Day 84 & 85 - Important Meetings

On sunday night rick stopped by. i worked on my scrapbook and he watched 'shaun of the dead' on tv. he's a bit depressed becuase his grandmother is very sick and its not looking good for her. i let him hang out for the night since i knew he was so upset. i made some good headway on my scrapbook, about half done. i really need to finish it before i leave :) i packed one more box to send back to CA. i think that should do it!

On monday after work i went to the grocery store to get the last things to make it through the week. yogurt. granola. bread. and apples. and cherry pie. i can make it now. caught up on paying bills, restarted my cell phone and car insurance, etc. caught up on emails and my facebook. i also worked in writing all of my thank you/goodbye cards. i have about 30 or 40 cards to write to i'm doing a few each night. no one writes cards anymore. like real handwritten cards. its a nice personal touch i think. so much better than just sending out a blanket email. i've attached my business card to each card. so in addition to giving everyone nice handwritten notes i'm also using this a marketing tool. i bought fun colored paper clips to attach the business card to the note. it looks fun. i hope my handwriting is legible.

on tuesday i had two very important meetings. the first meeting was with Arnold Steenbakker, who is the head of onshore geotech for all of the fugro offices around the world. i saw him in the lunchroom, so i emailed him and said "hey.. i saw you in the lunchroom. you came to my project site in ventura over the summer (the VCMC CDSM). i'm here in leidschendam working for a.v. seters in FIBV.... etc." or something along those lines. so a little later my phone rang, which really startled me becuase no one ever calls me. i didnt even know how to answer the phone! i was flustered. here in NL its common for the person picking up the phone to identify themselves first, NOT the caller. so instead of saying "hello?", you say your name. anyways, it was arnold's personal secretary calling to set up a meeting with me. she asked when i was available. i play it cool. can't seem too available. so i say well i'm out in the field wednesday or thursday, so tuesday would be best. she says tuesday at 1PM, i say how about 2PM? ok perfect.

so i head up a few minutes before 2PM on tuesday. i made sure to wear more dressy clothes today and my nice gold earrings. i even polished my shoes and made sure my nails were trimmed very neatly. you can only get up to the 5th floor, then you have to be buzzed in to get to the 6th floor. it is really really nice up there. the carpet is a nice blue color and very bright and clean. there are windows everywhere so its quite bright up there. its a nice sunny day today. the walls are lined autographed symphony posters from all over the world. its quiet.

i waited for a few minutes. i can hear arnold on the telephone. i'm not nervous actually. i should be. well no i shouldnt be. yes, i should be. how many 25yr old staff engineer nobodys get to come in and have 20 minutes of uninterrupted one-on-one time with the head of onshore geotech on a beautiful sunny day? not too many i bet. his secretary lets me know he's ready for me to come in. i come around the corner and i can tell he's trying to recognize me from ventura. he shakes my hand and says, oh yes, now i remember you. he's quite tall (of course), but i'm wearing heels today so i'm feeling adequate next to him. his hair is salt and pepper with a matching moustache. he's relaxed and welcoming, but he's business at the same time. i try to emulate his demeanor. his office is quite large and on a corner so two full sides of his office are windows. the view is unimpeded. the sunshine floods the office. there is a conference table on one side, a sitting area in another area, and then a big black desk towards the wall. we take a seat adjacent to each other in the sitting area. muted orange leather chairs with metallic accents.

we talk about my experience in netherlands and some differences in the working conditions. he worked for fluor in irvine for nearly 5 years. he thought that people tended to work very hard out of fear for losing thier jobs (its much more difficult to 'sack' people in NL). i agreed, but added that americans also tend to be very competitive.....with themselves and others. subtly and overtly. a society built on capitalism, the premise that competition results in the best product available to the consumer. that competition drives people to work harder, for longer hours, feel ashamed for taking vacation or getting sick. anyways, we talked about skating outside, my paris trip, which somehow he knew i went to paris. i remember maybe telling mark pehlig about it, but otherwise i'm not sure how he could have known. i told him my overall thoughts about the exchange program and we also discussed the CA financial crisis. he thanked me for my initiative for contacting him. overall the conversation was very relaxed, not too serious, but no jokes really. i got a sense of his personality. i shook his hand and i left the 6th floor oasis back down to the doldrums of the 3rd floor. hahaha hardly.. but its quite a distinct separation around here. most folks in my group say they've never been up on the 6th floor. there is some hype for sure. when i returned to my office, i sent an email to arnold and also henriette (his secretary) to thank him for taking the time to meet with me.

later on tuesday, i had a meeting wih maarten P. and adriaan, kind of an exit interview. we talked about all the things i did here in NL, and how i felt about my time here etc. we also discussed what they thought about me and my performance here. overall they felt that the exchange was successful, that they were able to gain some knowledge from me about processes or procedures that can be tweaked, they enjoyed learning about the ventura office, and overall they thought i fit into the team really well. they appreciated my initiative to participate in everything and said i was always enthusiastic about my projects and tasks. i was thankful to have been exposed to so many different types of projects in the office and field, and that i was able to learn some new programs and work alongside some of the brightest engineers in the profession right now. the more i travel along my career the more i understand how important people connections are. i could have been a brilliant plaxis magician, but if i hadn't helped make paper hats at the sinterklaas party, i don't think my time here would have been so fruitful.

tuesday after work i went to my very last spinning class. a very sad day. my spinning instructor and i matched! we both had on black bike shorts and a red nike tshirt. see, its meant to be! patricia was in the class too. todays class was killer! but, he played beyonce's 'put a ring on it' song and i just had to laugh. after class i talked to him and told him i was leaving back to the US. he just said 'ok! bye!'. how anticlimactic!

Day 81, 82, & 83 - Speakers, Golf, and Castles

First, download Lily Allen's "The Fear". it's her new single and its fucking fantastic. make sure you download the un-edited version.

so friday afternoon at work, i see Will zoom by my office on a rolling board. he was lying on it on his stomache and zooming around the hall at work. the board was kind of like a wide skateboard used to move around heavy boxes in the mailroom. Will carries around a walkman (like a real old school tape player walkman) and listens to taped sermons all day. and now he's bodysurfing the fugro halls. someone call the exorcist!

after work, i went over to my friend paula's house for dinner. i brought a bottle of wine and champagne. figured that covered all the bases. i curled me hair too. i like big hair. i wasnt sure who was going to be there, but it turned out to be the most rediculous night. there was about 9 of us there (by the way her apartment is the CUTEST apartment in delft and i'm unbeleivably jealous of her). one german/dutch guy who spoke perfect english in a perfect british accent. a married couple recently back from a cruise in the carribean, who've previously lived in D.C., one dutch girl who recently returned from a 6-year stint in new zealand (louisa... who was also later affectionately called weezy), and....... a girl from Ventura!! yes, Ventura CA. can you believe that!?! her name is Cat and she's been here for 6 months and will be here for 6 more. she works in some sort of tech sales and her office is near the intersection of olivas park and victoria. unreal. she's 24 and its very very likely we know some of the same people. so crazy. now THAT is when you know its a smal world. she's living in an apartment in delft with louisa right across the street from paula.

so dinner is fun and hysterical and its cool to be at a table of all different types of people. paula made an excellent chicken bake and some sort of potatoe side dish. both were excellent. we left paula's around 11, and as i was walking out, me louisa and cat decided to go grab a drink. she's newly single and wanted to go check out some bartender she had seen a few weeks ago. sure, one drink sounds good!

7 hours later i made it back home. i couldnt believe it when i walked out of the club and looked at my watch. i was still wearing my work clothes! i wasn't even wearing my boots or heels or my sqin jeans! thank god i curled my hair! we went to the bar that cat wanted to go and chatted awhile with soem guys there, one who just got a tatoo of a glass cutter on his thigh. he's a glass cutter for a trade (for the many greenhouses in delft). the tatoo looked rediculous. cat actually asked the bartender on a date. i was so proud of her. he had a girlfriend, but they ended up talking for a long time, so i think it will be cool between them. and then it was decided i needed to be initiated into delft by going to speakers, the only infamous dance club in delft. there was a metal detector at the door.

we got to speakers around 2, and i was thinking, well it will close soon so i can't get into too much trouble. so so so wrong. me and weezy tore up the dance floor. its much easier to dance when not wearing heels i discovered. cat apparently found her soulmate. they're going out again this weekend. i managed to find myself compromised by a gorgeous spanish soccer player with questionable friends. god i love being single sometimes. me and louisa walked home and when i finally got to my door at 6AM i thought... what the hell just happened to me??

Saturday SUCKED!!! i was so tired. i woke up at noon and met Wim and Flip over at the local golf course to play 9 holes. i borrowed Wim's wife's clubs. they were perfect! we warmed up at the driving range, and i was doing well at the range, but then on the course i was a water magnet. there were so many little canals on the course i managed to find them all. i lost 3 balls. i had a really crappy round actually. i blame speakers. but it was really nice to hang out with flip and wim. the'yre great. i hope they come to ventura. i said i will take them to a course there. it was really cold, but i just layered up and i was fine. i had a few good tee shots, but the water was my darn achilles heel and my putting, which is usually pretty good, was dismal today. oh well. i got some golf balls with the delft course name printed on them as gifts for patrick and henry. we had some hot chocolate in the club house and i got home around 5PM. didnt do anything saturday night. watched law and order and let the television hypnotize me.

