting class at 9:00am the 23rd. Hence the fact that I said it’s a sick part of me wanting to do such a thing. That being said, it would at the very least be a fitting way to end the summer, and the “2010 Blaine Curcio World Tour”. I guess this is also a fitting place to end this blog post, as I don’t have much more to talk about. If you’ve read this far, hats off to you, I guess you find this sort of thing interesting, and I do appreciate you taking the time to see how I’ve been doing in my time here in Holland.
Last weekend I got to see the family in Italy. I flew down to Rome Thursday night, and was met Friday morning by the 4 in my family, 4 in Uncle Fred’s family, 3 Gabanski’s, 4 Lane’s, 3 Caputo’s, 1 Grammy, and 1 Pop. Yes, that’s 20 people. From there we went to Formia via minibus before taking the ferry to Ventotene. I was there with the family until Monday morning, and on Sunday afternoon we were joined by Uncle Fred’s business partner from Hong Kong, Chanwa, who I hadn’t seen since February, and who has been stranded in France for a few months due to a passport issue. So that was a nice weekend. Also, it turns out, Monday on my journey back to Holland, I did the following: boarded a ferry, which dropped me off at a dock, where I was picked up by a private car, which dropped me at an airport, where I boarded an airplane, which dropped me off at another airport, at which I boarded a train, which dropped me off at a train/bus terminal, where I boarded a bus, which dropped me off at a bus stop from where I walked home. Public. Transport. For. The. Win. Boat to car to plane to train to bus to foot. I then rode a bike to work the next morning.
Next weekend I’m debating pulling the old 970X Special (those from HK, in particular a one Raphael Holca will know why it is so appropriately named) and going to Amsterdam Centraal rail station (or, as Madlien pointed out, Amsterdam’s main bus station, as busses will be much cheaper), and just boarding the next internationally bound bus/train and taking it to the end of the line. This idea would really only work if I was able to take off next Friday, which definitely seems possible. Should I do that, it appears the odds are decent that I’d end up in Paris, as there are something like 12 busses daily and 9 trains, which is vastly more than anywhere else. Other intriguing destinations could include Copenhagen, Berlin, Munich, etc. That being said, I will not be taking a train/bus to Russia if that is the next train/bus, due to visa issues (something like $130 for a visa and you need to do it in advance). As much as I don’t mind doing things on the fly, I don’t like my odds of getting into Russia without paying an arm and a leg should I show up at the border with no visa.
At this point I’ve sort of unexpectedly come to accept the fact that I left behind something great in Hong Kong. Realizing that everyone had their own places to be, things to do, etc., I’m sort of at peace with the fact that we’ll never, ever have that entire crew in the same place ever again, barring some very unexpected series of events. More than anything, however, I miss the stupid random nights where we just either did nothing, played monopoly at uhall, or went out and wrought havoc on HK like only our crew was able to do. If nothing else, I easily take solace in the fact that several solid people are living just north of the border in Canada (Rapha, Divyan, Racist Henry, Caitlin, Mawuena, Matias I’m looking at all of you!), and will be relatively accessible next year. Additionally, I figure anyone who studied abroad in a place as off-beat as Hong Kong will probably be traveling a fair bit in their lifetimes, so I’m sure my path will cross randomly with a fair few people that I met in HK in some odd places over the next few years at least.
Now that what is most likely my last “I miss Hong Kong” rant is over, let’s get back to Holland. Yesterday during my bike ride home from work, I saw the following modes of transportation utilized: car, bus, tram, bike, motorcycle, scooter, ATV, horse, foot. Welcome to Holland. Additionally, the considerable use of horses leads to bike paths being littered with piles of their defecation. Fun. It’s been rainy the last few days. Two days ago I left the office around 5:20pm, when there appeared to be a good break in the rain, blue skies, etc. Rookie error on my part, about 7 mins after leaving the office it started downpouring. Thankfully I was near a bridge, so I just went underneath there, joining about a half dozen other people sheltered from the rain. Luckily, because its Holland, the rain stopped after like 5 minutes, so it was alright. The cafeteria at work continues to be free. This is a result of enormous incompetence by the planners of the place. After a 6 month, several million euro renovation, no one had thought of a way to get money from the employees, so basically last week they ordered the equipment they need, and it takes three weeks to get here. So I’ll be having free lunch for the next 2 weeks or so. It’s also a very high quality of food, and the chef is more or less a legend among men.
