Daytrip to Maastricht, Netherlands

July 30, 2011

My friend Mike and I drove to the Netherlands for the day, so great I can say that! Because he was an american expat he had to show off driving his mercedes on the autobahn over 100 mph. Cars were still passing us by so it wasnt that fast in the scheme of things.

Maastricht is on the southern part of the netherlands near the border of germany, only an hour drive from dudo. We started with a visit to the St.Peter's caves which was really a limestone quarry. Mike used his GPS to get us there and without realizing it it led us off the road which ended about half mile from our destination and onto a walking path! I made a comment that it was awefully narrow and we kept hoping that it would eventually widen up. Well, the opposite happened and without an obvious turnaround point. We had a steep dirt hill on one side and a drop off on the other and only a few inches in between. Panic set in when we reached end of the path and no way to turn around. SO I had to get out of the car and directed Mike as he SLOWLY backed up. OMG, disaster averted! There were a few walkers in the area who must have thought we were idiots, they weren't far off! When we parked the car by the church and walked back the way we drove, I could see tire marks on the side of the hill when the car was turning to much and was trying to climb a vertical dirt hill. I was laughing hysterically the rest of the day.

At the start of the cave tour when they told us that it was really a quarry for sandstone Mike started complaining about being ripped off because it wasnt a real cave. However, he got more impressed as we learned that it was a quarry that started in the 11th century and continued to be mined for centuries. In the end it was a labrynth of 200km with ceilings up to 30 feet. The stones were actually sawed away, one big block at a time, so that the cave walls were relatively smooth and neat. During wwII 50,000 people hid in the caves. The most impressive parts were the charcoal paintings on the walls (last picture on this blog).

The rest of the day we explored the medieval town. At one point we got lazy and did a trolley tour to get the feel of the town. I liked the cathedral but only got 5 minutes inside before they closed. We walked into a cool bookstore that was formerly an old church (2nd to last picture on this blog). There was even a small coffee shop in it. I didn't venture into any of the "coffeeshops" there were you can smoke some pot. Smelled it once in awhile though.

Stopped by the designer outlet on the way back. Bad luck but the stores were just closing. I fell in love with a burberry trench coat so Mike was generous enough to drive back the next day so I could get it. Too bad they did not have my size but I made up for it with a purse and an armani jacket! We budgeted 2 hours at the outlets including lunch because both of us needed to do some work in the afternoon. Good thing because I probably would have done a LOT of damage to my wallet. Would have been crazy if I had one of my shopping girlfriends with me. Fun weekend but back to work now, last week of the audit, can't wait to go home and see gary and ayla(maybe).

They really take their bbq parties seriously here....

July 23
Went to a bbq at WE's house. It was a mix of a summer celebration & a birthday party. For a grillmaster we had a brazilian who really knew his meats. At first pass was a whole selection of bratwurst, so good with a variation of cold salads. Then out came the beef! Over the next 5 hours gustavo put on the grill one piece of steak at a time. When a piece is done he would cut it in small slices and the group standing around the charcoal grill would take a piece with their fork. By the end of the night a smaller group of us were taking tequila shots and eating the meat with our fingers. So I have seen one extreme where my german friends are eating a hamburger with a knife and fork and now I'm seeing them eat steak with their fingers, off a cutting board. I think they do let their guards down when in a more relaxed and social environment.

By midnight it was a few of us sitting around the outside patio table. I watched in horror at the way they sop up the blood from the steak with bread. Gustavo would take a steak off the grill (by now he has moved the grill to our table so he can sit with us), cut up into slices and pass it around the table. When the empty cutting board gets back to him he would then ask each one of us "blood?" If someone says yes then he would take a piece of bread and soak it with the juice from the steak which is mostly the blood. It was a funny ritual to watch.

They really are against paperware here. Only real glasses, silverware & plates no matter how big the group. I felt bad seeing the mountain of dishes WE's wife had to do, luckily she did have a dishwasher.

Some of the group had planned to go to the carnival afterwards but I had gotten a little cold and the weather was kind of crappy so didn't want to risk getting worse. What was up with the summer weather?! It's been cold and rainy here and boy did I pack wrong! Thank goodness I thought to bring a light jacket, I've worned it everyday!

Gustavo's recipe for steak: coat either sides with coarse sea salt, or marinate in herbal butter.......have to try it when I get home.

Back in Ddorf again...

July 17, 2011

This time it's 3 weeks auditing headquarters, it's a whole different ballgame. Staying at the guesthouse that everyone hates so much. It works fine for me.