Sunday i picked up Claartje at 11AM and we went to naarden to see an old fort. it was amazing. there were two rings around the fort, all with thick brick-fortified walls to basically form two water rings. inside of the gate, there is a little town and a fort. the entire thing is shaped like a star. we took a tour of the fort, and saw the tunnels and the canons and where the soldiers lived etc. it was really really cool. you just have to look at the picture below. its really amazing how it was built and with such precision how symmetrical it is. this fort was strategically located such that anyone crossing from east to west holland were required to pass this fort. it was a stronghold in the 1600 and 1700's. after the tour of the fort we walked around the little town inside of the fort and got some lunch. pea soup and a toasti. yummy :)

after Naarden, we went to a the Castle De Haar, located near Utrecht. The castle had been rebuilt in early 1900's after being nearly completely destroyed in a previous attack. the castle is located in the middle of lush farm lands. the castle is sprawling, with over 100 rooms. the grounds are occupied by canals, forests, a beautiful garded, a maze, tennis courts, and stables. we took a guided tour of the castle and saw how it was reconstructed in a harmony of medieval achitecture with 20th century accommodations (electricity, running water, even an elevator). the castle has unfortunately recently been a victim of settlement, and it has obviuos structural damage, cosmetic cracks everywhere, and one turret even pulled away from the building and fell down. they are in the process of reparing the castle by installing piles to transfer the building load. its a sensitive project that will take in total 5 years to complete. see, even castles need geotechnical engineers.

the castle was like a fairytale. it was rebuilt such that the focus was elegance and decadence, not a military fortress. many famous people have stayed here, and the family that owns the castle actually still lives in it for one month each year (september) and it is closed for visitors. just the fact that people still live here makes the experience so much cooler. the huge ballrooms and the tapestries on the walls, the deep red carpets, the elaborate ceilings, the marble staircases, and the four post beds. what amazing place to live. such a contrast to the fort i had seen earlier today. claartje and i got back around 6PM. it was a great day and i loved spending it with her. she's realyl easy to get along with and so mellow. i'm glad that we are friends. i thanked her for showing me the fort and the castle, we'll have to have lunch together before i leave!!

Day 79 & 80 - Rain Rain Go Away

Wednesday and Thursday.. well its been raining like cats and dogs here. just gray and cold and wet. brrrrr. i'm still fighting this crappy cold. its more annoying than anythign else! but, i was able to get caught up on on paying bills and blogging and made some progress on my scrapbook, and i even watched some TV on Thursday night! two good things about the rainy weather: hot chocolate and pea soup! i've decided to just give into my hot cholocate addiction. its only for less than 2 more weeks and then i'll have to go cold turkey. On thursday they had pea soup in the lunch room and i got TWO bowls. it was so yummy. At work i've been plugging away at modeling all of the road/duct bank crossings in MSettle and calculated the differential settlement. i have a feeling it is way too conservative. i suggest installing a settlement plate and monitoring the actual rate and magnitude of settlement over a 6 month period. they won't be constructing anything for awhile, and the 2m of fill has already been placed, so it seems like a no brainer. it can't cost nearly as much to monitor a settlement plate than spend extra on materials and labor costs to install unnecessary lengths of transition slabs. i wrote it into my memo. hopefully the client will take the bait. more work for us, and will save them money. everyone wins!

I talked to craig on the phone for awhile. it was nice to talk to him. its been a whirlwind here, but i'm ready to come home. we talked about people getting laid off in oakland. he indicated no layoffs had been planned in VTA (yet). i'm worried about a lot of things, but its not really that i'm consumed about being laid off, i just can't stand the thought of being at work with no work to do. idle time. i like to be really busy. stressed out busy. its hard for me to function at a normal pace. its also hard for me really gauge what's going on. once i get back i'll be able to get a better sense of things. i also get the feeling that at some point we just have to accept the crappy economy and just bunker down and ride out the storm. talking about the 'what ifs' (ad nauseum) will just drive a person crazy.

It was Elisabet's birthday... she turned 27! She brought in a few treats that she had baked herslef. Of course! amazing desserts. jeez next week when we have our little going away party it will be store-bought all the way. i finally found out the meaning of all the "Bob"signs on the highway... it means sober driver! for example, who's Bob tonight? who's the sober driver tonight? apparently, if you call some hotline and tell then you're the sober driver tonight, they will send you a sled for going down snowhills. like a bobsleigh. genius marketing!

on the way home from work, i saw a mom and her little kid riding on the bike. it was raining really hard. The little kid was riding on the back of the bike, and he had burrowed underneath his mom's coat so all you could see were his little legs sticking out. it was so cute!! smart little guy, i bet it was nice and warm and dry under there.

Day 77 & 78 - The Opera

Technically i got home from Berlin on Monday. I got home around 1Am. rode my bike from the train station. when i woke up in the morning, i wasn't feeling that well. kind of a sore throat and a headache. not too bad though. i'm pretty tired though. i think my scarf is making me sick. its right around my neck/mouth all the time. and travelling it can brush up against things. so i throw the scarf in wash. the washing machine is a freaking animal. it runs for 2 hours and it completely tore apart one of my very expensive victoria's secret bras. literally it tore it apart. into pieces.

monday i start working on a project for adriaan, to provide some parameters for a pile foundations for a machine pad. the machine will be operating in such a way they it produces an ellipticle motion at varying operating frequency. this cointinuous motion acts like constant small dynamic load on the piles. so i'm just trying to find out a bunch of info, like where the pile cap is relative to the adjacent ground, the site grading, the operating frequency, the pile type, etc. etc. they have a few programs called PYDYN and TZDYN to caluclate the p-y curves and pile spring constant for dynamic loads. i think they are in-house programs. so i mess around with those for awhile and put together a general soil profile based on a few nearby CTP's.

after work, i went to the gym to my kickboxing class, but was dismayed to learn that i had used up all my gym credits. i bought 10 for the ypenburg gym and 10 for voorburg. i still have about 5 left at voorburg. it was going to cost 15 euro to go the class so i decided not to pay and just went home. i should really not be sporting anyways.. i'm sick and i should really go to bed early. so i headed home and unpacked from the weekend, heated up some lasagne for dinner and got into bed around 10PM. hopefully i will wake up tomorrow feeling better. i havent resorted to taking any medicine yet, but hopefully it won't come to that.

tuesday i'm still not feeling that great. i've developed an annoying cough. bummer. i worked on my pile design again and started writing the report. i started working on something else for annemiek and maarten. some utility duct banks are going to be put in, and some paved roads will cross in certain areas. the duct banks are going to be put on piles (everything is on piles!!!), so they want us to provide differential settlement input so the approach/transition slabs can be designed. annemiek already stared it and she said she calculated about 5cm of settement. i knew that didnt sound right. that's a ton of settlement for a thin pavement section constructed at grade with a very light traffic load (just service vehicles). plus there had already been 2m of sand added to the site (about 6.5 feet) and it had been sitting there for over a year. it was done settling. so i re-ran the calcs and it was less than 1cm. i told her i don't think they even need an approach slab. i'll write the report tomorrow.

after work, i left right at 5PM, so i could catch the inauguration!! i watched in the internet. it was fantastic. i watched it twice actually. the speech was engaging, motivating, yet realistic. overall, i felt excited of new things to come. i think this inauguration means more to the previous generation. tom brokaw's fellow anchorman said following the inauguration about how he and obama are about the same age, and he recalls as a child growing up in a chicago suberb, how it was a big event when the first black family moved into the neighborhood. someone burnt the house down days before the family moved in. and now we have a black president.

following obama's speech, i felt excited and optimistic, but i also felt apprehensive for him. you can almost see the weight of the world on his shoulders. the world has put him on a pedestal. i hope he doesn't fall. its especially evident in the national news. i think we need to remember, he's just a man, not the messiah. this global financial crisis will take years to sort out and the effects will be reaching. it won't turn around overnight. there's no quick fix here.

so after the inauguration, i'm feeling pumped! i'm wondering... what can i do to help? i want to make a difference. when i get back to vta i'm going to explore some possibilities. i need to get an obama tshirt.

also on tuesday night, i went to the opera in zoetermeer. it was an event organized by fugro. the opera is called Die Fledermaus, and its presented in german with some parts translated in dutch. i ride over with herman, who's in the hydrology group, and he also lives in delft. he's probably in his 50's. on the ride over, he asks if i live near santa monica, i said oh about 1 hour away. he says i'm very lucky becuase that's where his church is. he belongs to some sort of following that believes on the year 2012 (when the mayan calendar ends), that there will be an alien invasion. herman hopes that obama is prepared for this. not the conversation i was expecting, but enlightening nonetheless.

the opera.. well, i'm the youngest person by about 40 years. adriaan was there! i didn't know he would be coming. i got to meet his lovely wife. the opera was actually quite good. it showcased all of johan strauss's famous works, and the orchestra was perfection. the play was set in late 1800's vienna. the costumes were beautiful and the cast was talented. basically it was about a husband and wife and thier maid who, by different circumstances, end up at a big formal party, and then end up in jail, and it turns out the whole thing was arranged as a joke by a "friend". it was difficult to follow because of the language, but it was funny and beautiful and lively nonetheless. i got home around 11:15. i didn't sleep very well because i'm coughing up a lung i think. time to resort to medicine i think.

