Thor Restaurant, in a boat - fabulous for fish
Saturday, September 25, 2004
Sunday, September 19, 2004
Mental Cruelty - Week 17
So, once again, I’m working on a Sunday (hope to get paid for this one, don’t talk to me about bloody agencies) and I arrive and fight with the deadlocks on the front doors again (you have to unlock both locks then lock them again, turn around three times, unlock the doors again, curse, wiggle the keys and they eventually open - go figure) and then I forget to switch off the alarm. Fortunately, it doesn’t go off, but this doesn’t even occur to me for some time. The building’s kinda spooky when it’s empty, because the lights come on when you walk under them (cool) and the doors close so slowly that you’ve normally been sat down for a couple of minutes before they shut completely with a thud, so it’s like there’s someone else in the building. Imagine how I jumped when it transpired somebody was. Unexpectedly, the cleaners were upstairs, because they hadn’t been in on Friday. Of course, they came in through the back door, which is why I still had to negotiate the locks; but on the upside they’d switched off the alarms, which is why I didn’t get arrested.
Rather distressingly, the coffee machine is only dispensing hot water, which strikes me as a good case for a prosecution under mental cruelty. Mental cruelty kinda summarises my whole experience over here: they don’t mark drawings up, they just scribble on them, and then they change their minds and scribble something else, but it’s not clear which was first and which was last, and since the changes are mutually exclusive one must be right and one must be wrong; and a 7 looks like a 1, and 9 and 4 and g look EXACTLY the same (Neder handwriting is not the world’s clearest) and when I go to modify a wire it transpires that it’s not one line but 8 lines placed end to end (imagine picking up a picture and finding it’s a jigsaw puzzle coming apart in your hands). Not to mention notes in Nederish that I can’t find a translation for in my dictionary or on the AltaVista Babel Fish site, and like, they know I’m English and they know it’s going to be me working on the drawings and I swear they’re making up new words just to entertain themselves (try to find diazed or meszel anywhere, I’m not making this up) and obviously I’m in here on my own, it being Sunday (day of rest, no rest for the wicked – draw your own conclusions) and therefore there’s no-one to ask, so in the end I asked one of the cleaners and, of course, he doesn’t speak English and I can only really speak Nederese in pubs, but we manage to establish that it means fuse or something, so I figure it’s just a note from the designer to himself and ignore it and stick a post-it note on the page so I can confirm on Monday. And then there’s the stuff which is just obviously missing, unless having a live wire carrying 240V dangling loose is normal. On Friday they were laughing at me for holding my cigarette lighter under the paper, until I explained to them that I was trying to see the part of the circuitry that they’d drawn in lemon juice. I mean damn. It’s just lucky that I’m quite a cool, calm sort of person; anybody else might get wound up about this sort of stuff. Or paranoid.
Wednesday gave me an interesting insight into the work ethic again. The project manager for the level crossings contract bought cakes to celebrate clawing back two weeks of the overrun on the job in the last month. No small feat, I’ll grant you: but given that all that’s been achieved is to progress from being eleven weeks behind to being nine weeks behind, and that at this rate of restitution it’s still going to take another four and a half months to get back on target, which is the end of January (bear in mind this job needs to be out the door by December 1st), I feel that standing around eating cake and patting each other on the back for half an hour might perhaps not be the most profitable use of time. But what do I know?
Anyway, I understand now why everyone’s encouraged to cycle – people here really shouldn’t be allowed to drive because I swear there’s no highway code or anything, and there simply cannot be a test. There are relatively few cars out here, and everybody seems to be going in much the same direction, which is lucky, because when they drive around corners they cut the corner and actually CROSS THE ROAD. Steering: it’s not that complex. And people don’t indicate when they’re going to turn, like it’s no-one else’s business where they’re going – I mean, where did these people learn to drive? North London? [HM Government, you want to make public transport more attractive? Scrap the Highway Code. It’ll be so dangerous to drive, everyone will take the train.] Yet, strangely, everyone’s really casual about the whole imminent death thing – not just the drivers, but pedestrians and cyclists too: they’ll just walk or cycle right in front of an oncoming vehicle like: “it’ll stop”, and I’m like: “you should give way to anything that’s heavier than you”; which I just think is sensible. Honestly, you’d think cyclists were immortal; so lackadaisical is there regard for personal safety, it’s like they laugh in the face of death. Back to bloody vampires again.
I made a discovery about my local pub, bar, whatever, last week. It’s a small pub called T’Kroegje, and there’s a picture of a mermaid on the door, so obviously (and quite reasonably, I thought), I assumed T’Kroegje translated as ‘The Mermaid’. Anyway, I asked the landlady last Saturday, and oh no, T’Kroegje, it transpires, means ‘small pub’. Of course it does. What was I thinking?
Unexpectedly, news of my sporting prowess seems to have reached the office, and I have been asked to join the company volleyball team for a tournament on October 2nd. Well, as long as they didn’t want to win or anything. I mean, I’ve warned them. They’ll learn. Still, I have at least managed to join a gym that hasn’t been burnt down, and I’ve got almost two weeks to get in shape. Equally foolish, I’ve been invited to a whisky sampling evening next Tuesday, so any plans after Wednesday may be purely academic anyway.
