BID no. 36 - Visit every continent

d) Europe

- check!

One of the benefits of my job, is that I sometimes get to travel. This autumn we went to beautiful Stavanger in Norway for a factory visit, and last week I had a training session in webpublishing in Nieuw-Vennep, just outside Amsterdam in The Netherlands.

This was the second time I visited The Netherlands, and as I remembered from the first time the relaxed way of life make your day a bit more enjoyable. We visited Amsterdam the first evening for a dinner at a restaurant not worth remembering the name of, but I learned a sentence in dutch thank's to the busdriver: "u bent laat" (you are late). And also the sentence "dank u wel" as in "thank you very much", was used frequently, even though the dutch people are not very polite (as the say themselves).

We stayed in a small town called Nieuw-Vennep close to the factory of our company. During the stay we made quick tours in both the construction factory and the electronic building which is quite interesting if you are into agro-machines :).

I noticed that almost every street was made of paving stone, not asphalt as in Sweden. It had something to do with a riot many years ago where the mob were throwing stones, and because of this the government fixed the paving stones in the street so that demonstrants in the future could not pick up the stones and throw them...oh well...

A street crossing in Nieuw-Vennep. Lots of stones... :)

In addition the the tulips that you see everywhere, the Netherlands are also known for its diamond factories. We passed a few when in Amsterdam, but with a quite small budget on hand, I thought it was wise not to enter. Hopefully next time :).