Day 74, 75, & 76 - Berlin!

Thursday night i hardly slept at all. I was excited for my trip and anxious that I would sleep through my alarm, so I woke up every 20 minutes and probably got about 2 hours of sleep. I got up at about 4:45 and heaed out the door at 5AM and rode my bike over to the train station. Even at 5AM there are at least 5 or 10 other people I see on bikes riding around to wherever they are going.

So I catch the 5:15 train and its moving pretty slowly for about 10 mins and then all of a sudden we just stop and all the lights go out. Uh oh. I’m not that concerned at the point because I still have plenty of time to get to the airport for my 06:50 flight. So we sit there for a long time and then I really start to get worried. The conductor comes on and says that basically the train won’t shift into the next gear and will only go a max of 30 km/h. I’m not sure what the normal operating speed is but I think its around 80km/h. so we limp into the next train station and they kick is off. its already 0615 by this time, so I’m definitely not making my flight. I catch the next train to schipol and get in around 7am. I pray that my flight is delayed or something but no such luck. I talked to the ticket agent at transavia and he says the next flight to berlin is not until Sunday. SUNDAY! They only fly one flight every other day to berlin. What kind of airline is that?? So I go to KLM, which is the only other airline flying to berlin Friday morning, and one way ticket is 200 euro. Ugh. So I call Thomas and explain the dilemma. I feel really upset and frustrated. I cried for about 20 seconds…. and then I got my shit together, quit feeling sorry for myself, and formulated a plan of action.

I walked down to the train station to see if I can get a high speed to berlin. There is one leaving in about an hour. I talked to the guy at the ticket counter and he says it will be about 105 euro for a one way ticket to berlin. So I tell him that I missed my flight because of the train etc. etc. and I’m able to negotiate a free ticket for the Netherlands portion of the journey. He says there’s nothing he can do about the portion of the train in germany, but it ultimately cuts the price in half so I take it. So for 50 euro I got a train ticket to berlin. The ride is about 6.5 hours, which puts me into berlin at about 3PM. As opposed to 8AM if I had caught my flight, but all in all I’m feeling ok about it. It could be a lot worse. Sometimes you just are unlucky. I think about all the times I showed up at Burbank airport or san jose airport 20 minutes before my flight and made it, or all those connections over the years I made by the skin of my teeth. I was bound to miss a flight at some point. Even if this one wasn’t my fault, it turned out ok, so I can’t let it ruin my weekend!

So I’m relaxing on the train, just looking out the window and watching the countryside speed by. The seats are quite comfortable. I’m sleeping like a baby for most of the ride. Even though its noisy with people in and out. I only slept 2 hours last night remember?? At the NL/gemany border, the train stops for about 15 minutes. Some border police come on board and out of the 20 people in my car they make a beeline for me and some middle eastern guy a few rows up. He’s obvious, but me? They examine my passport and give me the third degree and dump my bag out. They are pretty scary. I offered them a dutch almond filled pastry that I had brought for Thomas but they declined. I didn’t expect them to take it, but I thought it would lighten the mood. Wrong! Finally they move on and leave me alone and the train continues along. As we get closer to berlin, I notice a lot of young military guys are on the train. Probably going home for the weekend. I think 1-year of military service is still mandatory here. These guys looks like kids. Maybe 18 or 19. skinny and pale. Many of them are wearing glasses which only make them look more feeble. I bet they are counting the days until their 1 year is up!

As we get into the city, the first major thing I notice is the partially frozen river. It looks like an icebreaker boat went through it and broke all the ice into cool looking squares. It looks gray and cold out today. The other thing I initially notice is the graffiti covering nearly every empty surface within reach. Some of it is quite artistic and beautiful, but the majority is just unsightly tagging. Kids these days!!

Thomas picks me up. I made it!!! We jump in his vintage passat and head over to the fugro berlin office before people start taking off for the weekend. I forgot how Thomas drives like a maniac. I made sure my seatbelt was really tight and was dismayed to learn there were no passenger side airbags. The office is on the outskirts of the city. When you walk in there is a really wide staircase and the stair hall is sealed from the offices. Its dimly lit. I feel like I’m going into a warehouse. We get up to the 2nd floor I think, and once you open the door there are long wide hallways with big high ceilings. Everything is white and sterile. Some nice paintings line the hallway corridor but the effect is misguided. It feels like a hospital. Hahah! Acutally.. it feels like a mental hospital in here! All the doors are shut. The high ceilings make it echo. The floors are tile or marble or some sort of hard surface such that you can hear your shoes as you walk. We go and meet some people. All office doors are closed and you can’t see through them. Its really cold and unwelcoming in there. I don’t hear any music or laughter or phones ringing or someone on the loudspeaker. The offices are enormous and usually have 2 or 3 people in them. One office would be the equivalent of all the offices from craig p. to Patrick s. (long), and double the width. The ceilings are also very high. Cabinets are built into the walls to maximize the space and each person has the equivalent desk space of 4 or 5 ventura desks. Each office has large windows on one wall. I also notice they all have nice new flatscreen (wide panel) computer monitors. It might be a mental hospital in here but clearly it has its perks to be committed.

So I talked to Falk for awhile (he used to work for FWI too), and helped him fill out some pile driving equipment forms. He’s never been on a pile driving site so I was trying to explain to him about the stroke height and the cushion and the hammer energy. I told him finally just download a video on youtube and it will make sense to you. I met KP who was from the fugro Houston office just in town for the week. He’s been working with Thomas and another guy here from fugro berlin, Roberto, on a refinery project in Russia. We all go out to this cool Turkish restaurant for dinner. Very yummy. Roberto likes to whistle. As we walk down the street he whistles all the time. Short punctuated 3-notes. Low pitch, high pitch, low pitch. I ask him why he’s whistling all the time. He says because “I want everyone to know that I’m happy and that I’m here”. I loved that answer.

After the Turkish restaurant we did a little bar hopping. First place was a lounge kind of place with fruity drinks and hip red décor. The boys were a little out of their element I could tell. We only stayed for one drink. After that we headed to a few more bars and ended up at a place kind of near thomas’s house. It was back to beer. Smoking is still allowed in some portions of the bars, or all portions, or not at all. I can’t figure out what the rules are exactly. After the last place I decided to head home and the boys stayed out much later at the request of falk. I remember thinking.. do i want to go home? No. Should i go home? Yah probably. I feel like i have that same conversation with myself on a lot of different subjects. Sure sometimes I do a lot of things I shouldn’t, but at least I know I shouldn’t be doing them. Sometimes the consequences are worth it I think. What’s the fun in always following the rules?

Saturday… we got up and headed out at about 10AM. Got some metro/train/subway passes and a quick breakfast of coffee (for Thomas and KP) and a croissant thing for me. We headed over to the Messe Berlin, which is about 20 minutes by metro and train.

I watch out the window as we ride. I can see the city up close. The graffiti stands out again to me. The Messe Berlin is an enourmous exhibition hall and this week they are showcasing GreenWeek in berlin. Vladimir Putin (Russian PM) was here in this very building yesterday! The greenweek is a food and cultural tour of countries all over the world. Its truly an all day thing but we went through it in about 4 hours. There is so much food from each country all different types and many countries are also serving traditional foods and beers and wearing traditional clothing and showcasing traditional dances or games or music. Its actually a really really cool event. Unfortunately, we peaked too early… eating lunch in Ukraine before we got to the areas of india and asia and france etc. the food was ok but we didn’t do it right. We should have eaten small things here and there instead of eating a sit down lunch. Oh well!!! Next time we will know :) I also had a Belgian waffle, some beer from south Africa, and I actually had some kangaroo meat from Australia!!! The kangaroo tasted just like steak but was a little more chewy and a little sweeter. And there you have it. There were over 30 countries represented, but surprisingly the USA was not one of them! we got some cool green week bags that say berlin on them. check out the picture below!!!

After greenweek, we headed back to the apartment because falk had forgotten his cell phone and bag in thomas’s car. Falk was staying at some no-tell motel that didn’t have a phone or a receptionist so the whole thing was quite a quagmire. We got that situation sorted out, and then headed back downtown to a museum called The Story of Berlin. It has several levels and tells a chronological history of berlin. From its beginnings and wars and religion and more wars and its division and then the wall falling. It was a good crash course and it was vital to my appreciation for the city to know some basic history. Thomas and KP enjoyed it as well. Afterwards, we met up with falk and Roberto and roberto’s girlfriend jasmine. We went to this cute Spanish restaurant named Don Quijote and I had some really good vegetable paella. Although it was a long dinner, probably 2.5 or 3 hours, I was used to it so not a big deal for me. KP was quite tired and wanted to head home. Falk wanted to go out to the bars. It was about 11PM and I was having a desire to watch the pineapple express. Why? Who freaking knows.