Discoveries:
If you live on microwaved food and pizzas, even supplemented with vitamin tablets and fresh fruit (okay, Mum?) then eventually your body will rebel
If you eat in a restaurant on your own, you will always look and feel like a total loser
If you’re speaking English, you can’t be seen, heard or even acknowledged until no Nederian is talking anywhere around you
A crate of 24 300ml bottles of beer (7.2 litres in total) costs €7.99 in a supermarket. Let’s put that in perspective: €7.99 is equivalent to ₤5.60, that’s 23p a bottle, or 77p a litre; put another way, 1.58 gallons for ₤5.60 is ₤3.54 per gallon, or 44p a pint – that’s cheaper than meths! No wonder everything’s closed on a Sunday.
Nobody clears up after their dogs. Originally this disgusted me (I don’t know what they feed their dogs, but I think they must be vegetarians), but, given the abundant fertility of the land, I’m inclined to the view that this is how they built the country in the first place, and given rising sea levels, therefore, it may be a smart move.
Anyway, best try to finish these drawing modifications. Till next time.
Rather distressingly, the coffee machine is only dispensing hot water, which strikes me as a good case for a prosecution under mental cruelty. Mental cruelty kinda summarises my whole experience over here: they don’t mark drawings up, they just scribble on them, and then they change their minds and scribble something else, but it’s not clear which was first and which was last, and since the changes are mutually exclusive one must be right and one must be wrong; and a 7 looks like a 1, and 9 and 4 and g look EXACTLY the same (Neder handwriting is not the world’s clearest) and when I go to modify a wire it transpires that it’s not one line but 8 lines placed end to end (imagine picking up a picture and finding it’s a jigsaw puzzle coming apart in your hands). Not to mention notes in Nederish that I can’t find a translation for in my dictionary or on the AltaVista Babel Fish site, and like, they know I’m English and they know it’s going to be me working on the drawings and I swear they’re making up new words just to entertain themselves (try to find diazed or meszel anywhere, I’m not making this up) and obviously I’m in here on my own, it being Sunday (day of rest, no rest for the wicked – draw your own conclusions) and therefore there’s no-one to ask, so in the end I asked one of the cleaners and, of course, he doesn’t speak English and I can only really speak Nederese in pubs, but we manage to establish that it means fuse or something, so I figure it’s just a note from the designer to himself and ignore it and stick a post-it note on the page so I can confirm on Monday. And then there’s the stuff which is just obviously missing, unless having a live wire carrying 240V dangling loose is normal. On Friday they were laughing at me for holding my cigarette lighter under the paper, until I explained to them that I was trying to see the part of the circuitry that they’d drawn in lemon juice. I mean damn. It’s just lucky that I’m quite a cool, calm sort of person; anybody else might get wound up about this sort of stuff. Or paranoid.
Wednesday gave me an interesting insight into the work ethic again. The project manager for the level crossings contract bought cakes to celebrate clawing back two weeks of the overrun on the job in the last month. No small feat, I’ll grant you: but given that all that’s been achieved is to progress from being eleven weeks behind to being nine weeks behind, and that at this rate of restitution it’s still going to take another four and a half months to get back on target, which is the end of January (bear in mind this job needs to be out the door by December 1st), I feel that standing around eating cake and patting each other on the back for half an hour might perhaps not be the most profitable use of time. But what do I know?
Anyway, I understand now why everyone’s encouraged to cycle – people here really shouldn’t be allowed to drive because I swear there’s no highway code or anything, and there simply cannot be a test. There are relatively few cars out here, and everybody seems to be going in much the same direction, which is lucky, because when they drive around corners they cut the corner and actually CROSS THE ROAD. Steering: it’s not that complex. And people don’t indicate when they’re going to turn, like it’s no-one else’s business where they’re going – I mean, where did these people learn to drive? North London? [HM Government, you want to make public transport more attractive? Scrap the Highway Code. It’ll be so dangerous to drive, everyone will take the train.] Yet, strangely, everyone’s really casual about the whole imminent death thing – not just the drivers, but pedestrians and cyclists too: they’ll just walk or cycle right in front of an oncoming vehicle like: “it’ll stop”, and I’m like: “you should give way to anything that’s heavier than you”; which I just think is sensible. Honestly, you’d think cyclists were immortal; so lackadaisical is there regard for personal safety, it’s like they laugh in the face of death. Back to bloody vampires again.
I made a discovery about my local pub, bar, whatever, last week. It’s a small pub called T’Kroegje, and there’s a picture of a mermaid on the door, so obviously (and quite reasonably, I thought), I assumed T’Kroegje translated as ‘The Mermaid’. Anyway, I asked the landlady last Saturday, and oh no, T’Kroegje, it transpires, means ‘small pub’. Of course it does. What was I thinking?
Unexpectedly, news of my sporting prowess seems to have reached the office, and I have been asked to join the company volleyball team for a tournament on October 2nd. Well, as long as they didn’t want to win or anything. I mean, I’ve warned them. They’ll learn. Still, I have at least managed to join a gym that hasn’t been burnt down, and I’ve got almost two weeks to get in shape. Equally foolish, I’ve been invited to a whisky sampling evening next Tuesday, so any plans after Wednesday may be purely academic anyway.
