Tag: netherlands

dear people,

if you have to pick a time of the year to come around, do it on the 30th april. spring is well settled in, lots of flowers to look at and then boom! queen’s day. it was celebrated last saturday (hence on the 29th, because sunday is not a very good day to party – everybody know that) and was great – lots of people in the streets dressed in orange, concerts in the city’s main square, and the best of all, the free market. imagine all kinds of people selling all kinds of stuff in the streets. from kids to grown-ups, from junk to amazing treasures, food, drinks or just playing music. amazing! why don’t we have such a thing in portugal?!

well, me, joy, heye, nurcan, lulu and levi found a free spot on the sidewalk to lay our wallets in the beggining of the afternoon and we were imediatly flooded by curious looks and interesting comments. the boys stayed in the middle of the street, chatting and subtly diverging people towards us. the girls (from portugal, thailand, china and turkey) smiled and showed the wallets. lulu spent the afternoon trying to say “portemonnaie!” and her cute chinese accent made people laugh and approach us.

we had all kinds of costumers, from little kids (who had probably just finished selling their old toys somewhere else) to grandma’s, couples in love, crafty chicks, even mothers who would come and let all of their 5 kids choose their favourite one. we even had people coming back for more to offer to loved onesn or telling us about which milk they drink everyday, how it was such a nice idea. we made a website (www.pantominas.com) about the project and some general instructions to make wallets and we slipped it into them.

it was perfect – three hours later, only a few wallets were left from the initial 160, and we came back home tired and happy to the bones.

nurcan even got a xmas themed present from the lady selling stuff next to us, just because “we attracted so many costumers”. :D

(this last picture was taken by a dutch guy :| a very tall specimen.)

Post author By ana
Post date May 3, 2006
No Comments on dear people,

in the netherlands

anjierrevolutie

yesterday was 25th of april, the freedom day in portugal, the day we regained independence from a ditactorship, through an almost bloodless revolution – the carnation revolution, called “revolução dos cravos” in portuguese, or “anjierrevolutie”, in dutch.

i wanted to celebrate, i wanted to make it memorable, so i came early to work and put a red carnation on each table of my department along with an explanation of the day. what for? i hoped i could enlighten people here on portugal’s history a little bit. give them a taste of what has been going on in my little sunny southern country, beyond the yearly forest fires that make it to dutch paper’s frontpages.
or at least, maybe a flower could just brighten up someone’s day. it was worth the shot.

well, i got huge feedback, both through emails and personal thanking. i was surprised to find out that some people even remembered the day because they had heard about it on the radio, 32 years ago. they remembered salazar, spínola, mário soares… and i learnt that yesterday was the day to remember the southern moluccas people, as well. south moluccas are a part of indonesia, a former colony of the netherlands, which tried to state their own repulic on this day, in 1950, but were re-integrated in indonesia later that year. the netherlands withdrew their support to the south moluccas after a series of terror attacks related to their subsequent attempts to gain independence (more about south moluccas here).

i’m happy to see that today, one day after, everybody still keeps their red carnations on their tables, in little white plastic cups.
it feels good to know that at least 60 people remembered the day here, that maybe they even told something to their wifes or kids in the evening. that it wasn’t just another day :)

viva a revolução!

in the netherlands

guerrila style

the queen’s day is a big holiday in holland, with many parties and activities. it’s the day to celebrate the dutch pride: they dress up in orange and wander around town, having fun.
one of the activities going on is the “free market”, where anyone can sell anything they’d like on the streets.

now, everybody has always said to me i should try to sell those little wallets i make out of milk/juice cartons, but i never really did because i thought it was unfair. i’ve learnt it from rosa, which learnt it from someone else, and though there’s not really a patent on these things, it just doesn’t sound right.

what changed? well, not much i suppose. but me and joy, we just thought we could give it a go and sell them this one time, since it is actually legal on that day. for whatever (though always low) amount we charge, people get a tetrapack wallet and a recycling lesson to teach their kids. we have some neat ideas to make them unique and special, and we think it’s worth the shot.

in the end, we plan to buy something for everybody in the floor – they’re all very commited in helping it work. that’s what i like in these people. you set something up and all of a sudden you’re surrounded with enthusiasm and helping hands.
i love you all!

anyway, phase one is now set: we’ve drawn and painted some papers to spread on the 13 kitchens on this building, hoping that people will help us collect as many cartons as we can. wish us luck!

