A lot of stuff...

But so far a bit quiet on the blogging front.
Finishing my first assignment, a Lean Six Sigma training and a couple of very nice weekends...


At ING I finished my assignment at the TANGO program (turning Postbank and ING Bank into ING) and the Cost Containment program (due to the financial mess the world seems to be in). All in all it went very well, I got a good evaluation and found another assignment I am very much looking forward to (more about that sometime soon). In these past 6 months I feel I learned a lot, but at the same time realize that the road is still long...

Last week I spent at the ING Business School for a Greenbelt training (Lean & Six Sigma combined). It was a great week! With 14 trainees we picked a couple of processes and used them to practice our newly acquired skills.

Two weekends ago I also praticipated in a Squash tournament organized by Accenture. At the Frans Otten stadium in Amsterdam about 40 people gathered to play some squash. It had been quite a while since I played last and after 5 games all my energy was gone... the days after my body hurt soooo bad ;-) But the day itself was great and my thanks to Accenture for organizing this fun event.


In the other weekends Shosh and I celebrated my grandma's 75th birthday, spent an evening in Amsterdam, dug out a couple of trees in my sister's backyard and went on a nice cycling trip (after which we rewarded ourselves with a couple of Belgian beers and a piece of vlaai).

And just one and a half week and it's time for the best day of the year: Queens Day!!!
Rodney... you should totally join us and forget about boring Berlin ;-)

De groeten,
Ruudje

Ruud the Builder

Or maybe better: the demolisher...

For the past few weeks I spent at least one day of each weekend to help my dad to strip the bathroom. Not just the furniture but everything had to come out. The reason is simple: my parents are redoing parts of the house. And this is how I looked week after week after a couple of hours of manual labor...
At work everything is going fine. Of course sometimes it is hard dealing with all the negative publicity (which I often do not agree with), but these challenging times also offer many opportunities. I have to decide which assigment I will be doing for the next 5 months and will have the evaluation of my current assignment coming Monday (pretty exciting...)! And the week after Easter I am going to do a Lean Six Sigma Greenbelt training at our Business School. Looking forward to that, because the method seems to be very efficient and fun to apply.

For now, I am enjoying the long days and the sun and making plans for how to spend my weekends best!

Mazzel,
Ruudje

Weekend trip to Deutschland

Trier, Cochem, Luxembourg & some small places in between

Last weekend my parents left for Egypt and that meant their car was all mine to use... Shosh and I decided this was a nice moment for a break and booked a small bungalow in Kröv in the Mosel region of Germany. After a short trip and some trouble finding the place in the dark we got there on Friday evening at around 20.00. Unpacked our stuff and sat down with a couple of Germany's fine brews :-)

On Saturday we went to see Trier, Germany's oldest city (one of the buildings even reads that "Trier was built 1200 years before Rome"). We checked out the Porta Nigra, the old buildings such as the Ratskeller and Red House, the Roman amphitheater and some of the many churches. Luckily the weather cooperated and during our entire trip we had totally decent weather! On the way back we took a detour and drove the entire way along the river for which we were rewarded with some pretty views.


The next day we went to Cochem to check out Shosh her first castle: Reichsburg Cochem. We joined the guide and got a cool tour of the castle's interior. If you have a chance to visit, you should because it is worth it! After a walk through town and a beer in a very German bar we drove on to some of the places in the area. In one of them, Bernkastel-Kues, we looked up a restaurant and had an authentic German schnitzel.

On Monday we said farewell to our bungalow and drove to Luxembourg. Again the sun was shining, we found a great parking spot and could start exploring right away. Luxmbourg has very old city walls which are on the Unesco World Heritage list. This assures spectacular views and relaxed walks over the walls!


On the way back to Maastricht we stopped for some real Belgian "frietjes" and arrived early evening. "Unfortunately" I live in Utrecht nowadays, so I still had to drive an additional two hours before I was home.

All-in-all, it was a great weekend!

Cheers,
Der Rudi

Carnaval!!!

Alaaf!!! Alaaf!!! Alaaf!!!

In the south of the Netherlands many people celebrate carnaval. Once it was the last couple of days of fun, food and drinks before the fasting starts (Lent before Easter). Nowadays, hardly anyone adheres to the fasting part but we so like to enjoy the pre-Lent party :-) Smart Dutchies!
On Saturday Jochem (a colleague) and I invited a couple of foreign colleague trainees to join us for the celebration of carnaval in Eindhoven. It was a good, but (for me) short day. The work of the week before and the rushing from one place to another (Amsterdam-Maastricht-Weert-Eindhoven) had its effect on me... Nevertheless we all enjoyed the Brabants carnaval!

On Sunday Shosh and I went for "frühstück" to my sister and her boyfriend. After a good meal (a nice layer for the coming beers...) we went to the city (Weert) to watch the parade.



