Holiday trip to Eastern Europe

Slovakia, Austria and Hungary

We left early Saturday morning from Dusseldorf airport with an awesomely cheap flight from Ryanair to go to Bratislava. A couple hours later we arrived and spend some time finding a hostel. Weirdly enough in these regions it is cheaper to book via sites like hostelbookers.com than directly at the hostel itself (quite a difference with Asia...).

Most of our day we used to walk around and explore many of the buildings with the Danube as the central line through the city. Bratislava is a nice, laidback city and you can feel it is at the forefront of developing rapidly.


A planned visit to a castle just outside Bratislava did not go entirely as planned... before we got there we ended up at a local wine festival.

Not to bad a detour I would say :-)


After a couple of days we decided that a little side trip to Vienna would be great. Vienna and Bratislava are the world's closest capitals so it only took us an hour by train to get there. We started out at the Schönbrunn Palace, which is absolutely stunning to see (also known as the home of the young empress Sissi).


Afterwards we toured the city, which also is a beauty. Everything looks very clean and well maintained, making it a pleasure to spend time there.

The next and final stop of our trip was Budapest. We heard from a lot of people that it's a fantastic place so we had high expectations. And it is very true that it is a great city, but it doesn't match up with Vienna... Nevertheless we enjoyed walking around, checking out everything the place has to offer

On of the things Budapest is known for are all the Spas. We went to the one in Central Park and had a very realxing time in the warm water and all the saunas.

Of course we also checked out the Buda side, known for the hills and the castle.


By night it is pretty as well!

The last day we checked out the infamous Sziget Island (known for the massive music festival held there every August. It is a very tranquil place and we were lucky enough to have great weather. Can't you see us being happy..?!

While traveling to different places we feel it is always important to catch up on local cuisine and that is exactly what we did during this trip as well ;-

More on the ING International Graduate Program I went to and my new position within ING will follow soon. At least a lot sooner that I posted this update... Sorry!

Na zdorovye,
Ruud & Shosh

New house, job and experience

From Zwanenburg to Arnhem, Shosh got a "job" and I am at IIGP...

First things first: sorry for not updating for such a long time, but as you'll read below you might understand why.
HOD (the company that provides our housing) called and informed us that we had to leave the Zwanenburg villa. No good news but we knew it was only going to be for a short while. No other spectacular places came up and we decided we would be willing to live in Arnhem as well. They found a nice place for us and we decided to take the shot. So now we are living a normal Dutch "rijtjeshuis" (row house) on a corner in the area called "Geitenkamp" (Goat Camp). Below you see what we found when we first entered the place and also what we did with it to make it "our" place.

The small, but nice kitchen

All the pictures show before and after...




Besides moving, there is even more spectacular news: Shosh applied for an internship at GRI and she got it!!! Simply said, GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) sets the standards for reporting on Sustanability and tries to streamline information exchange surrounding this practice. Shosh will be assisting the Fund Raising Manager and Media Manager of GRI to set up their bi-annual conference in May 2010. Shosh: GOOD LUCK!!!

Personally I am currently at the IIGP (ING International Graduate Program) in Noordwijkerhout. In three weeks time we go through a very intense program to learn all about ING's strategy and about the different departments and their functions. Sometimes this involves listening to presentations, sometimes preparing cases/presentations, being involved team building activities and so on. It are three heavy weeks, but the atmosphere among all trainees is great and I am sure we'll achieve a lot during these weeks (and of course have some fun as well...).

Right after the IIGP ends Shosh and I will take a short break and head out to Slovakia and Hungary. Flying into Bratislava and out of Budapest, we will have a week to discover the areas surrounding these places. Everyone I have spoken to agrees that both cities are beautiful and well worth exploring. If anyone has good tips, let me know!

I think that pretty much sums up our activities of the last couple of weeks.
Talk to you again soon!

Mazzel,
Ruud

Sailing on the Waddenzee

Lots of water, good times, a couple of seals and a great experience!

Last week we Shosh and I joined a group of our friends to go sailing on the Waddenzee (the sea between the northern part of the Netherlands and our 5 islands). Bonne organized the ship, a 22 meter long, flat-bottom sailing ship called "Bonte Piet".

We arrived in the town of Harlingen on Friday afternoon to prepare for our journey. And that included doing quite a bit of shopping... The next morning we set sail.

A "bonus" we got was that our captain was someone most of us already knew... a couple of years ago he participated in the TV show "Expedition Robinson". His name: Douwe Popma.

On Saturday the weather was great and some of us already got pretty sunburned. On Sunday the morning started out wet, but with some wind so we could actually practice the sailing.

In the afternoon the weather turned and when we arrived at the island of Terschelling we had nothing to complain at all.

The Monday would be the most exciting day because we would try to do "droogvallen" (parking the boat on a sandbank, in Dutch called a "Wad", and waiting for the water levels to drop so you can walk around). For me this was the best experience. The weather was great, the water was nice, we found mussels and enjoyed the great views.



Tuesday would be the last day. Due to the hardly-existing wind it took us quite a while to sail all the way back to the harbor of Harlingen but late in the afternoon we got there. We ended wit a good dinner at a local restaurant and everyone returned to their homes.

Below you can see where we sailed exactly (recorded with an app called "Motion-X GPS" on my iPhone). The .gpx or .kmz files are available upon request.
That's it for now. I am going to enjoy the rest of my Sunday and prepare for the coming week. In the next weeks I'll be looking for a new position at work and spending more time with Shosh outside since she recently got a second-hand race bike which we have to try out :-)

Cheerio,
Ruudje & Shosh

HR BBQ, Graduation & Zwanenburg Party

Happy times!!!

At work there have been quite some changes in our HR department. To gather everyone and say our goodbye to some of them, a BBQ was organized. It was good to see the whole OIB Trainee community together again and enjoying each others company and the great weather...


More important for Shosh and me, however, was her graduation from Maastricht University. She got her master degree in Public Policy and Human Development from the Maastricht School of Governance. Oma B. and I went to her graduation ceremony and afterwards there was a reception with snacks, drinks and a lot of happy people!
The graduation girls...
Everybody happy!

After the reception my parents and my sister with her boyfriend joined for a dinner at what is known as the best Chinese restaurant in the south of the Netherlands with authentic Guangdong dishes. Yummie!
Once again: Congratz Shosh!!!

We have been living for 2 months now at our place in Zwanenburg. Enjoying it more and more, especially now that we actually stole enough furniture from my parents and we have "decorated" the place. Unfortunately we know now that we have to leave at the end of August (they will tear it down to make place for a new highway... what a waste!). We are really curious what place we will move to next.
But of course we cannot leave a place like this without throwing an awesome party. And that is exactly what we did. You could see it as a mix between a housewarming, house-leaving, belated birthday and graduation party... It was a totally perfect evening!!! Thnx everyone!
Doesn't everyone look happy..?
If only that swimming pool could be used...


This afternoon we will take off for a short vacation. We go sailing with 12 people on the Waddenzee. The boat we'll be on is called the Bonte Piet. Neither of us have ever really sailed, so we are pretty excited about the whole thing...

...Ay Maties...
Ruudje & Shosh