ps – i drawed the cows, joy, heye and levi painted them and joy took the picture. :)

update: in the first day, i gathered more 14 cartons, all around the building! :D plus one this morning. this is going to be fun!

in the netherlands

random paperwork

* today i got to work under a snowstorm that lasted for 15 minutes. snow in april? yes, i wouldnt believe it as well but it was true. i hadn’t put my rain trousers on, so i got all soaked. at least i brought capuccino and brazilian music today.
if i can’t have the trousers dry, at least the heart is warm ( of course now there’s hardly a cloud on the sky. )

* in the office, there’s a map on the wall that i’m facing, when i’m at my computer. it shows the netherland’s national and regional gas grid, with its pipeling accross the country, transfer stations and other bits and bytes. it also shows what is called the Groningen gas veld – the biggest gas field in the netherlands- which, you might have guessed, is sitting somewhere under my butt, miles deep down in the ground. scary? well, no. by a lucky quirk of fate, this natural underground storage has enough gas in it to keep the netherlands working (and i mean factories, homes and exports) for at least another 20 years – and that’s a lot, specially if you think it has been being explored since the 70’s.

* i secretely hope they’ll take me to the control room, deep underground, one of these days. or (even more daring) to one of their drilling platforms in the northern sea. that ought to be fun (though not very likely).
meanwhile, i was invited to the company’s birthday party, more than 2 months away. (the dutch plan with their lunch with months of advance. everything must work perfectly)
no one knows where it will be, or what will be done. a well kept secret, with the promise of dinner and party afterwards. looking forward, though slightly scared.

* i read somewhere on the wikipedia quotes that “dutch is not a language, it’s a throat disease”.
i apologise to my dutch friends, but i couldn’t agree more. it hurts to speak (amazing, i can actually say a couple of things by now!) and to hear. making out a few words per phrase is a hard exercise of concentration. today they put a poster on the wall by the koffieautomat, something about a workshop by the ict department. due to the high concentration of technical words (which for me are much easier that the others), i could actually make out what it was about. another victory against the forces of evil!

* it’s been a month i’m working here now. yay to me. i survived the indifference, the unberable language wall, the age gap. i also survived the amount of new information and methods, vb code produced by a non-programmer and windows.
you gotta have a sense of humour, i’ve learned, and you definitely have to have the nerve to make a lot of questions and fuel as many conversations as you can. it doesn’t matter that everybody speaks english – most of the time it’s just too troublesome for them to bother. i can tell they have never been in my shoes.

* last sunday there was an openday in the company, and we were encouraged to bring friends and family to see a photoexhibition they have on the ground floor. it was rather nice. first of all, because i got to show part of my workplace (and i’ve always liked to peek at people’s work place) to my friends, and they got an oportunity to enter the building without having to show their id or other burocracy.
and then, by the exhibition itself. it’s about “golden oldies”, and the beauty in the 3rd age. a lot of wrinkled closeups and old madonna’s statues mixed with funny one person sequences (from waking up to ready-to-go). some rather unexpected works involving not-so-dressed grannies. :| that must have been fun to shoot.

in the netherlands

i’m working on it.

goed goed goed.
this blog has been suffering from severe lack of inspiration. i have a few things i want to blog about, but when the end of the day comes, i can’t seem to find my way in my own keyboard (the one at work has a dutch layout, and i have to use the windows shortcuts all day)… so i either sleep, fix bugs on webpages or recover a bit of my social life.

when the weekend comes, it all changes. i miss my “publico and a café” ritual a lot, but i found an equally thrilling replacement for it: the saturday market, in vismarkt. the purple bright aubergines, the goat cheese with herbs and garlic, the kipananas schnitzel, the freshly baked bread, the “twee kilo banaan!” shouted across the street… everytime i find something new and i stuff it in my bike’s basket (by the way, i finally fixed the brakes this week!).
and on my way home i stop for some tulips or daffodils…

so now the fridge is full of healthy colorful things and my batteries and patience are recharged.
i’m working on new stuff and on new posts to schedule throughout the week.

(the photo is from g., which is now working in a’dam. he has a new camera and likes to bring it around to groningen on weekends. it’s pretty neat and he’s a cool photographer, so don’t forget to check the rest of his flickr gallery.)