Eigenaardigheden

[Quirks]

This was one of the first phrases I learned from one of my co-workers in our Amsterdam office. At first I thought he was asking me about ‘corks’ but turns out he was trying to compose an email using the work ‘quirks’! I could not even begin to try to describe how you might pronounce this word – I am still working on my ‘good morning/afternoon’ pronunciation!

My office is very close to the metro so it is a short walk. I will be getting a bike when I return from vacation so that will be a whole other adventure! The office building itself is not that exciting, however when you walk up the first thing you notice is a model spaceship floating outside the building. We are renting our office space from a company called Spaces. This is their side business…their primary target is people who have lots of money. They offer rides into space in one of these spaceships that you see outside the building. I have not yet been offered a free ride to space but I am working on it!

While I have been here I have been surviving on wifi. I feel like a bit of an internet junkie because every place I go in to eat or drink I ask if they have wifi. :) It definitely makes for an interesting day when I can’t find any wifi at all. Last week there was a power outage at the office. Apparently a rare phenomenon that impacted a large section of Zuid (South) Amsterdam. I walked to the train station to head home hoping I would have internet there so I could continue work when I discovered that the metro was impacted by the power outage. I had only gone to the office a couple of times and realized that I only knew one way to get to and from work and without internet I was completely lost!

My boss kindly invited me to his house so I could get my bearings and figure out how the heck to get home! He lives a little south of one of the main tourist areas called Museumplein. As it sounds, many of the high profile museums are here and it is crawling with tourists. I ended up getting a little confused about the route I was taking home and ended up on my own little excursion. :)

Lessons learned: