Report #2 from Europe

Hi everyone,

I am still in Rotterdam doing Change Management workshops for the Supply Chain group. Instead of taking the taxi (cost is $45 for about a 20 minute ride to the office) I like to be adventurous and take the public transportation. I also went to Middelburg yesterday, which I will explain below. I am in Capelle / Rotterdam again tomorrow and then take the really fast train to Cologne.

I haven't had the camera, so I got all the pictures off the Internet.

The metro in Rotterdam. It is right outside my hotel and I ride it 4 or 5 stops to Kralingsezoom. It is still about one mile from the office, but I had looked on the map and it looked like there was a walkway that I could take. I leave early enough to walk a ways. I happened to look at a map and it showed a parking shuttle on the walkway, so I decided to take it. When I arrived, I was met with an unmanned vehicle that loads you and drives about 3 miles, stopping along the way. My stop is the second stop. The vehicle has sensors and takes off when it is full (we packed in about 20 people like sardines...the dutch way). If I ride it alone, I could wave like I am the king. It was really cool!

The Eastman office in Capelle an den Ijsel (Capelle on the Ijsel river). It is very nice.

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Yesterday I went down to Middelburg, a small town in Zeeland and close to the Belgium border, to do a workshop (one of our plants is there). I didn't have time to ride the train, so the HR Manager from Capelle drove me down. She goes down quite a bit. It took us about 1.5 hours because she drove me the scenic route, which was great! It was foggy, but we could still see fairly well. Pictures below are from the Internet.

Zeeland - Sea land in English. As you can "sea," it is surrounded by water almost.

Our route on Google earth. It is very rural and so we drove through many dorps (villages) with the church in the middle. It was like one long Kodak moment. On the way back from Middelburg (see report below for trip to Middelburg), Rita, the HR manager who was driving me, took me to her house in Oostvoorne (by the N15) for dinner with her husband. He works for a plant Eastman used to own. He also loves to cook, so he made a 5 course meal of Indonesian and Indian. It was unbelievable (Rice, Garang, Chicken Marsalla...Indian style, bread sticks, another chicken type curry, peanut sauce, mango sauce, and other things I don't know the name of). I tried everything, at least twice. We then had some homemade apple pie, dutch style (with crumbly cake like strudel instead of pie crust) with whipping cream. It was unbelievable. I had sparkling water to drink which I still do like. They tried to offer me alcohol, tea, and coffee multiple times until I explained I didn't do that for religious reasons. They were amazed when I told them I had never had alcohol. Rita said she didn't drink coffee, and I told her she must be the only one in Europe who doesn't. Her husband then took me the 35 minutes back to my hotel where I relaxed.

By the way, on the trip from Middelburg to Rita's house in Oostvoorne, I made Rita talk dutch to me. I got about 75%-80% of it, and tried to speak with her. I am getting better all the time. However, there are a bunch of Germans in the Capelle office, and I keep getting Dutch and German mixed up.

This is the town of Middelburg, with the Eastman plant circled in red. Notice the moat around the old city. It was very much like a quaint town and beautiful. Look at the middle of the city with the circular road around the city center. Very typical.

A windmill along the way.

The Ouddorp (old village) lighthouse one the beach. These are very popular beaches in the summer.

This is driving over the bridges and dams. After the flood in 1953, when 1850 people were killed, they build dams at each of the openings to the ocean.

These are the tops of the dams, with the actual locks lifted.

A view of the dams / locks from the shore. They can stop completely the ocean from coming in.

There were also a lot of wind farms along the way.

Report #1 from Europe

Hi Kids, Dad here.
I know others read this blog but I wanted to write some special blogs to you so you don't miss me while I am in Europe. Marilyn, I hope this doesn't make you miss it too much. Everything went well getting here in Rotterdam and I have enjoyed seeing some of the things I haven't seen before (see pictures below). It has been very cold, about low 20's with the wind chill, but everyone is still riding their bikes. I bought a two-day pass for the public transportation so I have enjoyed getting around.

I went to church this morning in the Rotterdam Zuid (south) Ward where Mom was a missionary. Some of the members remembered her, including the Zwekhallen girl who Mom taught and was baptized. She is now married and has two kids. She spoke today and I could hardly understand her. However, one of the Senior missionaries, Elder Anderson, taught SS and I could understand him perfectly because he is from Utah (he was on his mission from 63-65 but didn't know Opa).

Saturday:

View from the Delft train station. Look at all the bikes. The guy in the picture took forever to find his bike,and still hadn't found it when I left. The church in the background is the Old Church, and some of our ancestors went there. I love going to Delft (2nd time)

Old Church in Delft. I love the duck in the canal.

I think this is a Fiat. It is really that small.


Stained glass window in Old Church - Delft

Inside the Old Church in Delft. Amazing how tall the ceilings are

New Church in Delft on the town square.

Eliza, these signs are everywhere at the train stations.

Sunday:

SS Rotterdam. Now a retired ship...hotel, museum, and has restaurants. Opa saw this when he was on his mission 40 years ago when it was brand new. It was free to walk around so I figured it was a good Sunday activity.

I get sick of spending a lot of money and eating out ($30 for breakfast here at the hotel), even though the company pays for it, so I went to Albert Heijn grocery today and bought some stuff. I already ate the orange and one chocolate hazelnut bar. I had to shoo a pigeon out of the store. I know it is Sunday, but I had to eat something and this was better than going to a restaurant.

I bought: Muesli, Milk, Apple juice, an orange, Stroopwafel, Liverwurst, Bread, Meat, Cheese, chocolate, and yoghurt. All for about the same price as one breakfast. I also got some Pomme Fritas (french fries) at a stand. The market area was packed with people.

View from my hotel room.

My hotel room.