Oh lets go back to thomas’s apartment. I forgot to write about it earlier. It’s the most perfect European apartment. Everything i thought a european apartment should/would look like. it looks straight out of an Ikea showroom. Its artsy. Things are so neat and clean. It matches. There are curtains. The furniture is navy blue and the cabinets and shelves are a light wood. The carpets are blue. There are framed photographs hanging expertly on the walls. Pictures from around the city. Nearly all he’s taken himself and enlarged and framed. There is one especially beautiful one of some geese flying overhead in formation. The colors are sepia toned. The apartment is small, only about 450 square feet i think, but its expertly and efficiently arranged so it feels quite large. Perfect for one person! The apartment is located right across from a big park where theres lots of people running and biking. The tram is right across the street as well, and on the corner is a cool Italian restaurant. Perfect location it seems, and parking is easy as well! I can see why Thomas kept this apartment this whole time while he was in the US. I wouldn’t have given it up either!

Sunday! I can’t believe i only have one day left here. Must make the most of it! I woke up and my eyes were really swollen. I think I’m allergic to something. But by afternoon they are feeling fine again. Who knows. We head down to the kreuzberg district and there is 6 of us out for breakfast. Breakfast was phenomenal and I wish they had something like this in ventura. They had this amazing fresh fruit with jams and cheeses on a big plate with a big basket of assorted rolls. I saw other people order that. I got some fruit and yogurt with a special kind of toast. Also amazing! And cheap… only about 7 euro for everything including my hot chocolate. I would definitely go back. After breakfast we went to the northwest area of berlin to do an underground tour. We had about an hour to kill and tried to climb up a big outcrop where a flak tower still stood. It was really icy and although I was having no problems clomping around in my boots, Thomas and KP were sliding around all over the place. So we couldn’t go all the way up but it was cool to see the tower up close. I imagined them shooting down planes from up there. Its hidden nicely by a bunch of trees so its in a really good spot actually.

The underground tour was fantastic. So glad we went. The tour guide was amazing and a plethora of knowledge. She was greek/german/Mexican and had a funny accent and a funny personality. She explained in great detail about how the bunker was constructed and why and how and the timeline and everything all really came together and made sense. We toured an underground bunker originally built to alleviate soil weight above the subway, then used for goods storage after WW2, but then converted into a nuclear bomb shelter during the cold war. We now know it wouldn’t have done anything if a nuke was actually dropped in berlin. The shelter was too shallow and the roof was only 1m thick. But, it was big enough for about 2,000 people to survive for two weeks. Inside, the walls were painted with a special fluorescing paint that glowed in the dark so you wouldn’t have to use electricity all the time. There were rows and rows of cots and storage areas, a medical room, a kitchen, showers and bathrooms. There was a generator that provided air circulation that could be operated manually if electricity was cut off from above. The shelter was never used. The shelter was also connected to one of the subway stations, that was equipped with huge doors that could seal the station in the event of an emergency. I thought that was a clever use of an existing underground facility. The same was done in London. The tour also talked about all the underground tunnelling when the wall was built, and how the subway stations were closed on certain lines that ran through east berlin, and how people used to try to escape to west berlin through the sewer systems. Overall it was a fantastic tour. I would recommend it to anyone!!

After the underground tour, we headed more towards the center of the city. We hit up some souvenir shops for KP and I got some postcards. I really haven’t been buying any souvenirs here. Just postcards to send people. I’ve been working on my scrapbook that’s really the only souvenir I need. We left KP to do some shopping and me and Thomas went to the Brandenburger Tor, which is a big gate or entranceway into the city. Flanking the gate is the newly constructed US Embassy, as well as the French, British, and Russian embassies. The gate looks like the one in Brussels at the entrance to the military museum. Very similar actually. We stopped to get some hot chocolate and a pastry and there’s a guy in there in a military uniform. Thomas says he’s just an actor paid to stand outside the gate so people can take photos with him. Similar to the guards at Buckingham palace I assume. After the gate, we walked over to the Reichstag, which is the german parliament. It starts to rain. Lightly. I’m used to it. You can see all the blue seats in the parliament. So this is where the magic happens. You can go right into the building and tour around, even when parliament is in session. I can’t remember if that’s possible in the US but dont I think so. I wonder if Germany is trying to make their parliament very open so relieve any suspicion from other countries or from their own citizens.

After Reichstag, we went over to Potsdamer Platz, where the sony building is. Its very modern over here. Looks like its all been built in the past 10 years. big tall buildings with glass facades. The sony building includes a cable suspended white umbrella thing. Quite a piece of art made possible through expert engineering. It happens that they are setting up for the berlin premier of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. There’s a red carpet rolled out and cameras set up everywhere. Unfortunately, the premier is not until tomorrow (Monday). Darn!!! I missed B. Pitt and Angie by only one day!!! There’s a big shopping center in P. Platz as well. It seems really touristy around here. A lot of the postcards depict this area of berlin, but its not really representative of the rest of the city.

We moved onto the Berliner Dom, which is a beautiful catholic church. Its in fantastic condition, and in a round shape, which big columns and towering vaulted ceilings. Its very peaceful inside. There are big heavy doors to open. The alter is lit up with many candles. I light one candle in a little side room. The church feels awe inspiring, but welcoming still. Note dame in paris was amazing but it was a bit ominous inside. I didn’t feel that way here. I’m glad this structure survived the war. Lastly, we went over to the Fernsehturm (TV Tower) and Rote Rathous (city hall). The TV tower was constructed in the 70’s (I think?) and is the tallest structure in berlin. I didn’t go all the way up because it was already dark out, it was raining, and it cost 10 euro. Boo. But, I did go into the base and saw all the photos of the tower during construction. They even sell a perfume shaped like the tv tower that claims ‘you can smell like berlin’. Well I give myself a little spritz. Smells ok actually! We met back up with KP and then it was nearly time to go to the airport. I’m not ready to leave!!

My overall thoughts of the city were 1) Its much larger than I expected. It had about 3.5 million people, but the actual area of the city is probably equivalent to manhatten plus all the boroughs. So even though there are lots of people living there, it doesn’t really seem like its crowded. 2) the drab russion architecture is a bit disappointing. It seems to me that after ww2, the city was hastily rebuilding the city and architecture took a backseat to necessity. The buildings look very similar, small windows, about 5 or 6 stories high. Buildings constructed after the wall fell seem to have much more emphasis placed on design and aesthetic. 3) the public transportation system is quite extensive and easy to navigate. I would think it would be practical to not have a car here. 4) the city has a very dark and militant feel. But it’s beautiful nonetheless. Like a dark beauty. it reminds me of the movie American Beauty. 5) I wonder what it was like to live here for your whole life. to see both world wars, the cold war, the wall come up and the wall come down, and now the emergence in the new millennium. To endure Hitler and then Stalin. Thomas said that it took people 20 years to get a new car in west berlin. 20 years! Parents would order their child a car when the child was born. Unreal! 6) there are a lot of young people it seemed. Kind of a rebellious nature…hence the graffiti I imagine. A form of self expression. I didn’t find the men or women particularly striking, or having any poignant distinguishing feature. Seemed just like regular people. 7) my favorite city that I visited. I must return. In the summer.

Day 72 & 73 - Twister & Tickets

On Wednesday, I was in my office at about noon, and Kristina comes by to see if I want to go to lunch early (we are supposed to take lunch at 1PM). So we look around and realize that EVERYONE is gone from our wing. I forgot that Ferry was giving a presentation today at noon (in dutch, so I told him I wasn’t going to be there) about the WFM (work flow management) system. I hadn’t put it in my calendar, and I was listening to my ipod, and working in my own little world, and finally when I got up and looked around, it was a ghost town! Hahah. So Kristina and I went to an early lunch. The lunchroom is quite empty at this time.. lots of tables available and no waiting in line at the cash register. I like it! Kristina is really nervous because she’s giving a presentation this afternoon at the TU Delft about a project in downtown Rotterdam. She only has a 20-minute time block, and many of her old professors will be there, plus Adriaan and Maarten P. and other getoechs and industry professionals. In other words, she better know what she’s talking about because there will be people there that will know if she’s making something up. Technical presentations can be so nervewracking when you’re presenting to people that know way more than you. anyways, when we got back upstairs from lunch, Kristina said goodbye and said she was going to get Adriaan from Ferry’s presentation downstairs so they could go to her presentation in Delft. I wished her luck. A few minutes later she comes running into my office, completely panicked… ‘he left without me’! she shrieked. You know that high pitched stressed out voice that girls get when they are panicked?? The poor thing was already stressed out about giving her presentation and now her ride left without her. So I grabbed my keys and coat and said.. I’m driving you…let’s go! I told her to breathe and check to make sure she had her CD with the presentation on it. She did both, and we hurried to the car and we got here there only 5 minutes late. Which ended up being fine, because they started 15 minutes late…. So actually she was there early. I saw her later at Suzanne’s house, and she said the presentation went great and that I was her hero for getting her there! Hahah… I don’t know about hero… but maybe I saved her from a nervous breakdown.

So after work i went to my spinning class (the one with the really good music). The instructor is really cool and we chatted after class for a bit. She says she will give me another few CD’s next time. I should note she’s kind of a cheater instructor… one of those that gets off the bike a lot and walks around and plays with the music etc. I think if the instructor can’t actually do the class they shouldn’t be teaching it. But, maybe she has to teach two in a row or something. Either way, I still think she’s cool.

