Our long weekend was nearly over and M. and I were sitting on the back patio sharing a beer at dusk and enjoying the precious remaining moments. A black bird with a yellow beak perched in the bushes near us and was running through all the calls he knew and we were answering back. He kept looking at us and cocking his head from one side to the other, kind of like when I try to speak German to people.
I thought I heard my cell phone ringing and as I went to answer it our friend flew off into the night. It was my boss. She was calling to tell me that our out of control client, Mr. Slippery Snake, wasn't trusted to go take care of some remote work on his own for the next two weeks and guess who had the honors of going to keep him under control. Drum roll....
ME!
So, I got up at 5 this morning and flew to Basel to work all day and then at 7 tonight to Amsterdam. From there we drove an hour and a half and here I sit in a fine hotel in Heerenveen, NL. After tomorrow we head south to Maastricht and then back to Basel on Thurs night.
My impressions of Holland? Well, it's flat. Very flat. And it's watery. All the trees and bushes look unfamiliar and kind of surreal, especially where they have been planted in orderly little forests. Windmills are kind of trippy. For some reason I kept thinking they were going to all pick up and start marching across the landscape. Everywhere we looked they were peeking over tree tops, spinning and spinning. The sun went down around ten and there was still twilight until after 11.
The language looks very cute on paper with all those vowels but it sometimes sounds like Donald Duck is speaking. Mr. Slippery Snake gave me lessons in pronunciation on the way but I think I had better stick to German for now. I spent all weekend trying to say cherry, church and cows (kirsche, kirche, kuehe). Throwing in Dutch right now won't help the cause.
Anyhow, more to report soon... I'm exhausted and need to crash before spending the day tomorrow trying to rein in Mr. SS.
Night all!
Posted from Heerenveen, NL
2 comments:
Yup, it's a flat country. Heerenveen, of all places.... hope you enjoy it, but I can't off the top of my head think of what you'd enjoy there. The big attraction is the speed skating rink but that's a bit out of season.
hey there is one not so flat area... I like it though, at least for a change of pace. Lots of traveling!
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