Discoveries:
If you live on microwaved food and pizzas, even supplemented with vitamin tablets and fresh fruit (okay, Mum?) then eventually your body will rebel
If you eat in a restaurant on your own, you will always look and feel like a total loser
If you’re speaking English, you can’t be seen, heard or even acknowledged until no Nederian is talking anywhere around you
A crate of 24 300ml bottles of beer (7.2 litres in total) costs €7.99 in a supermarket. Let’s put that in perspective: €7.99 is equivalent to ₤5.60, that’s 23p a bottle, or 77p a litre; put another way, 1.58 gallons for ₤5.60 is ₤3.54 per gallon, or 44p a pint – that’s cheaper than meths! No wonder everything’s closed on a Sunday.
Nobody clears up after their dogs. Originally this disgusted me (I don’t know what they feed their dogs, but I think they must be vegetarians), but, given the abundant fertility of the land, I’m inclined to the view that this is how they built the country in the first place, and given rising sea levels, therefore, it may be a smart move.
Anyway, best try to finish these drawing modifications. Till next time.
Sunday, September 05, 2004
Week 15 - The Tourist Thing
So, quite a frustrating week in the office this week. We’re working on a level crossings job, updating drawings from another company which were drawn in MicroStation V7 and then exported to AutoCAD, which we now have to import back into MicroStation V8. Thing is, they were originally drawn using an AutoCAD colour table (I have no idea why, and I’ve stopped asking questions). The colours are used to indicate weights in the drawing, because they only plot in black and white (because it’s cheaper; I count myself lucky we have colour monitors), so I get tasked with producing new pentables to produce the correct print output. Easy, thinks I, but it doesn’t cross my mind to think about the colour in the title block. See, in the drawings Green is used for things that don’t get printed, so it doesn’t occur to me that the company might have decided to make its logo:
$ Grontmij Maunsell . (Green - Purple - Green)
until I see the plots, which come out:
Grontmij .
And they wonder why the ´Crazy Englishman´ is banging his head against the screen and weeping.
Anyway, this weekend I decide it’s about time I started doing the tourist thing, so on Saturday Shahram and I take the train to Amsterdam to go and see the sights. Oh dear. Now, the Dutch (Nederlanders, nightstalkers, whatever) have been telling me that the ´Dam is rubbish, and I can see where they’re coming from. When we arrive at Amsterdam Centraal, the station is obviously still under construction (rough floor, wooden boards), but outside is great: fabulous architecture, canal boats, street performers, those fake statue people ("What do you want to do when you leave school?", "Oh, I think I’d like to stand still for a living"). The canals are fabulous, the boat rides look terrific, the art and the museums are fantastic. But there’s a darker side. It’s time for lunch, so we look for somewhere to eat. This is the choice we’re faced with: McDonalds, Burger King, McDonalds, KFC, McDonalds, McDonalds, kebab, pizza, kebab, pizza, pizza, hot dogs, McDonalds, kebab, McDonalds – this in a supposed cultural centre. We eventually find a small Italian restaurant and have some pasta, which is quite nice. Then, well, you can’t go to Amsterdam without having a look at the red light district, can you? Whoops. Somehow they’ve managed to elevate the female form to the mystique, subtlety and sheer class of shopping at Argos. I never fail to be amazed at how any area of the richness of human experience can be cheapened, re-packaged as an inferior product and sold back to us. I will say no more on the subject, but to mention that the only thing more appalling in Amsterdam is the behaviour of the English tourists, which is frankly juvenile and embarrassing. Oh my God, and plumbing. The country’s underwater, so why is the sewage above ground. Basically, public toilets are places where you (by which I mean men, there are NO public toilets for women) stand behind a steel barrier and urinate onto the ground or into a tin (which reminds me, when you pull the flush on a train, YOU CAN SEE THE TRACKS).
On the other hand, this week I’ve had to re-evaluate my views on the food out here, as I found a superb little restaurant called d´Olde Vismark which does excellent meals and has terrific service for surprisingly little money (honey mustard glazed steak, mushrooms, fresh vegetables, vanilla milkshakes and Coca-Cola in glass bottles). Also, there is a shop in Kampen which sells the best ice cream I have ever tasted in my life, and I found a place that does pizza not only properly but really well. Fish is still consistently brilliant everywhere except the staff canteen, which provides sustenance but, frankly, little more. Nightlife continues to amaze me – people go out at, like, 11pm and stay out till something like 4am, but there’s no trouble anywhere: no muggings, no fights, no joy-riding, no crime at all that I’ve seen apart from the graffiti, which is, frankly, awesome in terms of its quality. Manners, equally, are far better than I had previously observed with regards to the whole coughing and eating/talking thing, but one’s opinion can easily be coloured by a few barbarians on the train and in the canteen (and they know who I mean).
My culinary skills, meanwhile, are going from strength to strength, and I can now re-heat a wide range of dishes using a microwave. Thank-you Albert Heijn, the Waitrose of Nederland.
I tried to join the other gym (the one not razed to the ground) today, but it’s closed on Sunday. Sunday = day of rest. Rest = leisure. Leisure centre = gym. It’s basic stuff. I just give up.