These next few weeks have potential to be difficult. Hunter left for the States last weekend, and he won’t return till like the 28th of June, and Sierra is leaving for the States Saturday, so at that point I’ll know a whopping zero people in The Hague under the age of 30. Mr. and Mrs. Sprague are also leaving for the States this weekend, so I’ll have the house to myself for a couple of weeks, which may sound decent, but I anticipate it to be rather boring/lonely, as I don’t really know anyone here of my own age group at this point. Therefore, I ask you all, be available on Skype, as I’ll be bored presumably.
It occurred to me today that I currently know people that I met in HK that are on 6 continents. As said earlier, people who study in Hong Kong apparently enjoy traveling sometimes. A sick part of me is considering going to South America from the 16-22 of August to visit Madlien after her internship, as airfare to South America at that time of year is quite reasonable. This would involve returning from Holland at 3:15pm on the 16th and flying to Bogota at 6:55pm on the 16th, before returning around 4:00pm on the 22nd, and starting class at 9:00am the 23rd. Hence the fact that I said it’s a sick part of me wanting to do such a thing. That being said, it would at the very least be a fitting way to end the summer, and the “2010 Blaine Curcio World Tour”. I guess this is also a fitting place to end this blog post, as I don’t have much more to talk about. If you’ve read this far, hats off to you, I guess you find this sort of thing interesting, and I do appreciate you taking the time to see how I’ve been doing in my time here in Holland.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
The Most Overdue Blog Post of All Time
So it’s been literally 2 months since I’ve posted anything from Hong Kong, so go figure my next “Hong Kong” blog post is being posted from Holland. A brief summation of the last two months:
The highlight of April was a 5 day trip to South Korea early on in the month. Basically, Madlien and I were hanging out one day when we realized we only had class like one day that week (due to more public holidays provided by HKU, shocking), so we decided to bolt to South Korea for the week. Overall, definitely one of the best decisions I made in Hong Kong, as Seoul turned out to be my favorite city in Asia other than HK. It was quite similar to Tokyo, only everything was literally 1/4-1/3 of the price. We spent most of our time in Seoul, though we were able to take a day trip to the DMZ at the border, which was quite eerie. The street food was absolutely wonderful in Seoul, and, as stated earlier, quite cheap. Among the best things were bulgogi, which is sort of a bun filled with seasoned pork, and a variety of cinnamon flavored bun things. Anyway, another highlight of Seoul was hanging out with a couple of kids that Michael had met in his time in Holland, Won (Michael’s roommate in Holland), and Rany. They were both originally from Seoul, and they showed us around the city for a couple of nights, which was very cool, as it always is to get a local’s perspective. Other highlights included some awesome hikes which got us great views of Seoul, a visit to the 2002 World Cup Stadium, and a trip to the North Seoul Observation Tower, which stands hundreds of meters above the city of 20 million people. The view from the tower was particularly spectacular, as we did it at dusk, so we were able to see as Seoul transformed from a daytime city to a constellation of neon lights once the sun set. We also got to see a Korean professional baseball game (the two best teams in Korea were playing a Friday night game… and the tickets were roughly $6… nice country, eh?). Anyway, the game lasted 12 innings before ending in a tie. Yes, that is correct. After 12 innings, the two teams marched out onto the field, shook hands, and that was it. Certainly a bit unexpected, a bit 2002 all-star game esque, if you will, but eh, who are we to judge. If nothing else, their fans were INFINITELY more passionate than USA baseball fans. I really can’t stress that enough, every single player had their own really loud cheer from the fans, and they were on their feet screaming literally the whole time. Incredible stuff.