My flight got in Sunday night. I had enough time to hang up some clothes then ran to meet my friend mike for dinner in old town. We decided to go for steamed mussels so were disappointed when they weren't serving anymore that night and we had to go for the baked mussels which were covered in cheese. This dish and the schnitzel were a bit heavy for a late dinner. Afterwards we walked across the bridge to the other side of the river to check out the fair. Mike made the mistake of calling it carnival and was immediately corrected to say keramis. Carnival in this town is a serious event - basically a 3 day event of adults dressing up and drinking and partying nonstop.

This fair is a 2 week affair and stretched from one bridge to another. It's huge and full of rides, food booths, restaurants, beer garden (hey, it's germany after all), etc. I discovered that the germans are serious about their carnival rides. They are all of the barf inducing kind. It get dizzy just watching them. Most involving spinning you around and turning you over and over at top speed. Funny to hear loud american music blaring at each ride. It's nice that the whole scene is set right on the rhine river.

Our audit starts right on monday morning so no time to recover from jet lag. Oh well, I wanted to stretch out as much time home as possible.

Coming up for air.....

July 1

Hooray, it over! This was a tough audit and I had an inexperienced team. This meant do my part and also help them with their part and play the role of lead auditor. On top of it all this was a highly anticipated one with people outside of france knowing we were here and were curious with what's going on. In other words people will actually read our 45 page report :-) It was so much work, for most days we were in the office past 9pm. The day is long so I get fooled with the sunlight. Never fails that I would look at my watch and it's frickin 9! I had anticipated a difficult final discussion so I pushed the team to really know what they are talking about and made them practice with the difficult topics. They might have thought I was strange with my role playing. Bea had some controversial topics and I kept challenging her to make sure she can hold up in the meeting. The french fights really hard and you have to be tough for it.

In the end we had a good audit and got a few "well done" from the bosses in germany which made it all worthwhile. We had some interesting findings this time and I learned a lot. I will miss their french accents the most! After the last meeting Victorio told me that he appreciated me speaking slowly. Funny but I make a conscious effort to speak slowly and annunciate whenever I am in a foreign country and whenever I forget to do that, it never fails that they would ask me to repeat. We joked the other day that when I get back to AZ after my assignment I will have to relearn american english again.

2 weeks with my hubby and it's back to duesseldorf!

Guess what I ate to today...escargots!

June 28, 2001

I had a goal to order escargots at every nice restaurants we visited. They always have it on the appetizer menus. It's like chicken wings in an american restaurants, common and popular! lol! love it.

A day in Fontainebleau

I did NOT want to leave this audit without a chance to see the Fontainebleau castle about 15 miles north of the plant. Our french colleagues highly reccomended the town which is a very popular holiday destination for parisians. It's set in a huge forest area and in the old days all the french kings would come to Fontainebleau to hang and also to hunt in the forest. Hence the castle is one of the few in france that has a unique history of housing many kings throughout history.

The day was hot as hell. It was actually pleasant the 2 weeks prior but now it's about 98 with 90% humidity! I miss the dry air of phx! I was trying to explain to Bea that it can be 112 in phx and still feel nicer than 95 here! People who have not been to AZ find it hard to believe that 100 in phx is actually very nice.

Anyway, we took a break from writing the report and spent a few hours here. Definitely much more lively than the village of Nemours! Took an audio tour of the castle, the place is huge. Reminds me of versailles, very opulent. It was cool to see the bedroom of marie antoinette and the office of napoleon. They say napoleon was a workaholic and spent about 20 hours of the day working. The gardens around the castle was extensive but we did not have time to see it. There's even a small lake where you can rent rowboats.

We had a nice dinner in town. I made fun of Michael who was eating his hamburger and fries with a knife and fork - so german! Again, they didn't want anything to do with my snails.

Cafeteria food - it's gourmet food here in france!

June 25, 2011

It's not typical food in the cantine at the cafe! For lunch there's a whole spread of food that's as good as any fancy restaurant in the states. Fresh french bread, big selection of fresh local cheeses (we are in the regional of brie cheese, yum!), all kinds of cold appetizers in little cute plates, sinful looking desserts, fresh yogurts, tarts. After all this you then get to the entrees (yikes) and they usually have a 3 selections of meat and fish with different sauces. The cook is named Martine and she makes everything herself. The food is so great and I loved her sauces. Lunch is not a 15 minute rush here. I didn't see any sandwich selections in case you wanted a quick lunch. You eat your big meal and once everyone at your table is done eating someone will say "coffee?", then they bring a tray of little cups filled with some strong coffee. Michael loves the dessert here so he had a personal goal to try every dessert selection in the fridge before we leave.

One day we all had some fresh cherries (they look like the bing cherries, light in color) because they were picked from the chef's garden!