Soccer, Traveling, and Back With Nandus

Since I last posted, I have been to some different parts of the country, back to Utrecht, and Nandus has arrived home.  I have visited another hospital, and I have now seen a total of 3 soccer games.  It has been busy and I haven't really had much time to write.  I will try to give the abridged version of the past few days.

Thursday I spent some time looking at some other communities that are nearby.  I went up to Hilversum and in between.  Hilversum is the main TV production area of the country (i.e. Hollywood/LA of the Netherlands).  It was fine, but didn't really seem quite right for what we have been looking for.  That night, I went to the UEFA Cup qualifier match (round 3 or 4 I think) between FC Utrecht and Luzerne of Switzerland.  It was a good game, and Utrecht won 1-0.  They play in Switzerland Thursday for the second half of the home and home with aggregate scoring.

Friday I decided to try another part of the country.  I wondered if the prices would be cheaper in the North.  Groningen is a big university town that has an academic medical center.  I thought this would be a good place to explore.  It is about 2+ hours north of where I am, and is close to the Danish border.

The town is ok.  It is about 180,000 people.  The medical center was very nice.  It didn't look like much from the outside, but once you enter it is pretty incredible.  I was told by Jan that it is one of only a couple of major medical centers that sit within the heart of the city.  Most are outside of cities (like UMC).  In addition, they were able to do a bunch of upgrades to modernize much of the hospital.

After coming back from Groningen, I ate dinner in Utrecht.  I saw my favorite Gelato stand was back, and I saw some amazing street peformances.

Saturday I picked up a couple of things for the kids.  After that, I noticed that this was the date for the Dutch Super Cup, or Johan Crijff Schaal.  This is the game between the winners of the Dutch Cup (open competition with every single club in the Netherlands), Ajax, and the winners of the Eridivisie League, FC Twente.  Imagine that Ajax is the New York Yankees.  Most of the country hates them, but they have the biggest players (Suarez, Stekelenburg, Van der Wiel, etc).  I just went to the stadium to see if I could get a ticket, but I was told there are no tickets for sale, and that scalping is illegal.  Luckily, as I was talking to the police, a man walked by and said he had a ticket for me.  The police turned the other way, and my new friend Pieter took me to the game with his 18 year old son and girlfriend.  He gave me a cheap price too.

The Amsterdam ArenA was amazing.  Very nice facility with retractable roof.  They had the roof open for the game, but there was just a light sprinkle.  The atmosphere was great.  There was a a big rivalry and lots of activity in the stands.  A couple of examples are here, here, and here.

After a horrible mistake by Stekelenburg, FC Twente scored.  Luckily, this was the team I was supporting.  I don't think I could ever support Ajax, so it was a stroke of luck that I found Pieter.  Not only did he have a ticket for me, but he was sitting in the Twente section.  They only made up about 20 percent of the crowd.  Suarez (Argentina World Cup player) got a red card for a dangerous tackle.  Twente held on for the win at 1-0.  The team then made a nice gesture to the fans as you can see here.  They spent a lot of time with people from the foundation too (think the Shriners kids).  It was a lucky night to get a ticket, and nice that I got to see the team I was supporting win.  Too bad for Ajax.

After the game I went home.  It was a bit of a cattle car on the train, but not so bad.

Sunday I had a bit of time to kill.  Not too much is open on Sunday so I went back to Utrecht to get some final things for the kids.  Nandus was returning from Czech Republic today, so we made a plan to meet in Utrecht for dinner.  Of course this gave me some time, so I decided that I might as well catch the last soccer game while I am here.  Utrecht was playing a friendly against Mallorca of Spain.

As you can tell, my seats were ridiculous, once again.  This time I was sitting in the front row, right at midfield.  Many of the reserves played, but the goalie for Utrecht is one of the Dutch National team goalies and he was amazing.  I was pretty much right at the heart of the action, and very close.  I think you can tell by looking here.  Utrecht made a couple of very good goals and won the game 2-0.  This makes my combined record for viewing soccer 4-0 for the teams I have supported.  I am thinking they should just pay me to come to their games if they want a victory.

After the game, I met Nandus for dinner.  We went to an Indian restaurant in Utrecht.  I can't say I am an Indian food fan, but it was pretty good.  We ended up getting some gelato over by his old house.  This was located by the old hand operated locks that remain in the Oudegracht.