Anyway, so after Korea we sort of mulled around Hong Kong for about 3 weeks before deciding to go to Indonesia. That trip involved Elliott, Paris, Mirjola, and I. We were there for 10 days, and it was a pretty good trip. Highlights included visiting what is arguably now my least favorite city on the planet, Jakarta, which was just absolute filth. Tons of traffic, air pollution, nothing to see, etc. Terrible place. From there we took a 10 hr train to Yogyakarta, which was much more interesting, as it was smaller, cleaner, more Indonesian, if you will, and had 2 beautiful temples within a 30 minute drive, both of which we saw. After that we headed to Gunung Bromo, in east-central Java. This was a volcano located several thousand meters up, and we woke up to see the sun rise over it, which was absolutely breathtaking. This did, however, cause a massive body shock, as the night before we were in 100 degree heat, and that high up in the mountains the temperature got down to about 35-40 degrees. Later that day (after we left Gunung Bromo), again we were exposed to 100+ degree heat. Fun times. Anyway, from there we went to Bali and stayed with Paris’ dad’s friend Walter, who is a German architect living in Bali. He had an absolutely amazing piece of property with a few huts that we stayed in, it was quite incredible. After Bali, we had a long, long ride back to Jakarta, which was basically a 10 hour bus followed by a 12 hour train. Rough would be an understatement, but my God was it cheap.
Anyway, so that’s about all about Indonesia. After returning I had some exams, then before I knew it it was the last week in Hong Kong, and I was finished with exams. Consequently, every night involved someone’s goodbye party, so the week itself was quite taxing. Leaving Hong Kong turned out to be on of the most difficult experiences of my life. The people I met there will absolutely forever influence me in whatever I do, and I learned infinitely more from them and from Hong Kong itself than any classroom could ever teach me. Below is the list of the 10 things I am most grateful for having learned or done in Hong Kong, in no particular order:
Learning to play cricket (and batted an 8!), thanks to Sai
Exemplified the patience of Job by not tearing strips off my roommate for wreaking of mold and bad cheese
Broke into the 4 Seasons roof pool, etc... (will not elaborate)
See a clear sunrise over the most beautiful skyline in the world
Nearly get stabbed for standing up for what I believe in
Kung foo fighting in slow motion in the streets of Lan Kwai Fong
Have gin and cigars in a castle
Wear a stolen bathrobe to LKF with Elliott and Benno
Dance like a fool while not wearing shoes... in a club
Learn that there are no laws in Asia (as Rafa can surely back me up on)
There are countless more things, and on any given day this list could look totally different, as there really were that many great times this semester. I really, truly can say that this was the best 5 months of my life, and I will miss each and every one of you all dearly. As I've said to many people before leaving, "this probably isn't goodbye, its just a hiatus". Anyway, that's enough of that or I'll start crying... so-
Back to the beginning of this post, I’m currently posting this from Holland. For those who don’t know, I’ll be interning in The Hague, Holland, for the next 12 weeks or so. The trip here was a bit rough, 7.5 hr flight from Hong Kong to Dubai followed by a 7 hr flight to Amsterdam. Given that its now Tuesday, and I haven’t slept more than 3 hours in a night since like Friday, I’m starting to drag pretty badly, and will likely go to bed very shortly (its 9:41pm local time right now), especially given that I have to report to work at 8:00 tomorrow morning. While in Holland I’ll be staying with the Sprague family. Mr. Sprague is an ISU alumni and the VP of SES World Skies, the company I’m working for. Mrs. Sprague, as it turns out, is childhood friends with someone who lives literally 2 doors down from me. If that’s not a small world, I don’t know what is. I’ve also found out in my short time here that she is a wonderful cook (shrimp curry was quite nice tonight), and that I really have missed the Midwestern accent since leaving for HK. I also met Hunter, their son, who is a freshman at TCU. He is also interning at SES this summer, so we’ll be seeing a fair bit of each other presumably. Their daughter, Sierra, is just graduating High School next week before heading off on a trip to Spain. If only we American HS kids got to do such things after graduation. So far I’ve enjoyed my 5 hours or so in The Hague. A few brief observations: despite the fact that its 9:46pm here, its still really, really bright outside. Literally, like as bright as it would be in Chicago at like 4:30-5:00pm. Really quite strange. Also, much slower than Hong Kong, and there aren’t skyscrapers, or at least, not of the magnitude of Hong Kong. I briefly went by the office today, and it seems very nice. Most of the people I’m working with seem very nice, and I’m really looking forward to it. In the meantime, its been about 4 days since I’ve had proper sleep, so I’ll be doing that now. For those still reading at this point, thanks for the dedication, apologies for taking literally 2 months to post anything. More to come in the coming weeks…
The highlight of April was a 5 day trip to South Korea early on in the month. Basically, Madlien and I were hanging out one day when we realized we only had class like one day that week (due to more public holidays provided by HKU, shocking), so we decided to bolt to South Korea for the week. Overall, definitely one of the best decisions I made in Hong Kong, as Seoul turned out to be my favorite city in Asia other than HK. It was quite similar to Tokyo, only everything was literally 1/4-1/3 of the price. We spent most of our time in Seoul, though we were able to take a day trip to the DMZ at the border, which was quite eerie. The street food was absolutely wonderful in Seoul, and, as stated earlier, quite cheap. Among the best things were bulgogi, which is sort of a bun filled with seasoned pork, and a variety of cinnamon flavored bun things. Anyway, another highlight of Seoul was hanging out with a couple of kids that Michael had met in his time in Holland, Won (Michael’s roommate in Holland), and Rany. They were both originally from Seoul, and they showed us around the city for a couple of nights, which was very cool, as it always is to get a local’s perspective. Other highlights included some awesome hikes which got us great views of Seoul, a visit to the 2002 World Cup Stadium, and a trip to the North Seoul Observation Tower, which stands hundreds of meters above the city of 20 million people. The view from the tower was particularly spectacular, as we did it at dusk, so we were able to see as Seoul transformed from a daytime city to a constellation of neon lights once the sun set. We also got to see a Korean professional baseball game (the two best teams in Korea were playing a Friday night game… and the tickets were roughly $6… nice country, eh?). Anyway, the game lasted 12 innings before ending in a tie. Yes, that is correct. After 12 innings, the two teams marched out onto the field, shook hands, and that was it. Certainly a bit unexpected, a bit 2002 all-star game esque, if you will, but eh, who are we to judge. If nothing else, their fans were INFINITELY more passionate than USA baseball fans. I really can’t stress that enough, every single player had their own really loud cheer from the fans, and they were on their feet screaming literally the whole time. Incredible stuff.
Anyway, so after Korea we sort of mulled around Hong Kong for about 3 weeks before deciding to go to Indonesia. That trip involved Elliott, Paris, Mirjola, and I. We were there for 10 days, and it was a pretty good trip. Highlights included visiting what is arguably now my least favorite city on the planet, Jakarta, which was just absolute filth. Tons of traffic, air pollution, nothing to see, etc. Terrible place. From there we took a 10 hr train to Yogyakarta, which was much more interesting, as it was smaller, cleaner, more Indonesian, if you will, and had 2 beautiful temples within a 30 minute drive, both of which we saw. After that we headed to Gunung Bromo, in east-central Java. This was a volcano located several thousand meters up, and we woke up to see the sun rise over it, which was absolutely breathtaking. This did, however, cause a massive body shock, as the night before we were in 100 degree heat, and that high up in the mountains the temperature got down to about 35-40 degrees. Later that day (after we left Gunung Bromo), again we were exposed to 100+ degree heat. Fun times. Anyway, from there we went to Bali and stayed with Paris’ dad’s friend Walter, who is a German architect living in Bali. He had an absolutely amazing piece of property with a few huts that we stayed in, it was quite incredible. After Bali, we had a long, long ride back to Jakarta, which was basically a 10 hour bus followed by a 12 hour train. Rough would be an understatement, but my God was it cheap.