I took a quick shower at the gym then headed over to Suzanne and martijn’s apartment in voorburg which is quite near the fugro office. A bunch of us met for dinner and to have a game night. There was a bit of a poker backlash after maarten took everyone’s money last time I think. Anyways, their apartment is so cute and they have a big long table with plenty of room for everyone. Suzanne made this amazing pasta sauce (from scratch) and two different types of salad. I brought a bottle of wine that RJ had bought when he was here but we never drank… because we couldn’t find a corkscrew. Amazingly, in all of the **things** that are in my apartment, there is no corkscrew. There’s every other type of kitchen appliance…. Every type of blender, mixer, sandwich maker, juicer, electric knife, salad spinner, coffee grinder.. you name it she’s got it. She even has one of those electric foot massager/warmer boots… which is not a kitchen appliance, but I think worth mentioning nonetheless. But no corkscrew! Maybe she doesn’t drink? Anyways, dinner was SO good. After dinner we had some yummy pudding that comes in milk cartons. And some really yummy chocolates and of course everyone had coffee or tea or cappuccino or some other variation of a caffeinated hot beverage resembling coffee. There was 10 of us there… me, martijn, Suzanne, Elisabet, kristina and her boyfriend, Wouter, patricia, Anouk, and maarten P. we talked about a bunch of stuff, but just had a lot of laughs. Suzanne is so funny, just the way she tells stories.. her timing and delivery are perfect. Although it was supposed to be game night, a few of played a few round sof twister, which was good to practice my colors in dutch and rechter and linker hand and foot. God I am so not flexible anymore. I lost both times I played. I held out for a long time against Elisabet but miss pilates had me beat. I should really work on my flexibility. I hardly ever stretch anything besides my bad shoulder. Now that is one flexible shoulder I must say though. So aside from a few games of twister, we mostly just hung out and talked and laughed. It was a really nice night. We left a little before 11PM. I was really tired when I got home. I had a few things on my list that I wanted to do, but I was just too tired. The dishes will have to wait one more day.

Thursday – I visited suzannes office right after lunch to meet her officemate, who according to Suzanne nearly turned purple after I left when she mentioned that I had been playing twister the night before with Elisabet. He is apparently very sad that I will be leaving back to the US in just a few short weeks. In the afternoon, one of the finance guys came into my office. I had gotten a parking ticket back in November, which I knew about (and I told them right away). They already took the parking ticket fine out of my bank account and I thought that was the end of it. So, it turns out, that on that same day, I got a speeding ticket too!! Jesus! Obviously, November 26, 2008 was NOT a good driving day for me. I had been going 12km/h over the speed limit on the highway on my way back from my dutch class at 10PM. There are speed cameras all over the highways. But seriously, 12km/h? that’s like 7 miles per hour over the speed limit! It was 10PM and there was no one else on the road. I think that’s kinda bush. Well what am I going to do about it? So I just paid it. 51 euro.

Also in the afternoon, Adriaan came in to chat. On Monday he’s going to give me a small project that will do start to finish. its designing some pile foundations for a an equipment pad or a small equipment building. So the piles will be subjected to repeated dynamic loading from the equipment. Some sort of manufacturing equipment. We’re going to go over the details on Monday. I’m really looking forward to it. he also said that he talked to Maarten S. from FWI who had called to check in on me. adriaan said he really liked having me here and that i was welcome to come back. we talked for awhile about the economy and where things are going. we decided to expect the unexpected. i told him i hoped that someone from FIBV could come to FWI, if california isnt bankrupt of course. adriaan is so warm and easy to talk to. his positive nature is infectious. i always feel better after talking to him. he's firm though. i wouldn't consider him a pushover. on my last day, its also annemiek's last day before she goes over to FEBV, and joost and maarten's last day as well before they go back to school (they are both interns). so the four of us are planning something for that day (remember... its the other way around here... for example for your birthday you bring in your own cake or whatever to share). maybe a big breakfast or something. i voted for an ice cream sundae bar. the others thought that it would be too cold for that. really?

Today I’ve been going through the CUR and an in-house spreadsheet trying to figure out where all the numbers come from for a vibration analysis that I’m working on. It’s challenging because the CUR is only available in dutch, which is really a pity because it seems like a fantastic reference and I wish I could understand it better.

After work I headed to the store to get a few groceries so that I have food for when I get back from berlin, and also I wanted to buy some more vacuum bags for packing. i couldnt find any of the roll vaccuum bags, so i ordered some online. they should get here next week. I’m going to need a small miracle to get everything back to the US. I need one of those shrinking machines from Honey I Shrunk the Kids. So when I got back home, I did some cleaning (its very nice to come home to a clean house after a trip isn’t it?), and packed my bag, and did a bunch of other stuff I needed to take care of before I left. i have to catch a 05:15 train tomorrow morning so I was hoping to get into bed before midnight but not dice. I talked to Thomas on the phone earlier today and we’re going to stop by the Fugro Berlin office which I’m really looking forward to. We also have a bunch of other cool things planned I can’t wait!!! This will be my last trip outside of the Netherlands before I go back to the US. I feel like I’ve covered a lot of ground… Belgium, France, Spain, and Germany. Not too bad!!

Day 70 & 71 - Boxing and Packing Boxes

Monday – uitsmijter day! Yay! When i came in this morning, i was looking forward to working on some vibration analyses with albert-jan, but some plaxis work with ben was more pressing. There are very specific design standards in NL for vibration calculation and tolerances. The code (CUR 166) even gives example CPT’s from different regions around the Netherlands to compare your site-specific data with! Pair that with an intuitive fugro spreadsheet and its quite easy to estimate vibrations induced from pile driving or blasting or dynamic compaction, etc. much of it is empirical data anyways.

It is worth noting, that over the weekend, I was one of the over 1 million people in the Netherlands that went skating outside! I wasn’t aware, but there were several organized events where you could skate along the canals at varying distances (usually 15km or 30km), then receive a medal at the end! Marten P. and Flip both did this. So did poor Hein and he had the scrapes all over this face to prove it. He took a pretty bad fall. So did Klaas Wester (look him up if you don’t know him all you fugroians), who apparently took a really bad fall and smacked his head on the ice and was in the hospital with what I was told was “brain damage” but I think they really meant a concussion and it was just lost in translation.

Another piece of interesting trivia, flip was telling a story about getting a finger sliced off, and Annemiek said that if you lose a finger you’re supposed to put it in your mouth until you get to the hospital so to keep it at your body temperature. I always thought you should put the digit on ice?? Could you image putting your severed finger in your mouth?? Gross!

So after work I went to my kickboxing class, which was quite full again with new years resolution bandwagoners. I shared a bag with a girl who, by her own description, hadn’t been sporting in 3 years. I believe it. She was wearing big earrings to class. That’s how I can tell newbies or not-very-serious people. Girls that wear their hair down, or have big earrings, or are wearing a lot of makeup to class (or all of the above) are not going to last long. So, since I lost my gloves, I had to borrow a pair that were too small for me. Which was fine, but by halfway through the class my knuckles were dripping blood. The second half we did more kicking than punching, but it was really painful for me to do any punching.

So after class, I go to get my bag out of the locker, and I opened the wrong one by accident… and my gloves were in there!! I must have left them in the locker 3 weeks ago!! I always use the same 2 or 3 lockers when I’m at the gym, so I’m nearly positive these are my gloves. I can’t believe no one has taken them! These dutchies are so darn honest. Elisabet can’t believe my luck either. Yay I have my gloves back now!

When I got home I made this really great pasta, just some linguine with fresh tomatoes, olive oil, and fresh grated parmesan. Simple but really good. Oh and some green beans too! I finally filled out all my postcards from paris and got those ready to be sent out tomorrow. I sent a bunch to my little cousins in buffalo. One was a postcard of a big starfish from the jardin des plantes in paris where the museum of natural history and evolution is. The starfish is bright red on a green underwater background. I spelled in big kindergarten letters: “To Anthony, you are a shiny star!” and for Lil (my god daughter), on her postcard was fish that looked like Nemo I wrote “To Lil, I am in Paris. Can you find Paris on the map? It is 9:00AM here, can you find the time on your watch? Paris is a big city with lots of people”. I sent her a watch for her birthday in November and a book on how to tell time. She just turned 5 but I figure I can start prepping her now to take over the world. Might as well start with telling time. Do 5 yr olds tell time? Who knows. The watch was pink I’m sure that’s all she cared about hahah! After filling out a zillion postcards, I watched some internet highlights of the rock of love tour bus with Brett Michaels (Jeremy… seriously… you’re watching that right??) and made it to bed just after midnight. Could television get any worse? Where the heck do they find these girls?? They must do their casting calls at the either 1) strip clubs, 2) plastic surgeons offices , 3) methodone clinics, 4) Hollywood Boulevard, or 5) all of the above.

Tuesday I wanted to shoot myself to put myself out of my Plaxis misery. The program basically exploded my computer after a mysterious thick black line kept showing up in my outputs. After a few restarts, and one attempt to throw my computer out the window, all was well in Plaxis land again. The file was corrupted so I had to recreate a good portion of it, but it didn’t take that long.