After the parade it was time to hit the bars and have fun with all the other dressed-up people. As usual, this was a lot of fun! The good thing about starting so early in the day with celebrating is that you get tired relatively early and don't get back home in the middle of the night. Good thing, because I had to work the day after...

Shosh and I also booked a small vacation in the weekend of 14 March. My parents are in Egypt then and we can borrow their car. Reason for us to hit the road and go visit some of Germany's nicer places, in our case, the Mösel area near Trier and Bitburg.

More on that next time!
Cheerio,

Ruudje

(ING) Chances for Children

Work sometimes is more than just work...

The past 5 weeks I have been part of one of the Corporate Responsibility activities of ING. ING Chances for Children to be exact. The assignment was simple: join the "Native Speaker Program" and teach basic English to 11-13 year old students from a "hard-learning" school in Amsterdam. The school I am talking about is the infamous Calvijn met Junior College in Amsterdam West. It has been described in the book "Onzichtbare ouders - De buurt van Mohammed B." by Margalith Kleijwegt who is an editor at Vrij Nederland and tries to create an image of the lives of the children of this school and their homes.


The teaching actually is no more than sitting down with a group of 3-5 kids and try to have a very basic conversation with them in English. But since for some of them it is the first time the have English classes it is hard to talk with them. Nevertheless when you hit the right subject they will try to talk a lot... for the boys these subjects were computer games, brand clothing and cars. For girls you should just mention the words kids or marriage and they are happy as can be!

I can really recommend this experience to everyone because it will widen your horizon! That school has "nothing" in common with the schools I went to or taught at (in China). And you also do something good for society! Simply a win-win situation!

Cheerio,
Ruudje

Beach & Turmoil

Zandvoort aan Zee & Financial Crisis...

This weekend Shosh and I went to Zandvoort aan Zee. And even better, we brought Piggy :-) A nice walk on the beach and some strolling around in the shopping area is a nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon. We even decided to buy some drinks and snacks and have a beach pre-dinner... Unfortunately it got pretty cold when the sun started to go down, but it kind of added to the "Dutch" feeling.

Besides fun in the weekend and evenings, my job keeps going on as well of course. And as you might have noticed there is quite a bit turmoil surrounding ING these days. a massive loss and a lay-off of thousands. Will it affect me? To be honest, I don't know, but I am pretty confident I am in a safe zone. ING spends a good deal of money and effort in recruiting trainees and I don't see why they would lay us off... But then again, these are unpredictable times and anything can happen.
Besides these uncertainties, I am still enjoying my time at ING and get to know the company better and better. I also am still working on the "merger" between the Postbank and ING Bank, which is pretty cool since the results of our efforts become ever more visible. Time went by so fast that I am already thinking about what assignment to do next. What it will be..? Time will tell!

That's all for now. Hope all of you are doing well in these turbulent weeks!

Groeten,
Ruudje, Shosh & Piggy

New Year's Eve Brothel Party

Yup, you read it right, I celebrated New Year's Eve in a brothel...

Haha, not one that actually operates anymore but still. A friend of a friend lives in an ex-brothel to prevent it from being occupied by squatters (anti-kraak). He was throwing a party and we were invited. And be honest, doesn't it sound awesome to celebrate the end of 2008 in a brothel..?!

Since trains stopped going at 20.00 we had to go relatively early. First some dinner at Bas and Bibi's place and then on to the Spijkerkwartier in Arnhem (known as the red light district of that city). We brought our drinks, some snacks and some stuff to sleep in/on/with, so we were all ready to party!!! And that is exactly what we did. After downing all our beers, Bonne arrived just in time to play Mix Master for most of us, creating some of the best cocktails known to mankind, especially for us... Thanks again Bonne!!!

At midnight we all went outside to check out the fireworks (which everyone can buy and light..) and have champagne to celebrate the start of 2009.

Since we started at 20.00 we were kind of "done" relatively early (don't ask me an exact time, because I have no idea...). Fortunately finding a place to sleep wasn't that hard. Remember we were staying at an ex-brothel... and if there is one thing they have enough... indeed, rooms ;-)

Besides Shoshannah being a bit sick in the last couple of days everything is going just fine. I started working again today, Shosh went to The Hague to get some documents legalized and is in Maastricht now and that's about it.

All the best for 2009!!!
Ruud & Shosh

Christmas 2009

Five days of eating, drinking and unwrapping gifts...

But the eating took up most of my time by far... On Christmas Eve Shos and I went to Weert and prepared a nice meal for my parents. Due to a train delay we barely were in time to do some last-minute Christmas shopping but we managed to make it! Of course the food was way too much, but with some perseverance we managed to eat all of it ;-) Add a couple of glasses of wine to this and some presents and you automatically have a good evening.

On Christmas day we didn;t do a lot but kind of waited for my sister and her boyfriend to come over so we could all eat together. We did a very traditional Dutch thing called: "gourmetten". In the middle of the table is a little stove and everyone has his/her own little pan. Everyone also has a bunch of little pieces of meat and fish and some cut of veggies which you then slowly prepare in your own pan. Sounds kin of dorky but it is a very nice thing to do when you are with a group and nobody wants to spend a lot of time in the kitchen.