Summer’s back, shockingly, and it’s more than welcome. Once again, in early September, we have temperatures in the high 20s and it’s too hot to be indoors. Work has an air-con system which keeps the temperature in the office five degrees less than it is outside (why? why not simply cool?), but that’s just not enough to make it comfortable.
Anyway, that’s all for now. I´ve set up a web blog page at http://nederfles.blogspot.com, which has all my letters home so far and which will have photos when I get around to uploading them when I get home for the weekend again in a few weeks. Meanwhile, if anyone fancies hitting the Reply button on this, I’d appreciate it as always. Otherwise sending these missives is just like screaming into the dark silence of a formless void.
$ Grontmij Maunsell . (Green - Purple - Green)
until I see the plots, which come out:
Grontmij .
And they wonder why the ´Crazy Englishman´ is banging his head against the screen and weeping.
Anyway, this weekend I decide it’s about time I started doing the tourist thing, so on Saturday Shahram and I take the train to Amsterdam to go and see the sights. Oh dear. Now, the Dutch (Nederlanders, nightstalkers, whatever) have been telling me that the ´Dam is rubbish, and I can see where they’re coming from. When we arrive at Amsterdam Centraal, the station is obviously still under construction (rough floor, wooden boards), but outside is great: fabulous architecture, canal boats, street performers, those fake statue people ("What do you want to do when you leave school?", "Oh, I think I’d like to stand still for a living"). The canals are fabulous, the boat rides look terrific, the art and the museums are fantastic. But there’s a darker side. It’s time for lunch, so we look for somewhere to eat. This is the choice we’re faced with: McDonalds, Burger King, McDonalds, KFC, McDonalds, McDonalds, kebab, pizza, kebab, pizza, pizza, hot dogs, McDonalds, kebab, McDonalds – this in a supposed cultural centre. We eventually find a small Italian restaurant and have some pasta, which is quite nice. Then, well, you can’t go to Amsterdam without having a look at the red light district, can you? Whoops. Somehow they’ve managed to elevate the female form to the mystique, subtlety and sheer class of shopping at Argos. I never fail to be amazed at how any area of the richness of human experience can be cheapened, re-packaged as an inferior product and sold back to us. I will say no more on the subject, but to mention that the only thing more appalling in Amsterdam is the behaviour of the English tourists, which is frankly juvenile and embarrassing. Oh my God, and plumbing. The country’s underwater, so why is the sewage above ground. Basically, public toilets are places where you (by which I mean men, there are NO public toilets for women) stand behind a steel barrier and urinate onto the ground or into a tin (which reminds me, when you pull the flush on a train, YOU CAN SEE THE TRACKS).
On the other hand, this week I’ve had to re-evaluate my views on the food out here, as I found a superb little restaurant called d´Olde Vismark which does excellent meals and has terrific service for surprisingly little money (honey mustard glazed steak, mushrooms, fresh vegetables, vanilla milkshakes and Coca-Cola in glass bottles). Also, there is a shop in Kampen which sells the best ice cream I have ever tasted in my life, and I found a place that does pizza not only properly but really well. Fish is still consistently brilliant everywhere except the staff canteen, which provides sustenance but, frankly, little more. Nightlife continues to amaze me – people go out at, like, 11pm and stay out till something like 4am, but there’s no trouble anywhere: no muggings, no fights, no joy-riding, no crime at all that I’ve seen apart from the graffiti, which is, frankly, awesome in terms of its quality. Manners, equally, are far better than I had previously observed with regards to the whole coughing and eating/talking thing, but one’s opinion can easily be coloured by a few barbarians on the train and in the canteen (and they know who I mean).
My culinary skills, meanwhile, are going from strength to strength, and I can now re-heat a wide range of dishes using a microwave. Thank-you Albert Heijn, the Waitrose of Nederland.
I tried to join the other gym (the one not razed to the ground) today, but it’s closed on Sunday. Sunday = day of rest. Rest = leisure. Leisure centre = gym. It’s basic stuff. I just give up.
Summer’s back, shockingly, and it’s more than welcome. Once again, in early September, we have temperatures in the high 20s and it’s too hot to be indoors. Work has an air-con system which keeps the temperature in the office five degrees less than it is outside (why? why not simply cool?), but that’s just not enough to make it comfortable.
Anyway, that’s all for now. I´ve set up a web blog page at http://nederfles.blogspot.com, which has all my letters home so far and which will have photos when I get around to uploading them when I get home for the weekend again in a few weeks. Meanwhile, if anyone fancies hitting the Reply button on this, I’d appreciate it as always. Otherwise sending these missives is just like screaming into the dark silence of a formless void.
Saturday, August 21, 2004
Three months down, nine to go
Well, today marks thirteen weeks in the Nederlands, or three calendar months, or 25% of my contract. Not much of a cause celebre, but a significant milestone in my Neder experience nonetheless. The thing is, every time I think I’ve finally got my head around the whole culture thing, I come across some other weirdness that the Nederese regard as normality, and it just throws my whole perspective again.
