Week Four: Berlin, Milan, and Cologne

[Shannon]  Hello!  If you have been following our blog then you will know this week will be an exciting one.  I hope you enjoy.

Friday, January 24, 2020

Shannon's First Night in Cologne

On Friday, I left work a little earlier than usual around 4 pm to catch my train.  Before that however, I went home, packed my bags, and grabbed some fries from Frites Unique around the corner from my apartment.  Once I got to Rotterdam Centraal, I saw Duane for a few seconds just before I was left to get up to my platform.  My first train went to Eindhoven Centraal with a 2 minute connection period to my next train on the same platform.  Unfortunately, my train was running late.  I did however, see my second train leave out of the windows of my first train.  I could tell several people on my train were trying to make that connection, and we all disembarked a little disappointed.  I went to the OV information office, and the nice lady at the front desk gave me information for the next connection.  Technically, the next connection to match my ticket was in an hour.  However, the very next train I was supposed to ride ran every half hour.  So, I got a little snack at the station and got on my next train.  This one went to Venlo, the very last stop in the Netherlands before Germany.  My next train was then about 30 minutes later and it went to Dusseldorf, Germany.  Finally, my last train was a 20 minute direct train from Dusseldorf to Köln (Cologne).

Week Three: Brussels, Kinderdijk, and Amsterdam

[Shannon]  Hello!  If you are reading this, I would like to thank you for reading my extremely lengthy post last week.  Warning: this week is probably worse, so buckle up.

Friday, January 17, 2020

On Friday, we spent quite a lot of time back at the Witte de Withstraat.  Our first stroll down Witte de Withstraat for the day was with Chris Johnson and Mark Martecchini '79 for lunch.  We walked from the office building to Hamburg, a very delicious burger restaurant with Dutch beef.

After work, we went to the Meent, which is a side street of Coolsingel, that is a popular shopping area.  We went to visit a small Japanese store, Nishi, that Linda found a couple days prior.  I bought bubble tea.  Then we walked around the Meent to check it out and look for food.  After walking for awhile, we came upon the Markthal.  Here we also looked for food, and then headed back towards the Witte de Withstraat.  At this point, it was around 7 pm, and all of the restaurants were full or required reservations.  Eventually, Linda and Duane decided to go back to the Markthal and eat at an Italian restaurant that we had briefly looked into before.  I was currently fighting off the start of a cold, and wanted an early night before a long day of travelling.  So, I went into a nearby shoarma restaurant before heading home.  Linda and Duane, however, stayed out pretty late.

[Linda]  Duane and I headed back towards Stadsdriehoek to have dinner at Fellini, an Italian restaurant in the Markthal. The food was super tasty. While there, my desk buddy, Julius, met up with us. Once we were all done eating, Duane, Julius, and I returned to Witte de Withstraat to grab drinks. We stopped at Obba's Day & Night for beers and chatted for a while. Julius was meeting up with old friends the next day, I had an early bus in the morning, and it was past Duane's bedtime, so we decided to split a little past midnight.

Week Two: Antwerp and Amsterdam

[Shannon]  Welcome back!  To start off our second week in Rotterdam: we wrapped up our first week at work and then left town...

Friday, January 10, 2020

Our Friday started off the same as our other workdays, but instead of going back to our apartments we went out with some of our coworkers.  Duane had gone into work early and decided to leave a little early to walk around, so Linda and I left work with three of our coworkers.  Julius and Marko are from Linda's office and Christie is near Duane on the third floor.

We walked to De Witte de Withstraat, a pretty busy street that is filled with lots of restaurants (and after looking it up, also the most famous street in Rotterdam).  When looking down the street three things stuck out: all of the people, all of the restaurant awnings and lights, and some string lights that read out some of the roads that intersected the one we were on.

Eventually, we stopped walking around and started looking for a restaurant to eat.  We settled on Proeflokaal Reijngoud, a restaurant/bar.  We sat down and started looking at the menu, while we waited for Duane to meet up with us.  Julius, who is Dutch, translated the menu for Linda and me.  After ordering, we continued to talk to our coworkers about the different cultures in the Netherlands and Croatia, as one of our coworkers was from Croatia.  Apparently, in the Netherlands, it if very common for companies to go out for drinks after work on Fridays, whether it is at the office or a local bar.  However, since Stolt is more of an international-styled company than Dutch, we do not have any specifically organized outings.  Though, the bottom floor of the restaurant we were on, did seem to have many businessmen who had just left work.  We also learned about some specific foods that we should try such as Bitterballen, a type of fried meat bar food.

Week One: Rotterdam

[Shannon]  Welcome to our first blog post for the 2020 Winter Work blog in Rotterdam!

For our first weekend in Rotterdam we decided to explore and get ourselves settled.  However, before that happened, we each had a little time in the air.

Friday, January 3, 2020

[Duane]  I boarded the plane in Oregon.  I sat, slept, ate airplane food.  I landed in Amsterdam.

[Linda]  I flew from Baltimore-Washington International to Amsterdam, with a connection in London Heathrow.  It was a pleasant flight; the family next to me was from Cork and very friendly.  Upon arriving in Rotterdam around 3 pm on Friday, I briefly cleaned the apartment, unpacked, and then went out to explore the city with Duane.  We found a cute "French" boulangerie with a solid selection of breads and pastries; however, much to my disappointment, they did not make galettes des rois for Epiphanie.  Jetlagged, we ate an early dinner at a nearby restaurant, Grand Café-Restaurant Loos, and then called it a night.

Saturday, January 4, 2020

[Shannon]  I was the last to the party.  I arrived at Amsterdam International Airport Schipol (AMS) Saturday morning after a 6 hour flight from Toronto Pearson International Airport (YYZ).  I was off the plane, through customs, had claimed my baggage, and found the shuttle driver that Stolt had sent.  It was about a 45-50 minute drive to Rotterdam and I picked up my apartment keys at a nearby hotel (the Stolt office building was closed on Saturdays) and headed to my apartment.  Of course, I couldn't open the door and had to knock on my neighbor's door for help, luckily my neighbor is Linda.  Once in the apartment, we planned to meet up with Duane and some short unpacking commenced while we waited for his arrival.

Introduction

Welcome to our blog.  My name is Shannon Liu '21 and I will be your main author for this blog.  However, I am not alone.  I will be joined by Linda Waters '20 and Duane Lee '20 for some exciting adventures, and just a few that I will unfortunately not be a part of.

Linda, Duane, and I will be spending the next eight weeks in Rotterdam, South Holland working for Stolt-Nielsen BV.  We will also be spending quite a lot of time traveling so buckle up for some fun adventures.  However, be warned that if you are reading this blog you will be hungry as there will be plenty of food pictures.

Of course, we will not be sharing any trade secrets from our company so our post will be mainly focused on our traveling and local adventures around Europe.

I promise I will try to update you guys weekly.  I will warn you that based on the days that we arrived, the days we will be leaving, and the time of our traveling plans, I am counting a week as Friday-Thursday.  I hope you will keep reading to follow our adventures!