2 busy weeks!
Monday 2001-02-19
Wow. Have I really been in Holland for 5 weeks? In some ways it seems like just yesterday that I arrived at the airport, tired and blurry-eyed. In other ways it seems like I've been here for 5 months. In any case I'm leaving in 1 week... and I don't want to go!

I've fallen into a nice routine here - work during the day, maybe do something fun in the evenings and travel & explore on the weekends.

The work is very interesting. And a little frustrating. Mostly I'm frustrated with HTML and how difficult it is to create a really nice user interface using just HTML.

Living here is easy. Very easy. The office is located right next door to the main train station. Because the train station is here there are also lots of shops, restaruants, cafes, movie theaters, etc that are near by and are open fairly late. And I can catch a train to anywhere in Europe from the station! My hostel is probably about 2-3 kilometers away from the office. It takes me about 20 minutes to walk to the office, about 7 minutes to ride my bike and about 5 minutes if I take the tram (which is a little like a trolley car). My hostel is about a 5 minute walk from the other main station in The Hague. So I usually have the option of taking the train from either the station near the office or the one near the hostel.

The weather has been slowly getting warmer and dryer. Spring isn't quite here yet, but it will be soon. I'm really sad that I won't be here to see the flowers bloom.

Oh! I got a cell phone a few weeks ago! It's great and it has already come in handy. It's a pre-paid phone, so I don't have to pay anything when I'm not using it (ie when I'm back in the States). It works all over western Europe, but it won't work in the States because we use a different mobile phone system.

I've been traveling a lot. Two weekends ago I went to Berlin with Anna. She lives near Dusseldorf, which is more or less on the way to Berlin from The Hague. I left The Hague at about Friday 2:30pm on Friday afternoon. That put me into Dusseldorf a little after 5pm. Anna wasn't sure exactly when she'd be able to meet me at the train station and she arrived a little after 7pm. While waiting for her I bought tickets for the train from Dusseldorf to Berlin. We left at about 8:30pm and arrived in Berlin a little after 1am! Needless to say it was a very long day and it was really nice to get to sleep. Saturday was beautiful, clear and cold. A friend of the family that Anna is living with had given her a list of things to do and places to eat in Berlin. So we had a mission! We had a very, very good time sightseeing. We had a great lunch at a cool cafe that is located just inside the former east Berlin. For dinner we went to an awesome Italian restaurant (also in east Berlin). The weather on Sunday wasn't as nice. It was cloudy and it rained a little. But only a little. We had another fun day of sightseeing. In the evening we visited a wonderful elderly couple who are friends of a friend of Anna's family. They live in the former east Berlin, about 40 minutes from the center of town. The reunification money hasn't gotten that far out of town yet - the train station was very deserted and run down and the roads were very rough. We had a great time visiting the elderly couple. They spoke very little English, so I was pretty much out of the loop for most of the evening. But you can say a lot using your hands, your expressions and what little common language you know. As the evening was winding down we started to take pictures. My digital camera was definately a hit. They loved looking at the photos! My only regret (as usual) was that I don't understand very much Russian and almost no German, so I couldn't easily participate in the conversations. Maybe someday...? We didn't leave their house until afte midnight... and we had to catch a 5am train back to Dusseldorf! We got about 2 hours sleep, got on the train just seconds before it left Berlin and slept most of the way back to Dusseldorf. Anna and I said goodbye in Dusseldorf and I got on another train back to The Hague. I was exhausted by the time I got home.

Last Thursday I spent the evening in Leiden with Leon, one of the guys that works here. Leiden is just a short distance from The Hague, but that night I learned the difference between a slow train 'stop train' and an inter-city train. The slow train took about 25 minutes to go from The Hague to Leiden. When I returned on the inter-city train it only took me about 10 minutes to get back to The Hague! Leiden is a very nice city. It's a university town, which always seems to make a city more interesting. The atomosphere seemed very 'Dutch' to me - canals, beautiful buildings, lots of bikes, but without all the people that you find in Amsterdam. Leon and I had a very enjoyable walk, visited a nice bar and then ate at a nice restaurant. I want to go back to Leiden, but I don't think I'll have time on this trip.

I spent last Friday evening at Alex's house. Alex, along with Saxwin, owns the company that I'm working for. Alex has three teenage boys. We all spent the evening talking, eating, watching a video and then playing on the computer. It was a very nice evening and I really enjoyed myself.

Last Saturday morning I jumped on the train and headed for Brussels! I have been to Brussels once before - 10 years ago on a business trip. I didn't really like Brussels at that time and I wanted to see it again. The train to Brussels took about 2 hours 20 minutes. I spent most of the afternoon just walking around the city. I have to say that it didn't do much for me! I didn't think the city was very beautiful. And the shops were very crowded. But the chocolate was very, very good! Late in the afternoon I left to return home. There was a little adventure on the way home. I don't know exactly what the problem was, but what I heard was that there was a bomb scare on the train tracks near the border of Holland and Belgium. The result was that trains going north and south were stopped. We stopped at a small town (Essen) on the Belgian side of the border. We were told that a bus would take us beyond the problems. Well we waited for about 1 1/2 hours and finally one bus came for about 500-1000 people. It was cold and people were starting to get angry. Fortunately soon after the bus arrived the trains started running again. I finally got home about 8pm.

Bright and early Sunday morning I took the train to Amsterdam. I love Amsterdam on Sunday mornings! It's very quiet and peaceful. Most of the shops don't open until 11 or 12 and there aren't too many people on the street. It's the best time to just walk around and enjoy the city. As a bonus, the weather was very nice in the morning and early afternoon. The more I visit Amsterdam the more I like the city. I can now get around without a map, which always makes one feel more comfortable and at home. Once the shops opened I did a little shopping and general sightseeing.

And now it's Monday evening. I've got to wrap up my programming project this week. I'm going to stay at the hostel until Friday and then I'm going to Saxwin's for the weekend.

That's all for now. I've still got to write about my first two weeks in Holland. I'll try to do that in the next day or two.