I've just moved to Amsterdam and its been a couple of days here. This is from my first email to my friends back in India.
I'm just settling here. Work has just began here; the dev guy who is to train me has been keeping really busy due to upcoming release and some sessions with the traders. From tomorrow, I will be sitting with the integrator who sits on the trading floor. I have been told that IT people avoid going to the trading floor, because the traders are always after the IT guys for bugs and feature requests. Its like Saurabh Chandna trying to avoid coming to 5th floor if something or the other keeps now and then. Maybe the guy was exaggerating; I guess I'll soon find out.
Amsterdam is a nice place. Its expensive; apart from dairy products, potatoes and perhaps wheat, they import almost everything. I just bought tomatoes from Albert Heijn (pronounced Haain, the j being silent or sounding as a y, AH is to supermarkets what Xerox is to photocopy). Costs 1 Eur 35 cents for 700 grams. At any store, they charge you for the plastic thailas also. Usually 20 cents for a plastic bag.At the same time, some things are cheap. Like I also bought 450 grams peas for 52 cents. Thats like 30 rupees. Safal sells 200 grams for 20 rupees. Again, the prices vary from store to store and from brand to brand. Like for corn. There were two varieties. One was some brand, the other was AH in-house brand. The price for AH brand was half that of the other.
Enough of money related stuff. Amsterdam has its own charm; its old, has a history and has been kept like that. The houses you see in photos of Amsterdam only look like 17th century houses; inside you will find double glazed windows, latest floor heating, dishwashers and what not. Some even have a swimming pool in them. They have just retained the exterior look. There are other cities that have their own history. The history of Utrecht, for example, dates back to like 33 AD.
This weekend, my brother was visiting me from the US. Monday was off and he took Friday off. We rented a car and went to Rotterdam. Amazing place! Its a port city so has lots of lovely buildings by the mass river. I'll upload pictures on Orkut. We climbed up to the Euromast (
www.euromast.nl). It was really windy, to the extent that sometimes we had to struggle to
stay on two feet. But the view of the city was great, albeit visibility was low. I plan to repeat the experience in summer sometime.
House hunt is on. Its difficult to find the right house at the right place in the right price, but I am trying. Fingers crossed.
I'm just settling here. Work has just began here; the dev guy who is to train me has been keeping really busy due to upcoming release and some sessions with the traders. From tomorrow, I will be sitting with the integrator who sits on the trading floor. I have been told that IT people avoid going to the trading floor, because the traders are always after the IT guys for bugs and feature requests. Its like Saurabh Chandna trying to avoid coming to 5th floor if something or the other keeps now and then. Maybe the guy was exaggerating; I guess I'll soon find out.
Amsterdam is a nice place. Its expensive; apart from dairy products, potatoes and perhaps wheat, they import almost everything. I just bought tomatoes from Albert Heijn (pronounced Haain, the j being silent or sounding as a y, AH is to supermarkets what Xerox is to photocopy). Costs 1 Eur 35 cents for 700 grams. At any store, they charge you for the plastic thailas also. Usually 20 cents for a plastic bag.At the same time, some things are cheap. Like I also bought 450 grams peas for 52 cents. Thats like 30 rupees. Safal sells 200 grams for 20 rupees. Again, the prices vary from store to store and from brand to brand. Like for corn. There were two varieties. One was some brand, the other was AH in-house brand. The price for AH brand was half that of the other.
Enough of money related stuff. Amsterdam has its own charm; its old, has a history and has been kept like that. The houses you see in photos of Amsterdam only look like 17th century houses; inside you will find double glazed windows, latest floor heating, dishwashers and what not. Some even have a swimming pool in them. They have just retained the exterior look. There are other cities that have their own history. The history of Utrecht, for example, dates back to like 33 AD.
This weekend, my brother was visiting me from the US. Monday was off and he took Friday off. We rented a car and went to Rotterdam. Amazing place! Its a port city so has lots of lovely buildings by the mass river. I'll upload pictures on Orkut. We climbed up to the Euromast (
www.euromast.nl). It was really windy, to the extent that sometimes we had to struggle to
stay on two feet. But the view of the city was great, albeit visibility was low. I plan to repeat the experience in summer sometime.
House hunt is on. Its difficult to find the right house at the right place in the right price, but I am trying. Fingers crossed.
Comments
Its 7:06 AM here. Diff is 4.5 hrs now, might be 3.5 in summers.
If that 'Hi guys' wasn't there by you, I would have been totally convinced that you intended to write this stuff for you blog ;-). But really nice to see such an email, it gives a first hand experiance of your experiances.
You can guess why I am late in replying to your e-mail ... the usual work at 5th floor and my own self-made busy personal life. But this busy life has its own fun also, now just looking for something different. Somewhere I get a feeling that time is running out of my hand and there is so much still to do.
Vaise its nice to see that you are settling down slowly in this new place with a new life. Knowing the fine details of vegetable prices is a good sign for that. Do send the pics ... especially of the big vessel that Dutch people have created to avoid any floodings in their area. I am quite impressed with it since the time i have seen it on discovery.
All the best for your house hunting.