Thursday, May 03, 2012

Netherlands Weekend 2

So finally decided i would write a bit of an update.

Last weekend I had gone to Haarlem on both Saturday and Sunday to hang out with some coworkers.  On Saturday we went and saw Avengers, which i thought was a pretty good movie.  Was glad that it was in English and had Dutch subtitles, although part of me wishes i knew what was said during a scene where some people were talking Russian.  It didn't seem to be all that important of a scene though, so it didn't bother me too much. One interesting thing about the movies is that when you buy movie tickets you actually choose which seats you want.  I kind of like that you get to select where you sit as then if you're going with a group you can make sure you all are able to sit together (and if you get the tickets early enough you can have good seats as well).

my prizes from the "Casino"

Sunday was fun as well.  Met one co-worker to do some shopping to find some orange accessories for Queen's Day.  Ended up getting a wrist band and then some Hawaiian leis.  Then we went to the little fair that was going on and played the coin push game in the "Casino" area.  I won enough tokens to get a couple of prizes....although what i spent to get them verse their actual cost is definitely not the same.  Then again it was a couple hours of entertainment, so it may be equivalent with that factored in.  Dinner was then fun as well.  Had gone to a place where each person gets a card at the beginning and then whatever station you go to, you give them the card and they charge it for whatever you order.  The card does only allow you to get 15 euros of beer/wine though.  The place works out quite well though for going out to eat with a large group as then you don't have to worry about who ordered what as you just take your card to the cashier when you leave.  After dinner we headed out for some drinks to celebrate Queen's Night.

Monday i woke up rather early for a day i had off work so i could make it to Amsterdam to meet another coworker for Queen's Day.  I wanted to leave early so i could avoid the crowds of people heading there for the festivities.  I think i heard there was somewhere between 1.5 to 2 million people in Amsterdam on Sunday.  I don't think i had ever seen so much orange before, haha.  Definitely stayed out longer than i should have, but i figured i would try to celebrate the national holiday like a native, haha.  Made for a long day on tuesday though.

Some other news....

  • i have a prepay phone right now just so i can have a phone to get hold of coworkers and all here if i need to.  i will be getting a phone plan once i get an actual bank account set up (it's been taking forever to get one and is starting to get rather annoying that i don't have one yet)
  • tomorrow there are about a dozen people from my work that will be playing soccer after work.  i'm quite excited about this.  the games are usually put together once a month (and when it's nice weather sometimes people head to a nearby beach to play sand volleyball)
  • was going to head to Brussels this weekend, but those plans have been postponed for now.  Not sure what my weekend plans will be now.


And that's all for now.  Ciao Ciao

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