One thing I thought about today on my way to work. To get into the parking garage at fugro, you have to wave your badge in front of a sensor to open the door. The sensor and the door are at the top of a ramp, so if there is a car already up there, its common to wait at the bottom to avoid having to start your car on a steep uphill (in a manual transmission is quite tough… think SF hills). But, I observe nearly every day, as soon as the person waiting at the bottom gets to the top, they stop and wave their badge for the sensor… even though the door is still open from the last person. Why not just drive on through? Its open! I always just drive through. I tested it, and the door won’t close on you. its on a sensor too and won’t close if there is an object in the way. So I thought about this more. I think it’s just a cultural difference. I think if i were to describe dutch people, one of the many descriptions would be “follows the rules”. Simple..they just follow the rules here. Traffic rules are obeyed. If there is a merge, people don’t wait until the last minute then try to sneak in. they just merge. And people let you in no problem. If the crosswalk says don’t walk (or don’t bike)… they don’t. On Sunday when i went skating, the rental fee for my skates was 5 euro plus 20 euro deposit. I only had with me 24.50 euro in cash (so 0,50 euro short), and she WOULD NOT let me rent the skates. Against the rules she said. I said but i’ll get the deposit back in the end (of only 19,50 euro), so i’m not really shortchanging you!! NOPE. Against the rules. So i had to borrow 0,50 euro and come back to get the skates. Following the rules has its advantages of course. Things are nice and orderly. You know what to expect. It’s quite calm and peaceful actually. Just a little annoying sometimes.

Tonight I was reunited with my most favourite spinning instructor. He was looking yummy as always. It’s been nearly 3 weeks since ive seen him! Too long definitely. After spinning I had leftover pasta from yesterday and packed up a few boxes to send back to the US. I’m going to be WAY over my allowable baggage limit… so I’m trying to do something about it now. For one, dany brought over one of my suitcases for me, so already I have one extra bag beyond the allowable two checked bags. PLUS all the things I’ve bought here, Christmas presents people sent me, and other things visitors have brought me. Pretty much, I’m screwed! I checked lufthansa’s baggage policy, and one extra bag is 200 USD. So I’m really trying to avoid that. Ben says that i can ship a few boxes at a cheap rate if they go a super slow route. So it might take a few weeks to get back to CA but its OK. We’re going to price it out this week based on the weight and see which is cheaper.. the shipping or the airline fee. We’ll see!!

Day 68 & 69 - Bellydancers and Skating

Saturday morning i got up and did the rest of my cleaning and laundry etc etc. i also spent a few hours planning my berlin trip. i'm not doing that much planning actually. i have complete faith in thomas that he will show me around the city much better than i could have ever done on my own. i have a few highlights i definitely want to see, but other than that, i trust him. there is a museum, not a museum really, but its "the story of berlin" and it walks you through the history etc. i think i should start there. there's also a really cool tour of the underground bunkers and tunnels from WW2 that i want to see and of course checkpoint charlie. thomas says its about -15 degrees celcius so i'm mentally preparing for the cold.

on saturday nigth i went up to haarlem for a dinner with about 20 people. i picked up a girl named paula who's friends with a guy a know. i hadnt met her before, but she lives about 3 minutes from me in delft. she's actually really really cool and i can't believe i met her just now and not when i first got here! oh well better late than never. she's some sort of aerospace mechanical engineer originally from columbia but spent her teens in connecticut, on a 3 year contract working for some company in delft. she small with wild curly hair. very latin. her face looks like reese withespoon's, but with dark skin and pale blue eyes. she looks quite young i was surprised when she said she was 27. i would have guessed 23 or 24.

so we head up to haarlem to this little turkish restaurant that boasts live music and live bellydancing on saturday nights. i was prepared for the usual dutch 3+ hour dinners, but nothing could have prepared me for tonight. the live music consisted of an electric keyboard with a man playing it and singing at the same time, and he was accompanied by a man playing some sort of guitar. at first, it was nice, pleasant background music. the dinner started at 7PM, and about 8PM, we finally got our drinks and then the bellydancer came out! she was very very good. she was amazing actually. her control and the way she worked the crowd. when she came out, the music got really loud, so you couldt talk to anyone. surprisingly, she danced for about an hour! an hour!! i'm HUNGRY. actually, we're all hungry. i would esimate we got our dinner at about 9:45. there was a table of turkish girls next to us (the retaurant only had about 10 tables). and one of them was SUPER drunk. i mean DRUNK. she was dancing on her chair and then finally she just got up on table. the "dress" she was wearing was looking more and more like one of my good friend Edda's dresses, and by "dress" i mean "long-ish shirt". she was spilling drinks on the poor guitar player and trying to play his guitar hahaha. her friends were trying to feed her water. actually the whole thing was pretty entertaining. she had one go-to dance move. aside from everything else, i wanted to tell her to get some new moves. and a longer shirt.

she was friends somehow with the owner, because he kept coming out and just laughing at her. so were we all. so after the bellydance first came out, the music never went back down to the nice pleasant background music. it was really hard to talk to other people at my table. and beleive me, we had plenty of time to talk becuase the food literally took hours to come out. the bellydancer came back out for round 2 around 10:30, then the owner got up and sang a few songs, then we finally left at about 11:30. a 4.5 hour dinner. all in all, quite entertaining though. just forever long. me and paula got back to delft around 12:15. some guys we gave a ride to the train station (worked for Fluor... knew fugro from some work we did for fluor in the congo...) they wanted to go out to some club but we declined. didnt seem like a good idea.

sunday i got up and another beatiful day in delft. me and rik went skating outside. he got a snazzy new pair of speed skates. i rented some skates that looked like they were skates for ronald mcdonald. after last week's discouraging performance at de uithof, i was little bit reluctant to get back out there, but how often do i get to skate OUTSIDE on REAL ice??? so i strap the big red skates on and get out there, and surprisingly, i'm skating around no problem! which brings me back to de huithof. the speed skates yeah i was having problems with those becuase they were new and different. but the hockey skates?? i think they just had some bad edges. i'm quite sure actually. so we had so much fun skating around on this big pond. i had two pairs of pants on, two pairs of socks, two pairs of gloves, and two coats of course, and i was the perfect temperature! skating outside on real ice is about 1000 times better than skating in circles in the rink. i was doing crossovers and turns and scooting all over the place. perfect skating day!!!

i should note, that i am so lucky to be in holland for this winter. it hasnt been cold enough in over 10 years that the canals and lakes have frozen. usually they will be skate-able for 2 or 3 days, but this year its been consistent for almost 3 weeks! everyone is out skating, just out on the canals and things its really cool. playing hockey and even futbol. speedskates, hockey skates, figure skates, even those little two-plankers that you can strap onto the bottom of your shoes. anything goes!

Day 66 & 67 - Plaxis Plaxis Plaxis

You know, wheni first started talks about coming to the netherlands, the P-bomb was dropped. Plaxis. it was mentioned...you should learn it before you come. but then no one was really sure what i was going to be working on here, so it got pushed on the back burner while i went crazy trying to finish all the CSUCI things before i left. looking back, actually, i think i really was close to a nervous breakdown between all the work things and getting the condo subletted and my car and my cell phone suspended and shonna moving and halloween and the APWA golf tournament and my swim class and tutoring and YMF and and and and........

anyways, back to plaxis. so i tinkered around with it before i left but didn't really get too into it. it wasnt even for sure if i would be using it, and its a very tough program. so now that i've been working with it for a few weeks, i'm really starting to get the hang of it, but dammit if one little thing is wrong or needs to be changed, the whole thing needs to be re-run. running the calculation can take anywhere from 20 mins to over an hour. changing the initial conditions or the geometry not only requires you to re-run the calcs, but also to change all the calculation input steps, which can be easily 20 or more steps for staged construction. ben says the plaxis manufacturers are working on eliminating the need to change all the input steps, but for now, it must be done. for example, my calculation wouldnt run and i just could not figure out why. i kept getting an error message that one of the materials or loads were undefined. but they all were, all were colored (they are assigned colors based on material or load type). it was driving me CRAZY! it turns out there was a line hidden underneath another line that shouldn't have been there. i found it by accident by clicking over each point and each line individually (i was looking for a hidden line). so i run the calculation and it fails after the first step. hahah! you just have to laugh at that. so i keep playing with it, finally it runs all the way through and is stable. success! its a freaking amazing feeling when all the steps have little green check marks next to them. who knew a little green check mark could make a person so happy. poor annemiek thinks i'm crazy. i'm pretty sure she's regretting her relocation decision. i've done more swearing at my computer in the last two days than anything else.

after work on thursday we were supposed to have round 2 of the den haag poker tour, this time moved to voorburg, so it would have been a true VPT! it got moved to next wedensday, and its more of a general game night. i think people had enough of one poker night :) this time it will be at suzanne and martijn's house. so instead i went to the lisenhage and got a bunch of stuff to make my scrapboook. i want to have it done before i get back becuase i know everyone will want to see it right away. i organized all of my things i wanted to put into the book and did the first 2 pages. i'm going to try to do a few pages each night and it should be done by the time i get back.

so friday during lunch i go for a walk with the hydrology group. its really cold, but sunny and its really crisp out. my favorite weather. right next to the Fugro building is a wide canal, and we see a bunch of kids ice skating on it :) it was so cute i had to take a picture!!