Before we had food we distributed all gifts by means of several games and after dinner we played more games with which you could steal presents from other people. Not everyone ended up with exactly the thing (s)he wanted so there was some vigorous trading going on at the end of the night.

The following day Shos and I worked at restaurant Parc de IJzeren where we assisted the Chef in preparing the food for that evening. It was a nice evening and after quite a few hours of work we ended the night with some well-deserved cold beers.
Because the restaurant closed for the following week, I was allowed to take home some meat that would otherwise go bad. Therefore I once again invited some people over the next day and we had more delicious food! Later that night we went out and got home way to "early"...

On Sunday my grandmothers visited us, so it was a day of sitting at home, talking and relaxing. We paid a quick visit to my sister's new house and had more food in the evening. After that Shos and I went back to Utrecht because I had to work again the next day.

Happy New Year to all of you!

Hastelafietstas,
Ruud

Doornroosje & Boom Chicago

The holiday period is approaching and so are all the parties...

Last weekend Shos and I went to Nijmegen to meet up with Mark and Judith and a bunch of our Dutch friends from Kunming. A couple of weeks before we decided to go to a party at a club named "Doornroosje". Bonne assured us it would be an awesome party and we believed him. After a very nice warming up at Susan's place we went out and party till it became light out again... Bonne was right!


This week I also had a couple of Christmas celebrations at my work. On Tuesday I went to Cap Gemini for a couple of drinks because of the closure of a project and on Wednesday my team from ING had a small celebration. After work we all went to Boom Chicago on the Leidseplein in Amsterdam for food, drinks and improvisation comedy. It was a good evening to chat to colleagues on a mroe personal level and have a laugh with the comedians on stage.
Today and tomorrow I am doing a project management training in Amersfoort (Prince2) and in the weekend I will go down south to visit my parents and check out how my sister's new house is coming along (might need to help with some painting). On Sunday Shos will be back from a weekend in the Belgian Ardennes and come back with me to Utrecht where she can enjoy her vacation while I have to work... Life is unfair ;-)

More stuff after Christmas!!!
Happy holidays to you all!

Ruudje B.

Sinterklaasje in Utreg!!!

Een gezellige pakjesavond met oud-Hollandse spelen!

First of all, sorry for not updating for such a long time. Not that I haven't been doing anything, but for some reason things I do here inHolland seem less interesting or exciting as when you are not "home". My weeks are spent working, my evenings with drinks with friends, movies and some cycling and the weekend I go to Shos either in Maastricht or in Weert. But since the begnning of this month Shos and I both have an OV-card (public transportation card) with which we can travel all over Holland for free.

So last Friday Shos came to Utrecht because we were celebrating Sinterklaas here together with Mark, Sven & Ron (Mark's girlfriend Judith was ill unfortunately). We all both small gifts for a total of €10 and piled them in the middle of the room.
Then we started rolling dice to win gifts (1=pick, 2=give away, 3=unpack (but not keep), 4=steal, 5=switch seats clockwise & 6=game). The games we had were: spijkerpoepen, koekhappen en hamertje tik. Short explanation: with "spijkerpoepen" (nail shitting) you tie a nail to a string ang tie that string to the back of your pants. Then the nail gets a push and starts to swing, then you have to squat and get the nail into the opening of a bottle within 30 seconds.

With "koekhappen" (cake biting) you hang up slices of "ontbijtkoek" (breakfast cake), you get blindfolded and have to eat the cake within a two minute time limit (check out the movie for a demonstration...).


And finally with "hamertje tik" you have to hit a nail into a block of wood. Do it within 3 hits and you get 2 gifts, within 5 you get one gift, but f*ck up the nail and you have to give one of your gifts away. Fun guaranteed!!!After the games we went out in Utrecht and had a good night at a bar with lots of 70s and 80s music. On the way back from the ATM I got lost and needed Mark's instructions over the phone to get back... that's what you get when you live in a new city for a short time!
That's all for this time! The next post will follow a lot quicker than this one...

Cheerio,
Ruudje

Utrecht & Maastricht

Two beautiful cities with two important things...

Like I told you last time, I got a room in Utrecht. Very nice location and not too expensive. Got a couple of kewl house mates as well and start to know more and more people that live in Utrecht. And it saves so much time going to work every day... great!


Last weekend Shos and I went out together with Mark and Judith. We went out in Maastricht since that is where Shos lives and studies. Judith never had been to Maastricht and the rest of us was fine with Maastricht for a change. We had an awesome night together! They did some shopping, we went to see Shos's volleybal game, had some dinner at home and finally went to the city for a lot of fun. Sweeet night!


Next time I will tell you more, but since most of my life is spent on working these days, there is a lot less to talk about. Nevertheless I will make sure there is something nice on the blog next time.

Groetjes,
Der Rudolph