Netherlands .. The Journey Begins ..

As some of you may have known by now, I have been sent to the Netherlands to work for 3 weeks. I must admit there is an equal amount of mixed feelings in me .. but as days went by, things ended up pretty good. I have learnt soo much in the past 12 days. Here are a few things worth mentioning:

1. Holland is NOT the name of this country. The actual name of the country is The Netherlands. The Netherlands is the ‘‘European Part” of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which consists of The Netherlands, the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba in the Caribbean (which means these three countries forms the Kingdom of Netherlands … two countries in Europe and one in the Caribbean)

2. There is no such thing as Dutch language .. people here aren’t known as Dutch ... it has nothing to do with Netherlands! Surprise surprise. Here’s something from wikipedia :

Netherlands (terminology)

The Netherlands is known under various terms both in English and other languages. These are used to describe the different overlapping geographical, linguistic and political areas of the Netherlands. This is often a source of confusion for people from other parts of the world. In English the country is called ‘the Netherlands’ (or frequently ‘Holland’), while the people and the language are called ‘Dutch’. Note that in Dutch the official (and predominant) terms for these are ‘Nederland’ for the country, ‘Nederlanders’ for the people and ‘Nederlands’ for the language, although they are occasionally (colloquially) called ‘Holland’, ‘Hollanders’ and ‘Hollands’ respectively.

3. If you think you can do hell over amount of shopping here, think again. Most shops closes at 6pm daily, except Thursday (this will be the next point), and maybe weekends. So by the time u get your ass back from work, don’t even think of heading some place to buy that pretty blouse cause there wont be any soul selling em that time!

4. I finally think I understand the reason why Thursday is known as ladies night aka party night. Most companies in EU and America (from the ones I know) have an option not to work on some alternate Fridays. Its like you work an extra hour everyday so that you can take alternate Friday’s off. So what happens on that Thursday night? party all night long.. cause they know they can afford to get a hangover the next day. But some country (ahem Malaysia) adopted this Thursday night thingy and made a hype about it .. so the guys and gals party their butt out on Thursday only to realize .... ‘‘crap I work on Fridays!!’’ ... Malaysia boleh!

Bla bla bla .. soo much to tell but I am sleepy now. Will catch up soon tomorrow, cause I know I have much to tell about this NL trip, especially what happened on Monday ... hehe