A Boat, a Canal, Some Goats, and Some Neat People

Today was great fun.  I had the first day of the event that brought me here, where I got to meet a lot of interesting people and listen to some good talks.  The lunch they served was great.  I loved the fact that I showed up and they had tea service.  Not just normal tea, either–they had all sorts of varieties of tea (which, I suppose, is “normal” here, but “abnormal” for the US).  I was astounded, and happy.  They had the real deal, too, with cubed sugar and cream, so I could have a real cup of tea.  Mmmmm.  Make that two cups.  No, three.  Okay, four, but they were small cups.  🙂

While I was spending my time listening to people talk and meeting people, Jenny took some walks around the area.  When I came home tonight, she told me all kinds of stories.  Apparently, on one of her walks, she found a field that was filled with baby goats, and some benches set up on the walkway where people could sit–presumably to watch the goats.  She went exploring all over the town, and had what sounds like a good time.  She found some old churches and other fun things.  Maybe I’ll be able to convince her to get on here to write about her little adventures herself.

While she was out, she also tried to get a charger for my camera battery at what looked like the local camera store, but they were unable to provide one, so I don’t know what I’m going to do now.  Nikon has a shipping center near Amsterdam, so I would be highly surprised if I can’t find a dealer somewhere.  I wonder if I’ll be able to find one before they close on Friday night, so that maybe I can have a charged battery by Saturday morning.  Hrm.  I hope that works.  I’d hate to have to spend some of Saturday looking for a charger, then getting it back to the hotel room to plug it in, then only getting the battery charged for Sunday.  Ugh.  Stupid me.

Tonight, as part of the event that I’m here for, we had a social event.  After the end of our day at the hotel, they put us on buses to head for a dock on one of the canals.  At the dock, we were to board a boat that would take us into Amsterdam.  I ended up on the last bus from the hotel.  Unfortunately, about half way to the dock, one of the side view mirrors decided to fall off of the bus, so we had to pull over.  It was fixed by one of the drivers, and we pulled-out again, and it fell off about five minutes later.  Then we had to pull off yet again, and wait until it was fixed properly.  It took a while, but they finally got it fixed, and we finally got to the boat.  We were a little later than originally intended, but at least we got there.  The boat was a blast.  There was good food, odd entertainment, lots of free stuff to drink, opera singers, and plenty of time to socialize.  I wished that Jenny could have been there, because it was an awesome ride and a neat event.  I had a lot of time to spend meeting with and talking to other people, though, which was good.  Our late bus made the boat a little late pulling into the Port of Amsterdam, so were also a little late getting home.  Our buses ran into construction traffic on the one highway back to the hotel, so that made us even later.  We were supposed to pull into the hotel sometime around 22:30, but we didn’t get back until about 23:30.  Not a huge deal, but now I’m tired.

Tomorrow we need to check out of here, so we need to clean up our stuff and prepare to leave.  I am going to leave my luggage with the concierge tomorrow morning, and Jenny is going to do the same with hers later that morning.  After my event is done for the day in the afternoon, we’ll leave Noorwijk for Amsterdam.  It should be fun, I hope.

jonathan