Claartje tells me that if its cold enough that the canals freeze, the schools let the kids take longer lunches and then they just keep them longer at the end of the day. seems simple enough! in the US, there would be WW3 if kids were kept an extra half hour. the PTA would go nuts. the bus schedule and after school sports schedule would be all messed up.

so, we are walking back in this wooded area near fugro. its me, claartje, imke, arnoud, and volkert. volkert crosses a narrow canal becuase otherwise we would have had to walk way op and around to the little footbridge. so volkert imke and claartje go across. i'm not feeling too good about this. the ice looks pretty thin and and there's a big crack in it already. i'm saying no, you guys are nuts. so volkert comes back across to get me, and when he's about halfway, there is a big *CRACK* sound and the ice starts to really crack and he scurries back across to the other side. HAHAH we all start laughing and i'm like.. see!!! that's why i didnt want to cross!!! so me and arnoud walked around via the bridge and it was all fine.

friday after work i did my usual grocery shopping and some cleaning. i've been avoiding doing the dishes. the sink is full. so i'm just keeping the kitched door closed right now so i can avoid looking at them. i love cleaning but jesus i hate doing dishes. who knows why. some kind of aversion i can't explain. it could stem back to when i was a kid and my brother pushed me and i fell on the open dishwasher door and broke it and my dad was so pissed. remember that jeremy! punk!!!

by the way i'm really deep into my hot chocolate addiction. its getting really bad. i think i had 4 or 5 cups on friday. maybe even 6! i even thought about buying a bigger mug so i could put two cups in at the same time! its not looking good for me. i weighed myself and i'm 3 pounds heavier than when i came here. not too bad considering we just got past the holidays, but pretty bad considering i've been eating soups and sandwiches for 2 months. i'm thinking there must be about 150 calories per cup of hot chocolate, so thats probably an extra 500 calories per day plus all that extra sugar. yeesh.

Day 64 & 65 - Caught Up!

I'm just trying to get current on my blog, and i'm really tired, so i'm just going to make this a short one :) Annemiek moved into my office to replace Robin. Adriaan thought it was neccessary to have someone in the office with my so I don't get lonely and have someone to ask questions and things. I'm glad annemiek moved in and I really like her. i like her name too. its pronounced "annameek". she's in the rotation program, so beginning in february she will do her final 8 month rotation with fugro jason (same building, one floor up). so, she won't be far. :)

i went to my spinning class on wednesday instead of tuesday. i really like this instructor. i mean, the one on tuesday is still #1 of course, buts its ok if i see other instructor's right?? her music was so great, that after the class i asked if i could borrow her CD and copy it. she said yes, and actually have me two! i'll bring them back for her tomorrow.

Day 62 & 63 - Comings and Goings

Monday was a sad day in Delft. RJ left early in the AM to catch his plane back to CA. And then, today i had to say goodby to Robin, my officemate. i miss him already! he was the best officemate, and one of the funniest, smartest, and coolest people i've ever met. he's going on a 1-month bike tour of ecuador with his girlfriend. they bought this sweet tandem bike with all the latest gadgets and matching gear bags. the bike is white and it is really sharp looking. he won't get back until just after i leave to come back to the US, so we had to say our goodbyes. i hope i will see him again. maybe they will want to test out thier tandem bike in CA :)

when i got to work in the morning, there was a nice welcome back brunch in the atrium. i'm greeted by everyone with a wish for a happy new year, and either handshake or 3 cheek kisses depending on how well they know me. i like that personal connection. instead of just saying 'happy new year' in passing, its an actual physical connection. you stop, look someone in the eye, shake thier hand, and wish them a happy new year. just think about that. did you do that to anyone when you got to work on monday? probably not. i'm not sure why i'm focused on this. there is something about the physical contact of a simple handshake that reinforces and solidifies the words and makes them so much more meaningful. nearly everyone i see wishes me a happy new year in english. even if they are wishing it to a group of people, in all instances they say it specially to me in english. its done effortlessly and not begrudgingly. its not helping my dutch practice, but i appreciate the thought.

i talk to everyone about thier holidays, what they did etc. there also some really good apple flops (sugar coated apple filled pastries) which were amazing. i wanted two. but i only had one :). i caught up on all my email. there was a ton. patrick called me in the morning to discuss my career identity crisis. apparently he's not sleeping hahah. the talk was good and got me pointed in the direction i need to be going. some decisions to make soon, but i feel like pieces are falling into place.

after work i go to my kickboxing classs. its official, ive lost my gloves. so i borrowed some again. class was fantastic as always. a bit full though. i think people are on thier new year's resolutions right now. i checked the mailbox of the girl who's apartment i'm staying at. that thing was so stuffed i dont think one more letter could fit in there! one of her friends is supposed to be checking, but obviously she hasn't hahaha. based on the newspapers, i dont think its been checked in 5 weeks.

so i check out some TV on the internet. MTV's bromance... seriously??? my IQ dropped at least 20 points after watching an episode. the premise is rediculous, the people on the show should all be extiguished to protect the rest of us from accidentally breeding with them, and the hot tub elimination far eclipses even the stupidity of brett michael's "i'm sorry, your tour has ended". will i be watching next week's episode? heck yeah!

Day 59, 60, & 61- Nieuwjaar & Den Haag Fun

2009- wow I can’t believe I only have one more month here! Exactly one more month. New year’s resolutions? I never really make those. I didn’t even think about until just right now as I’m writing this blog. I think I should slow down a little bit. I don’t really want to but I think I should. I should go to the dentist. I should try to reduce my sugar dependency. I should work harder. I should keep in touch with people better. I should let people into my life more. I should make friends outside of my current circle. I should date someone that I know things will never work out with. I just might be surprised. I should get a haircut. I should eat more broccoli. I should start playing scrabble again. I should stop wrinkling my forehead when I type.

I got up pretty late, almost noon! You’re supposed to sleep in on vacation right?? I spent the afternoon in the coffee shop catching up on my blog (your welcome!). they have big comfy couches and lots of hot chocolate with whipped cream. Real whipped cream too. Yummmmm.


Friday morning i got up super early, headed up to Schipol to pick up the enigma that is RJ. i got there right on time and i see him through the glass as he's waiting for his bags at the carousel. he comes over and holds his hand up to the glass like they do in prison movies. how dramatic. he finally comes out and there is a problem with one of his bags so we hang out at the airport for another hour drinking juice and having a muffin. its not looking good. they will deliver the bag sometime tonight. bummer. at least they know where the bag is!


we got back to delft, hit up the grocery store, and agree.... its nap time. he's been up since 4am and i've been up since 6:45, which is really killing me right now hahah. 0645!! i must be on vacation!! so after a fantastic nap we head over to Madurodam, the second coolest place on earth after De uithof. the light show is cancelled due to frost, but we still have some good daylight left so its ok. its not too crowded. Madurodam is a place in Den Haag, about 15 minutes from my apartment, that is a minature replica of all the major cities and attractions in Holland. its brilliant. all the major judicial and government buidlings, the royal palace, canals, bridge replicas, metro and trains including the TGV, canals, schipol complete with airplanes, famous buildings, even the new church in delft. speaking of delft, the entire exhibit (except the church) was under construction and none of the buildings were there. what are the odds!! the storm surge barrier was there, the list is endless. the attention to detail is phenomenal. RJ says its kind of like lego land. i've never been to legoland but i'll take his word for it. theres about 175 miniature exhibits, all perfectly to scale. god i love this place. i think the most clever thing i saw there was a replica of a building designed by a famous architect and built entirely out of 'futuristic sustainable building materials'. parked out front of the house was a delorian. (from back to the future). how brilliant is that?? i loved that little detail. i think i'd like to go back when 1)it was a bit warmer, and 2) i had a bit more daylight. here's a pic of me in a big shoe at madurodam.



on the way home we stopped at a coffee shop in delft for RJ, then i cooked this really good chicken and fococcia bread and green beans. yummy dinner. we talked alot about jannice and what he's thinking etc. he seems so conflicted. i tell him i he's going to drive himself crazy. we went to the coffee company where the have big leather couches and excellent hot chocolate. we stopped at the bookstore on the way. RJ picked up some book about sweden and i got the Vanity Fair magazine. there was an insightful article about the events leading up to the current economic crisis. the article smartly summarized alan greenspan's "guidance" of the country's financial situation, the quiet repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, corporate accounting scandals and Sarbanes-Oxley, irresponsible lending practices, greed, and the complete mismanagement of the bailout funds. this is the dark side of capitalism. the entire situation infuriates me. i should start a whole new blog on that. the magazine also had a great article about a mid-air plane crash over Brazil in 2006. the article included significant portions of the pilots' conversations transcribed from the on-board recorder. the pilots are disgraceful. while the article strives to remain objective (the case is currently in litigation), it comes across thatthese two pilots were careless, reckless, thinking that they can do and fly wherever they want in thier brand new shiny airplane because they are americans and are annoyed with the brazilian air traffic controllers and thier heavy portugese accents. thier little private liesure jet with all its bells and whistles loses a wing tip during the collision but they are able to safely land nearby. and the 737 they hit, carrying 154 people, crashes in the middle of the forest. no survivors. all innocent lives lost becuase these two can't fly thier new airplane and bottom line they just didn't care. the recording show most of the fligth as occupied by idle banter, lengthy trips to the cabin to socialize with passengers, plenty of swearing, an overall it showed how unprofessional they were. so, go get the january vanity fair. read it.