Last Saturday, for example, was another Nederish special day, although it wasn’t mentioned in the press or on television (as far as I’m aware, not that I can understand a word of it). It was National Bad Hair Day, and they obviously take it very seriously because almost everybody had made the effort; indeed, some people had clearly put some serious time and energy into their follicle stylings. Mind you, the whole issue of style out here can best be described as some kind of time warp: the music reminds you of everything that was good about the 80s, the clothing, meanwhile, only serves to remind you what was so wrong about the 70s
Far scarier, however, was Sunday. I have already mentioned that Kampen is considered to be the Christian capital of Nederland, but I myself had no idea what that meant. A recent conversation with one of my neighbours gave me a clue, as it included me being asked if I had any plans for the weekend, which led to the following exchange:
“Nothing special. I’ll probably just pop over to the pub.”
“Oh, I’m a Christian, so I don’t go to pubs.”
Right… now, I’ve never been one of the most religious people in the world (apart from a perfectly natural unhealthy interest in Revelations in my late teens), but I don’t recall anything in the Bible (certainly not in the films) about not going to bars. It’s a strange thing, in fact, because Christianity isn’t actually a religion out here, but more some kind of a cult. For example, on Sunday everybody goes to church, but really dressed up (men in suits, women in dress suits, little girls in dresses with bonnets and pigtails, little boys in short trousers and shirts with ties), and they march there without talking to each other, or speaking at all, or even acknowledging people, or smiling, or anything – it’s like Dawn of the Dead meets The Little House on the Prairie, really quite, quite unsettling. Mind you, with all these vampires about, who can blame them?
Anyway, this week I decided it was about time I joined a gym and tried to do something about getting back into shape, so I went across the park by my flat (well, house, but it’s really just a small flat on two floors) to the Sports Centre. Gone. Just ashes and bricks. Guess that’s what all the sirens and flashing lights were about the other night. Will try to be more careful with cigarette butts in future.
Anyway, still not really having a love affair with the food out here. We keep having things in the canteen which I don’t recognise, and when I ask my colleagues what it is they just tell me that it’s better not to know. I mean, what’s that about? Even the soup has funny, mini-meatball looking things in it that nobody can tell me what they are or where they come from.
Beyond that, there’s still the whole difference of culture thing. People out here don’t seem to cover their mouths when they cough (ugh), and everybody talks with their mouth full. I’m telling you, you can really tell when you're in a country which the English didn't invade (or which the Germans did, come to think about it).
Then there’s the job. And suddenly it all falls into place. Grontmij, it transpires, has only been in Railway Signalling for thirty months, and has only had MicroStation systems for the last eighteen of those. Now I understand the appalling drawings I’ve been seeing, the partial and inaccurate cell libraries, and the blank looks I get when I express my consternation and frustration at these failings. Railtrack, I’m sorry I ever complained about your rigorous standards and insistence on minutiae.
Anyway, I’m off to launch another crusade on the creepy crawlies which seem to invade my house daily (pouring rain alternating with brilliant sunshine at a constant 29 degrees seems to provide perfect breeding conditions for flies, midges and mosquitoes – no wonder all the spiders out here are so fat). Meanwhile, any and all news from Blighty and the outside world will be gratefully received.
Last Saturday, for example, was another Nederish special day, although it wasn’t mentioned in the press or on television (as far as I’m aware, not that I can understand a word of it). It was National Bad Hair Day, and they obviously take it very seriously because almost everybody had made the effort; indeed, some people had clearly put some serious time and energy into their follicle stylings. Mind you, the whole issue of style out here can best be described as some kind of time warp: the music reminds you of everything that was good about the 80s, the clothing, meanwhile, only serves to remind you what was so wrong about the 70s
Far scarier, however, was Sunday. I have already mentioned that Kampen is considered to be the Christian capital of Nederland, but I myself had no idea what that meant. A recent conversation with one of my neighbours gave me a clue, as it included me being asked if I had any plans for the weekend, which led to the following exchange:
“Nothing special. I’ll probably just pop over to the pub.”
“Oh, I’m a Christian, so I don’t go to pubs.”
Right… now, I’ve never been one of the most religious people in the world (apart from a perfectly natural unhealthy interest in Revelations in my late teens), but I don’t recall anything in the Bible (certainly not in the films) about not going to bars. It’s a strange thing, in fact, because Christianity isn’t actually a religion out here, but more some kind of a cult. For example, on Sunday everybody goes to church, but really dressed up (men in suits, women in dress suits, little girls in dresses with bonnets and pigtails, little boys in short trousers and shirts with ties), and they march there without talking to each other, or speaking at all, or even acknowledging people, or smiling, or anything – it’s like Dawn of the Dead meets The Little House on the Prairie, really quite, quite unsettling. Mind you, with all these vampires about, who can blame them?
Anyway, this week I decided it was about time I joined a gym and tried to do something about getting back into shape, so I went across the park by my flat (well, house, but it’s really just a small flat on two floors) to the Sports Centre. Gone. Just ashes and bricks. Guess that’s what all the sirens and flashing lights were about the other night. Will try to be more careful with cigarette butts in future.
Anyway, still not really having a love affair with the food out here. We keep having things in the canteen which I don’t recognise, and when I ask my colleagues what it is they just tell me that it’s better not to know. I mean, what’s that about? Even the soup has funny, mini-meatball looking things in it that nobody can tell me what they are or where they come from.
