I had my first state-sponsored Dutch lesson last night. Right after my first day of MBA school. I was pretty tired, but I managed to show up at the right place at the right time. I was directed to my classroom, met my teacher (very nice lady with an unfortunate Read more
I have had two days of MBA classes at the Erasmus Universiteit, the biggest university in Rotterdam. Among the differences between American and European educational systems: they sell cans of Heineken and little bottles of wine in the school cafeteria.
New Year’s Eve – 2004 It’s 2:30pm on the first of January, 2005, and I am just starting to feel awake. Last night Ann and I accompanied Anja and Geert to the fabulous “Sporthal Pollepel†(The Ladle), a gymnasium about three basketball courts wide and deep, where 350 of Duffel’s Read more
The book I read that said that there are, on average, 23 cloudless days in the netherlands in a YEAR was not joking. Winter is pretty grey, cold, and miserable. Yesterday it snowed for the first time, only an inch of slushy stuff that was gone by noon, but still Read more
Ann, as usual, prepared this years Christmas cards. She is always very good about keeping track of everyone’s address and sending them each a hand-written Christmas card. However, since this is a very industrial process involving a long assembly line of card writing, postage stamping, envelope licking and trying to Read more
Merry Christmas to all! Our first Christmas in the Netherlands, our second in Europe (we were in London for Christmas 2000), and only my second Christmas overall away from my family (which, when I say it out loud, makes me feel equal parts mamma’s boy and nostalgic). Neither Ann nor Read more
For those who missed our first post about this topic, here are some more examples that we found at the Kerstmarkt. Now those are some serious boots.
Today was one of the 5 cloudless days in the Netherlands, and Ann and I took a stroll through the Kerstmarkt (Christmas Market) which had been set up on the main shopping street in the middle of town. Every year, for three days they fill up the already congested Read more
I had to go to Rotterdam yesterday to my MBA school to take care of some financial matters. It seems that Sallie Mae, after telling both me AND the school that it would be a cold day in hell before they made out educational checks to a student, sent $30,000 Read more
New back wheel, chain, plus labor involved to put them both on shoddily (so I had to take it back to the shop after riding on it for two seconds): 96 Euros. New lock because now apparently I need to lock BOTH the front and back tires: 12 Euros. New Read more