saturday we went to the #1 coolest place on earth... de uithof!!! we rented speed skates, which was actually really really hard for me. i didnt think it would be so hard. you have to keep them really really straight and balance your weight just perfectly. the ice rink is huge so even though there's lots of people and families, there's still plenty of room. there's three lanes on the ice. the inside lane is for the really fast people wearing head-to-toe spandex and clap-skates who probably have subscriptions to speed skating magazine and dream about apollo. the middle lane is for still fast people, but maybe they aren't all decked out and no clap skates. the outside lane is for everyone else. there's a hockey/figure skating rink inside of the big loop for the speed skating, but other skaters are still allowed in the outside loop. i'm doing pretty bad. the first few laps were really a struggle for me to stay upright. after an hour or so i was scooting right along, but still i didnt attempt any crossovers with these planks on my feet. at 13.00 we went to the other part of the complex to do some go-karting!!! you put on a full coverall with a big racing helmet and off you go. i thought for sure i was going to lap RJ. my go-karting skills are quite good for a girl i think. the karts are really really fast too. ones where you actually have to use the break. frequently. or you would defintely wreck yourself. its hard to tell who won. i tried to slow down to wait for him to catch up so we could race, and he was doing the same, so we couldnt sync up. it was fun nonetheless. i still think i won though.


after go-karting we both traded our skates for hockey skates and went back out for more. even on the hockey skates i wasnt nearly and steady as i thought i would be. i'm pretty disappointed in myself actually. rj is just zipping all over that place. i'm jealous. part of it was the crappy rental skates that needed to have the edges re-done. the other part was just me. oh well!! it was fun anyways!! oh yeah... on the way out there are several sports apparel and gear shops inside de uithof. so i was poking around one and i fell in love with this bright blue burton zip-up jacket. its made of this really unique material, and has little convertible sleeves that are gloves too. i wore it for 2 days straight. i love it!! its my new favorite thing to wear.



we went back to delft, relaxed for a little, then went out for dinner and some drinks. we stopped by the infamous donner place. RJ is super paranoid and things the owner is being threatening towards him or something. i tell him he's crazy. i think he really is crazy. and paranoid. about alot of things. i tell him its all in his head. after the donner we went to the "v" bar a few blocks away. had a couple beers. cheap too. about 5 or 6 beers for 14 euro. not bad! its a cold walk home at night. i wish i had another bike for him. it sucks walking everywhere. its cool, my new blue zip-up jacket is keeping me nice and warm :)

Day 56, 57 & 58 - Amsterdam, a 6K, and Fireworks

When I got up in the morning, I went and got some breakfast, had another amazing, hot, long shower, and got on the road around noon. The drive back was really easy. My GPS worked like a charm. What a lifesaver that little contraption has been.

When I got back from paris, I dropped of my stuff and headed to the gym for my kickboxing class at 6PM. Which I was really looking forward to!! I can’t find my gloves and I’m fairly certain that I left them behind by accident after the last class. Bummer. I’ll keep looking for them but its not looking good. I borrowed some gloves which was really gross but oh well. I guess compared to riding around on the subways in paris for the past week it couldn’t be any worse. The class was fantastic as always.

After class, I went back home, made a quick dinner which consisted of heating up a frozen pre-prepared meal of potatoes chicken and broccoli, and then I took a shower and headed over to nel’s house to meet debby and matthew. Wow it is SO cold outside!! I actually see people skating on the little canals on the bikeride over. At 9PM at night. It must be about -5 or -10 degrees celcius.

So I get to nel’s house, give debby a big hug, and tell everyone a little about my paris trip etc. They start talking about going to Amsterdam tomorrow and whether they will stay overnight etc. etc. Mathew wants to take the train back. Debby wants to stay overnight. Nel says take the train back. Oh my gosh the tension. I can’t wait to get back home. Drama free zone. I tell them to talk amongst themselves and I will call them tomorrow morning after they’ve decided what they will do.

I called the next morning, and I guess they found a room that was in the guidebook for a reasonable price, so we will be staying overnight. I went and picked up debby and matthew, and we went up to Amsterdam for the day. We did the park n ride at the Olympic stadium which was a good idea in theory but the lot was full so we unfortunately had to wait for one car to come out for one car to go in. so about 30 mins later, we finally got into the lot, took the metro into the city, found our hotel, dropped off the bags, an off we went!!

Let me preface with this… its REALLY cold. It hasn’t been this cold consistently in NL for several years. I have my usual two jackets, hat and gloves. Poor debby has on about 6 layers plus her coat! There’s a ton of people out and about though, despite the cold. We got some coffee and a snack then headed over to the canal boat tours, which was #1 on matthew’s list. The boat tour was pretty cool. The boat was really low on the water with big windows so you could see everything really well. I sat with a nice dutch family, a mom dad and their son. The father was also in the civil engineering industry and has worked previously with Fugro. right in front of us were these two kids, maybe 12 years old, full on making out. I mean MAKING OUT. At first, I thought they were just killing time until the tour started. But no, the didn’t come up for air the ENTIRE 1-hour tour. It was amazing! We just had to laugh… what else can you do?? I thought... where are these kids parents? I can’t believe they paid 24 euro to make out for an hour on a boat! So when the tour ends, and we disembark, I see the two spit swapping culprits meet up with none other than the nice dutch family that I was sitting with!!! The two kids had been making out for an hour about 3 feet away from their parents. And the parents didn’t say anything!! So weird!!! Another weirdness, sitting across from debby was a little girl who was probably about 7 or 8 years old with her father. The girl had a pink pacifier permanently plugging her mouth (how do you like that alliteration??). apparently she was kicking debby the entire cruise. She looked like a little pro wrestler. She was probably 20 pounds overweight, which is a lot when you’re only 7. you’d think the pacifier would get in the way of excessive food consumption. so all in all, the canal boat cruise was a good way to see the city and a freakshow at the same time.

After the boat tour we did the obligatory sex museum, and got dinner at a cool little restaurant. We walked around for awhile, went through the red light district, then went back to the room around 8PM to take showers and get ready to go out. I played heads up poker with matthew while debby was getting ready. We were playing with dutch cards and I got confused which one was the Ace card and he ended up making a huge dent in my money. Oh well. We were only playing for 2 or 3 euro.

So we head out and the words of debby “Hutchins, you’re looking good”. Yeah, she’s right. We hop on the metro and head down to leidseplein to a bar I had been with dany when she was here. Figured it was a good spot to start the night. To make a long story short, it was a crappy night which concluded with matthew yelling at me at 2Am on the street while he stomped his feet and clapped his hands agressively at me. i was just so stunned. i was very upset after enduring my verbal lashing, so i parted ways with them the next morning. i was really sorry to see debby go, but i think it was for the best. i can't take thier drama!! Time to get back to having fun!

On Wednesday I headed back down to Delft and got ready for my race near Utrecht. It’s the Sylvester Cross run and it’s a really cool annual New Year’s Eve race. Its either a 3K, 6K, or 9K run (one loop is 3K). it starts and ends on the sand dunes, which is really tough to run on!! But in between is a rolling course through the woods. Beautiful course. Really nice run. I planned on doing the 9K, and if it had been one big loop, I’m sure I would have. But when I came around the second loop after the 6K, I decided to end it. it was just so cold. I got a cramp underneath my right ribcage around the 4th kilometer, but it was gone in about 10 minutes or so. I finished in almost exactly 36 minutes for 6 kilometers, which is on pace for 10km per hour. I’m pretty happy with that. I wish I had stuck it out for the 9k. oh well!! When I finished, they gave me an orange sports drink, and I took a big swig of it and it was so cold I got an ‘ice cream headache’, aka my sinuses froze. It was so cold outside even the sports drink was almost frozen. In the little goody bag they put in a really cool ceramic coaster or maybe it’s a little trivet for the stove I’m not sure. either way I really like it!

I got back to Delft around 6PM, took a shower, went out to find something to eat, which was REALLY hard. Everything was closed!! Grocery stores, restaurants, even fast food places like mcdonalds are closed. I finally just head back home and cooked some food I had there. Should’ve just done that in the first place I guess!! Around 9PM I went over to my friends house to light fireworks. I brought the bottle of champagne that Fugro had given me in the Christmas present box I got 2 weeks ago. I’ve been saving it!! sipping champagne and lighting fireworks was the perfect way to spend new years eve. Here, people stay at home until AFTER midnight, then go out to the bars. During the day, I’ve heard fireworks going off sporadically during the day. Between about 11PM and 1AM, its constant, as if every person in delft is lighting off fireworks continuously. Its amazing! Fireworks as far as you can see. Most of them are generic roman candle type or spinners etc. this is definitely one of the coolest new years eves that I’ve ever had. Everyone else went downtown around 1PM, but I went home. I was just tired! I guess I could have rallied, but it was so freaking cold outside I just couldn’t do it. the bike ride home was bad enough :)