Beyond that, there’s still the whole difference of culture thing. People out here don’t seem to cover their mouths when they cough (ugh), and everybody talks with their mouth full. I’m telling you, you can really tell when you're in a country which the English didn't invade (or which the Germans did, come to think about it).
Then there’s the job. And suddenly it all falls into place. Grontmij, it transpires, has only been in Railway Signalling for thirty months, and has only had MicroStation systems for the last eighteen of those. Now I understand the appalling drawings I’ve been seeing, the partial and inaccurate cell libraries, and the blank looks I get when I express my consternation and frustration at these failings. Railtrack, I’m sorry I ever complained about your rigorous standards and insistence on minutiae.
Anyway, I’m off to launch another crusade on the creepy crawlies which seem to invade my house daily (pouring rain alternating with brilliant sunshine at a constant 29 degrees seems to provide perfect breeding conditions for flies, midges and mosquitoes – no wonder all the spiders out here are so fat). Meanwhile, any and all news from Blighty and the outside world will be gratefully received.
Saturday, August 14, 2004
Signalling Creatures
So, the end of the twelfth week and the end of the holidays. Next week everyone returns and the Nederlands come back to life, kinda like Bagpuss and the mice, only backwards. It’s now Monsoon season over here, which means still uncomfortably hot but now very, very wet as well. But even in this weather, which is pretty much constantly drizzling or pouring or tipping, you still see police on the streets, talking like it was in the UK in the late seventies/early eighties; and there’s no crime over here. Mr Blunkett take heed.
Work is slower, but still quite busy, and I’ve discovered that our department, Seinwezen, translates literally as Signalling Creatures. I mean, I’m aware that as a group signalling designers are a little quirky, but that’s just taking it too far in my opinion. I can’t wait to find out what they call testers.
I decided to try more local dishes this week, so I had a Fillet American (curiously, a Dutch speciality unavailable in America), which is essentially raw liquidised beef in a bread roll with onions and mayonnaise (trust me, much nicer than it sounds) and inspired my second, much less popular, song adaptation, to the tune of Stand & Deliver:
Soured Milk and Herring
by Adam And The Ants & Julian Self
Soured milk and herring!
I'm the Crazy Englishman
Who you so often mention
I spend my cash on pie and mash
With ketchup for convention
The Devil take your mayonnaise, your pickling obsession
The way you eat you'll qualify for lifelong indigestion
Soured milk and herring
You consume them all your life
HWOAH!
Try a different menu
‘Cause your cold meats give me strife
HWOAH!
I'm the Crazy Englishman
So sick of menu trashing
The deep-fried dish and cold raw fish
That people think so smashing
So what's the point of restaurants when nothing is worth eating?
It's just too much to tell the Dutch their meals keep on repeating
Soured milk and herring
You consume them all your life
HWOAH!
Try a different menu
‘Cause your cold meats give me strife
HWOAH!
And even though you fill your mouths your taste buds have resigned
Maligned
We're the Drunken Englishmen
Who you so often mention
We spend our cash on getting smashed
And making bad impressions
We’re the Crazy Englishmen and here's our invitation
Throw your cheeses overboard and join our roast beef nation!
Soured milk and herring you consume them all your life
HWOAH!
Try a different menu‘cause your cold meats give us strife
HWOAH!
And even though you fill your mouths your taste buds have resigned
Maligned
Raw fish
Cold meat processed cheeses
Cold meat processed cheeses
Cold meat processed cheeses
Raw fish
Cold meat processed cheeses
Cold meat processed cheeses
Cheese cheese cheese cheeses
Think maybe I’ll give the whole song adaptation thing a miss for a while now.
Anyway, I’m teaching the locals correct use of English. For example, there are fifteen types of tea in the office: Sterremunt (absolutely foul, Spearmint), Rooibos (quite nice), Groene (Green), Mango, Blackcurrant, Zoethout (no idea, odd taste), Cherry, Melon, Strawberry, Southern Fruits (what were they thinking?), Peach, Cinnamon, Raspberry, Vanilla (starting to sound like an ice cream shop now) and what they laughingly refer to as English. Anyway, I ask my cellmate (cubicle sharer, whatever) if he wants a drink and he says ‘tea’, so I ask which one and he says everything but Rooibos, then wonders why he gets a mug with fourteen tea-bags and not much water. So, now he knows the difference between anything and everything.
I’m also trying to teach them about sarcasm, which is proving to be more of a challenge, especially for Shahram, who Amey veterans would recognise as effectively the Grontmij Dharmy, only louder (I know, I didn’t believe it either).
Coffee, by contrast, is much better out here, but with so many coffee shops that’s hardly surprising really. All that caffeine, no wonder everybody seems so wired.
Oh yeah, and the most amazing thing happened today, you could never re-produce it. I’m stood chatting to Schuart, and Egbert is practicing his putting in the office. Egbert taps the balls back towards the tee, which is next to the cupboard I’m leaning on, and it hits the lip at the base of the shelves and takes off, shoots up and lands in my shirt breast pocket. Unreal. I just wonder what he was aiming for.
Anyway, looks like a break in the rain, so I’m gonna make a run for the station, try to get home still dry.
More news as it breaks.
Work is slower, but still quite busy, and I’ve discovered that our department, Seinwezen, translates literally as Signalling Creatures. I mean, I’m aware that as a group signalling designers are a little quirky, but that’s just taking it too far in my opinion. I can’t wait to find out what they call testers.