Anyway, so that’s about all about Indonesia. After returning I had some exams, then before I knew it it was the last week in Hong Kong, and I was finished with exams. Consequently, every night involved someone’s goodbye party, so the week itself was quite taxing. Leaving Hong Kong turned out to be on of the most difficult experiences of my life. The people I met there will absolutely forever influence me in whatever I do, and I learned infinitely more from them and from Hong Kong itself than any classroom could ever teach me. Below is the list of the 10 things I am most grateful for having learned or done in Hong Kong, in no particular order:
Learning to play cricket (and batted an 8!), thanks to Sai
Exemplified the patience of Job by not tearing strips off my roommate for wreaking of mold and bad cheese
Broke into the 4 Seasons roof pool, etc... (will not elaborate)
See a clear sunrise over the most beautiful skyline in the world
Nearly get stabbed for standing up for what I believe in
Kung foo fighting in slow motion in the streets of Lan Kwai Fong
Have gin and cigars in a castle
Wear a stolen bathrobe to LKF with Elliott and Benno
Dance like a fool while not wearing shoes... in a club
Learn that there are no laws in Asia (as Rafa can surely back me up on)
There are countless more things, and on any given day this list could look totally different, as there really were that many great times this semester. I really, truly can say that this was the best 5 months of my life, and I will miss each and every one of you all dearly. As I've said to many people before leaving, "this probably isn't goodbye, its just a hiatus". Anyway, that's enough of that or I'll start crying... so-
Back to the beginning of this post, I’m currently posting this from Holland. For those who don’t know, I’ll be interning in The Hague, Holland, for the next 12 weeks or so. The trip here was a bit rough, 7.5 hr flight from Hong Kong to Dubai followed by a 7 hr flight to Amsterdam. Given that its now Tuesday, and I haven’t slept more than 3 hours in a night since like Friday, I’m starting to drag pretty badly, and will likely go to bed very shortly (its 9:41pm local time right now), especially given that I have to report to work at 8:00 tomorrow morning. While in Holland I’ll be staying with the Sprague family. Mr. Sprague is an ISU alumni and the VP of SES World Skies, the company I’m working for. Mrs. Sprague, as it turns out, is childhood friends with someone who lives literally 2 doors down from me. If that’s not a small world, I don’t know what is. I’ve also found out in my short time here that she is a wonderful cook (shrimp curry was quite nice tonight), and that I really have missed the Midwestern accent since leaving for HK. I also met Hunter, their son, who is a freshman at TCU. He is also interning at SES this summer, so we’ll be seeing a fair bit of each other presumably. Their daughter, Sierra, is just graduating High School next week before heading off on a trip to Spain. If only we American HS kids got to do such things after graduation. So far I’ve enjoyed my 5 hours or so in The Hague. A few brief observations: despite the fact that its 9:46pm here, its still really, really bright outside. Literally, like as bright as it would be in Chicago at like 4:30-5:00pm. Really quite strange. Also, much slower than Hong Kong, and there aren’t skyscrapers, or at least, not of the magnitude of Hong Kong. I briefly went by the office today, and it seems very nice. Most of the people I’m working with seem very nice, and I’m really looking forward to it. In the meantime, its been about 4 days since I’ve had proper sleep, so I’ll be doing that now. For those still reading at this point, thanks for the dedication, apologies for taking literally 2 months to post anything. More to come in the coming weeks…
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