OCEANS AWAY

There and back again

Filed under Travel

Hey, remember that business trip I went on that wasn’t really much of a business trip at all? I mean, technically, we went to visit partners of the organization I intern for. But since we’re in the tourism business, “partners” actually means nice hotels and restaurants, walks on the beach and bike tours, museums and exclusive looks at major theme parks or events. You know, ALL IN THE NAME OF RESEARCH. You can’t sell a product on the German market, if you haven’t seen it in person. “I’m really gonna need to walk along that beautiful beach myself before I can convince tourists to come there.” Etc.

So we went to three small cities in the Netherlands – IJmuiden, Enkhuizen, and Venlo. I know you probably haven’t heard of any of those, and I hadn’t been to any of them either. The first day, Friday, we had to work until noon and then left for the trip straight from the office – packed into a rented VW van and the company car (a charmingly wrecked Peugeot). The drive itself was great fun, and the only true Dutch working at the company had made sandwiches and packed sweets and fruit, AND IT WAS LIKE A CLASS TRIP IN JUNIOR HIGH. When we got there (beach town close to Amsterdam), we checked into our hotel (ocean view room, ZOMG) and went for a bike tour and a guided walk through the dunes and along the shoreline. Later, we met with a colleague from the organization’s main office in Amsterdam who invited us for drinks at a beach club. This is called “borrelen” in Dutch; essentially, it means after-work drinks + some typical Dutch snacks. So we all ordered Heinekens and watched the sun set over the ocean – it was pretty glorious. After, we walked back along the beach to another restaurant right on the beach to have dinner. I love the casual atmosphere at those very Dutch beach shacks; you don’t have to pay too much attention to stressful things like how you’re dressed or whether you’re holding knife and fork correctly and the food is always good. Heh. Everyone, predictably, had fish. We stayed and talked for about three hours, and walked back to the hotel in the darkest night I have seen in a while. The ocean is BLACKER THAN BLACK at night, you guys, holy hell.

When I got back to my hotel room, that ridiculously luxurious room I neither could nor would have paid for myself, I went to stand on the small balcony and look out onto the black sea and smiled like an idiot. My cheeks hurt from laughing all day already. — I mean, how the hell did I deserve all this? I’ve been at the company for three weeks, I’m a damn intern, and yet it’s all for free and it’s awesome. Three months ago, I didn’t know whether I’d have to move back in with my parents and there I was. You know what else? Not that I’ve stayed at fancy hotels much in my life but I find that there’s something about them that makes you have to take a bath or at least a looong shower, as often as you can manage. It’s A Thing.

The next morning, we got up relatively early (for a Saturday). I met with the other intern for breakfast which – at this point, not surprisingly – was AMAZING. They had everything and everything was good. My mind and hers: blown. We kept giggling because we were speechless. (We were also speechless when we found that five of our co-workers had gone running at the beach from 6 to 7am that morning. Damn over-achievers.)

We then all piled back into the car and drove to our second destination: a gigantic open air museum right on the Netherland’s other coast. It focuses on the history of the Netherlands as a country that has always been threatened by the water, and its continuous efforts to create land artificially with massive dikes (Shut. up.) and other engineering marvels. The museum has its own marina and you arrive by boat. It doesn’t sound too exciting but it was actually super interesting. – Oh, also we had amazing weather both days which HELPED. Like, the past months have sucked and then Friday and Saturday were all blue skies, sunshine and just the right temperature. – Sadly, we didn’t have much time at the museum but I definitely want to go back there. Our last stop was the Floriade 2012 in Venlo. It’s the World Horticultural Exhibition, it takes place only every ten years and can be compared to the World Fair. What was great about this is that it’s not open for visitor’s until April 2012 but we got an exclusive look at everything. It’s 163 acres of spectacular nature. Definitely recommended.

Driving back into Cologne put a slight damper on things because traffic was horrible (one of the major autobahns in the region was closed due to construction which- traffic here is awful when things flow along nicely so this wasn’t good news). We ended up arriving two hours later than planned but I was just excited to drive into the bustling madness that is Cologne on a Saturday night and come to grips with the fact that this is home right now.

Anyway. Enough chitchat. Here are some pictures:

Sadly, I can’t show you any of the fun pictures with my colleagues because posting them online would just be asking for all kinds of trouble. They’re such a cool, fun group of people, though – not only at the office, as it turns out, but also on 4-hour car rides and after a few beers.

Such a great experience!