I decided to try more local dishes this week, so I had a Fillet American (curiously, a Dutch speciality unavailable in America), which is essentially raw liquidised beef in a bread roll with onions and mayonnaise (trust me, much nicer than it sounds) and inspired my second, much less popular, song adaptation, to the tune of Stand & Deliver:
Soured Milk and Herring
by Adam And The Ants & Julian Self
Soured milk and herring!
I'm the Crazy Englishman
Who you so often mention
I spend my cash on pie and mash
With ketchup for convention
The Devil take your mayonnaise, your pickling obsession
The way you eat you'll qualify for lifelong indigestion
Soured milk and herring
You consume them all your life
HWOAH!
Try a different menu
‘Cause your cold meats give me strife
HWOAH!
I'm the Crazy Englishman
So sick of menu trashing
The deep-fried dish and cold raw fish
That people think so smashing
So what's the point of restaurants when nothing is worth eating?
It's just too much to tell the Dutch their meals keep on repeating
Soured milk and herring
You consume them all your life
HWOAH!
Try a different menu
‘Cause your cold meats give me strife
HWOAH!
And even though you fill your mouths your taste buds have resigned
Maligned
We're the Drunken Englishmen
Who you so often mention
We spend our cash on getting smashed
And making bad impressions
We’re the Crazy Englishmen and here's our invitation
Throw your cheeses overboard and join our roast beef nation!
Soured milk and herring you consume them all your life
HWOAH!
Try a different menu‘cause your cold meats give us strife
HWOAH!
And even though you fill your mouths your taste buds have resigned
Maligned
Raw fish
Cold meat processed cheeses
Cold meat processed cheeses
Cold meat processed cheeses
Raw fish
Cold meat processed cheeses
Cold meat processed cheeses
Cheese cheese cheese cheeses
Think maybe I’ll give the whole song adaptation thing a miss for a while now.
Anyway, I’m teaching the locals correct use of English. For example, there are fifteen types of tea in the office: Sterremunt (absolutely foul, Spearmint), Rooibos (quite nice), Groene (Green), Mango, Blackcurrant, Zoethout (no idea, odd taste), Cherry, Melon, Strawberry, Southern Fruits (what were they thinking?), Peach, Cinnamon, Raspberry, Vanilla (starting to sound like an ice cream shop now) and what they laughingly refer to as English. Anyway, I ask my cellmate (cubicle sharer, whatever) if he wants a drink and he says ‘tea’, so I ask which one and he says everything but Rooibos, then wonders why he gets a mug with fourteen tea-bags and not much water. So, now he knows the difference between anything and everything.
I’m also trying to teach them about sarcasm, which is proving to be more of a challenge, especially for Shahram, who Amey veterans would recognise as effectively the Grontmij Dharmy, only louder (I know, I didn’t believe it either).
Coffee, by contrast, is much better out here, but with so many coffee shops that’s hardly surprising really. All that caffeine, no wonder everybody seems so wired.
Oh yeah, and the most amazing thing happened today, you could never re-produce it. I’m stood chatting to Schuart, and Egbert is practicing his putting in the office. Egbert taps the balls back towards the tee, which is next to the cupboard I’m leaning on, and it hits the lip at the base of the shelves and takes off, shoots up and lands in my shirt breast pocket. Unreal. I just wonder what he was aiming for.
Anyway, looks like a break in the rain, so I’m gonna make a run for the station, try to get home still dry.
More news as it breaks.
Monday, August 02, 2004
Neder Neder Land
So, ten weeks now, and the time seems to have flown by (or maybe that’s just because I’ve been flying a lot). The job continues to be interesting, and ProRail seem to be quite impressed with the Speed/Train Profile we’ve been producing. It’s now a twelve metre long A0 drawing including gradient profiles, headway curves, points and signalling in both directions and it’s, frankly, awesome. Well, I think it is but, then, I’m easily pleased.
I’ve still only managed to eat in one place I would go back to (Thor, a restaurant in a boat moored in the moat which surrounds the centre of Zwolle), though I am assured there are many very good restaurants about; but I have come across a fair few decent drinking dens (and have learnt to rely on my watch – there are no licensing hours out here, they just close when they run out of beer, so I have to be careful not to run over my alcohol tolerance threshold, which has never been terribly high anyway). On the other hand, everywhere I’ve been does wonderful things with fish; though, for a country technically below sea-level, that’s hardly surprising.
Summer has finally arrived, and it’s glorious: clear blue skies, high twenties temperatures and cool, soothing breezes – perfection. Consequently, people are spending more time outside and I’m getting to meet my new neighbours. The Nederish (Nederese?) love to practice speaking English, so once they realise where I’m from there’s no stopping them. It might be worth a study into why it is that they find the language so easy but making a decent cup of tea is frankly beyond every last one of them as a nation.
As I said, this Schiphol feasibility study we’re doing is currently one of the most high profile jobs on the railway in the Netherlands, so obviously, this being the Sunday afternoon before the Monday morning when ProRail come to collect it, I am, once again, the only person in the office finalising the drawings and getting all the documentation out. Some things just don’t change, do they?
