Europe: Eindhoven/Best, Netherlands (Jan 20 - Jan 25)

January 20th, 2013:

Ahh. It felt good to be back in Eindhoven, knowing I could unpack my suitcase and not have to repack until we left for good.

When we got back to the hotel, Wesley and I went on an adventure to find the giant bowling bins that a colleague of ours from Invivo had visited on a previous trip to the NL. We found them, took some pics, and took some time to play in the snow. I swear I had heard from someone that bowling was invented in the NL, which I found out in an embarrassing conversation with a Dutch man that it was not. Turns out it was in Great Britain.

 My snow angel, which was referred to as a snow "butterfly".

 We found a hill on the side of the road we crawled up and slid down.

On the walk back to the hotel, we stopped so I could put a little snow graffiti on one of the bricks walls:

I sent that picture to Jamie, and ironically enough was lucky to catch him on communicator at work when I got back to the hotel. He's probably going to kill me for posting this, but I was so excited to see his face live! :)

It was time for bed shortly after this since we had to have another solid week at work.

January 21st, 2013:

Monday. If Monday's didn't feel long enough already, I do remember working very late this day.

A few of us stopped at this cool bar that night that had a car inside of it that you could sit at. We didn't sit at it, but it reminded me of Ron Weasley's car in the Harry Potter movies.

January 22nd, 2013:

I am still trying to take at least one photo a day, so for this day I only have two photo to choose from. We stopped at the local Albert Heijn which is like our Publix. Some of the things that caught my eye were these bags of Basterd Sugar and bag of Tijger Nootjes (Tiger Nuts) . Funny names.

January 23rd, 2013:

So I guess every month, the production personnel who have birthdays that month get together and chip in to  buy pies and share with the rest of their colleagues. We were invited to participate with them. There happened to be 5 birthdays for the month of January, so they all sat at a table together to eat pie. Everyone who goes to enjoy the pie with them shakes the hand of everyone at the table and wishes them a happy birthday. It was a neat experience and we all enjoyed the pies they shared!

That night, a couple of us hopped the border and ate dinner in Belgium since it's so close, and just to say we did. It was my kind of place since it had a giant cowboy boot in the middle of the floor.

January 24th, 2013:

Only two days left of work at Best. Time had really flown by for me at this point.

Here is a photo of me and Koen (pronounced Coon), one of the trainers.

 Videoing the process:

Koen:

 Hans and Koen

 Invivo Crew:

Another shot of me outside of one of the Philips buildings:

This is the day our boss left Eindhoven to go back to Schiphol since he was flying out the next day, which also meant our access to a rental car was gone. Lucky for us, our new friend Chris offered to drive us back to the hotel so we didn't have to catch a bus and train to get home.

Later that night, we did a little last minute sight seeings since it was going to be our last night in Eindhoven. We decided we would check out in the morning and travel back to Schiphol Airport Friday evening since our flight was on Saturday I was able to get a photo of a cool shooting star looking light that we passed by everyday. After all, Philips lighting is very prevalent.

January 25th, 2013:

Last day of work at Best.

We definitely made sure to take some time to get photos with the people we had gotten to know over the past two weeks. It was hard to say good-bye because each person was so unique and sweet in their own ways.

 

I'm hoping to stay in contact as long as I can. They always have a place to stay at in Gainesville if they ever come over my way!

Eventually it was time to go, so we grabbed a couple of group photos of the Invivo crew on the way out as well.

And then it was seriously time to drive away. (Thanks again, Chris!)
These are our sad "we're leaving" faces:

We actually had a sweet ride home. The song "Bitch" came on (which is the same song I sang karaoke to in Belgium), so we all belted it out as I took a small video of it. :) Good times!

Once we got back to the hotel, we gathered our luggage from the room behind the hotel front desk and headed north back to Schiphol Airport via the train.