Observations:
All the people here seem to be tall and thin.
Nobody goes out until really late, like ten or eleven o’clock.
The platform at Zwolle has a whole bunch of photographs of missing persons stuck up around it.
The country is called Nederland, like Never Never land in Peter Pan, where the boys never grew up.
Vampires, man, I’m telling you, bloodsuckers the lot of them.
Other observations include general levels of fitness, which are generally really good – men, buy your woman a bicycle, you won’t regret it, I promise you.
What else? Oh yeah, I’m going to be in the Grontmij magazine for writing a song about working here. It’s not all that, but it goes to the tune of Streetlife by Randy Crawford, and when Shahram (my Persian colleague) and I sang it we got applause from neighbouring departments and Martin (the boss) asked for a copy and sent it to the magazine people in De Bild:
Grontmij
By Randy Crawford and Julian Self
We work for Grontmij, because there`s no place we can go
Grontmij – it’s the only life we know
Grontmij – and there`s a thousand tracks to lay
Grontmij – until we work our lives away
We let designers see
Just who we wanna be
And every night we sleep,
And dream of working more
That’s how the rail gets laid
In Euros we are paid
We CAD, drink coffee, talk
We’re who you think we are
Grontmij – we get to work on time
Grontmij – to help run the railway line
Grontmij – do whatever we are told
Grontmij – for like slaves we have been sold
There`s always track and rail
A signalling fairytale
Pro Rail always smiles
As silly deadlines loom
And if we make it fine
Connections run on time
Your train will chuff away
Beneath the silver moon
Grontmij – Grontmij
Grontmij - Grontmij
We work for Grontmij, because there`s no place we can go
Grontmij – it’s the only life we know
Grontmij – and there`s a thousand tracks to lay
Grontmij – until we work our lives away - ooh
Grontmij - Grontmij
Grontmij - Grontmij
I guess they’re pretty easily impressed, huh? Anyway, best check on the printing situation. Next weekend, thankfully, I’ll be back home relaxing. More news as it breaks.
I’ve still only managed to eat in one place I would go back to (Thor, a restaurant in a boat moored in the moat which surrounds the centre of Zwolle), though I am assured there are many very good restaurants about; but I have come across a fair few decent drinking dens (and have learnt to rely on my watch – there are no licensing hours out here, they just close when they run out of beer, so I have to be careful not to run over my alcohol tolerance threshold, which has never been terribly high anyway). On the other hand, everywhere I’ve been does wonderful things with fish; though, for a country technically below sea-level, that’s hardly surprising.
Summer has finally arrived, and it’s glorious: clear blue skies, high twenties temperatures and cool, soothing breezes – perfection. Consequently, people are spending more time outside and I’m getting to meet my new neighbours. The Nederish (Nederese?) love to practice speaking English, so once they realise where I’m from there’s no stopping them. It might be worth a study into why it is that they find the language so easy but making a decent cup of tea is frankly beyond every last one of them as a nation.
As I said, this Schiphol feasibility study we’re doing is currently one of the most high profile jobs on the railway in the Netherlands, so obviously, this being the Sunday afternoon before the Monday morning when ProRail come to collect it, I am, once again, the only person in the office finalising the drawings and getting all the documentation out. Some things just don’t change, do they?
Observations:
All the people here seem to be tall and thin.
Nobody goes out until really late, like ten or eleven o’clock.
The platform at Zwolle has a whole bunch of photographs of missing persons stuck up around it.
The country is called Nederland, like Never Never land in Peter Pan, where the boys never grew up.
Vampires, man, I’m telling you, bloodsuckers the lot of them.
Other observations include general levels of fitness, which are generally really good – men, buy your woman a bicycle, you won’t regret it, I promise you.
What else? Oh yeah, I’m going to be in the Grontmij magazine for writing a song about working here. It’s not all that, but it goes to the tune of Streetlife by Randy Crawford, and when Shahram (my Persian colleague) and I sang it we got applause from neighbouring departments and Martin (the boss) asked for a copy and sent it to the magazine people in De Bild:
Grontmij
By Randy Crawford and Julian Self
We work for Grontmij, because there`s no place we can go
Grontmij – it’s the only life we know
Grontmij – and there`s a thousand tracks to lay
Grontmij – until we work our lives away
We let designers see
Just who we wanna be
And every night we sleep,
And dream of working more
That’s how the rail gets laid
In Euros we are paid
We CAD, drink coffee, talk
We’re who you think we are
Grontmij – we get to work on time
Grontmij – to help run the railway line
Grontmij – do whatever we are told
Grontmij – for like slaves we have been sold
There`s always track and rail
A signalling fairytale
Pro Rail always smiles
As silly deadlines loom
And if we make it fine
Connections run on time
Your train will chuff away
Beneath the silver moon
Grontmij – Grontmij
Grontmij - Grontmij
We work for Grontmij, because there`s no place we can go
Grontmij – it’s the only life we know
Grontmij – and there`s a thousand tracks to lay
Grontmij – until we work our lives away - ooh
Grontmij - Grontmij
Grontmij - Grontmij
I guess they’re pretty easily impressed, huh? Anyway, best check on the printing situation. Next weekend, thankfully, I’ll be back home relaxing. More news as it breaks.
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