It was good to see Nandus again.  We started right where we left off last time.  He told me about his trip to Italy and to the Czech Republic (his wife is from there and is there for another 2 weeks).  He mentioned that he drove 800km in under 6 hours (5'59 to be exact), counting stops.  For two hours straight he drove 190 km/h.  To use his words, "there is nothing like a good German car on good German roads without anyone in sight".  He also was telling me about the political issues that are going on here.  They are in a deadlock with their voting.  You have to win the vote, but also have >50% to take control.  Right now, the majority party is less than 50%, so they have to lobby with other parties to get them to give their 'allegiance' of sorts to get into the majority.  There are about 7 - 10 parties that are significant, so it is a bit confusing.  Words like left, right, liberal, progressive, and conservative don't necessarily mean the same here as they do in the USA.  In fact, it seems like left is right and right is left in some cases.  But, Nandus had me take this online quiz just out of curiosity to see where I would fit in the Dutch landscape.  I have a disclaimer that I can't relate to the context of some of the questions as they don't apply to the US world I live in.  So I had to pretend that I lived here to answer some of them.  When it was all said and done, the quiz said I should be VVD, and then D66 for my parties.  Go Mark Rutte!!!  I guess?  Or Alexander Pechtold???  Whatever.

Monday I was trying to get set up back in Zutphen.  Nandus is off today, so the hope was that he would be able to come with me to look at houses.  Unfortunately, the houses weren't able to be viewed.  So I will be heading back to Zutphen on Wednesday to see three more places.  One of the other nice things today was that Jan, Sandra and the kids returned from their holiday in the south of France.  They drove all night to get here, so I have only had the chance to speak with Jan.  It was nice to compare some notes with him.  I plan on having dinner with them this week and I hope to get to spend some time with Sandra and the kids too.  I am hearing that the kids still talk about LA and Las Vegas.  Big surprise.  Jan says that he asked if their trip this year was as fun as their US trip last year.  They all agreed that the US was better.  We might find ourselves with some exchange students yet.

For now, Nandus is going to play some tennis.  I backed out this year, but I think I am going to go watch some.  We will probably have a nice dinner tonight, then back to UMC most likely to do some more lectures tomorrow.

Until then, check out my favorite street performers here.  You can also look at the flickr pictures at www.flickr.com/ermd2000.  This is the easy way to get there.  Just look through the top pictures or go to the Netherlands 2010 set.

Until next time,

HTN

Speaking at UMC

Today was the day that I gave the first of my talks at UMC Hospital in Utrecht.  There is a two week conference there right now with people attending from all over the world.  Week 1 is about international emergency medicine, and week two is about quality and patient safety.  In the photo above are the following people from R to L:  Terry Mulligan is an American that works at UMC and has been helping the Netherlands advance emergency medicine as a specialty.  Next to him is Jim Holliman.  He is very experienced in emergency medicine and is well known around the world.  He comes from Penn State, but works all over in various roles.  He just came from doing some military work and has done much in Afghanistan, Qatar, Oman, and other nice places.  Jenny Saltzberg is across from Jim.  She is one of the other faculty Terry brought in with his Baltimore ties.  Her partner Pablo is sitting next to me.  This picture is of us eating dinner after our conference.  We had a nice Thai dinner next to the canal.  This is right next to the place we ate last year called Il Pozzo.  There aren't many better things than eating on the canal like this.

Admittedly, I am not the world's expert on international emergency medicine.  My role today was to talk about how to run a department, or department management.  I basically gave a powerpoint talk related to the new Riverbend ED.  This included the difficulties we faced, the way that we tried to objectively study them, and the methods we use to measure data and try to change process.  There was a bunch more, but it is boring to try and type this all in.  There were about 35 people in the course from all over the world.  The places I remember were Australia, Netherlands, Switzerland, India, Ghana, Oman, and even the USA.  I think that next week I will be doing a couple more talks about safety, quality, etc.  It was nice to meet these people and I enjoyed learning from the other faculty.  They had some good insights, and I was able to pick their brains about things here in the Netherlands, as well as things I think apply to our department in Eugene.

After the talk, we all had a beer at the hotel that Jim, Jenny, and Pablo were staying.  It was very nice.  They had a nice courtyard and this was only about 400m from the central train station.  After we chatted awhile, we went to dinner.

It was a long day, but it was nice to meet some new people and learn more about the Dutch system.  We didn't have time to go see the department, so I am hoping to do that next week when I head back to do some more lectures.

That's all for today.  Until next time...

HTN

The Second Going

After a year, Heather and I started to consider a way to get back to the Netherlands. However, this time we were having much grander plans. We have been trying to figure out a way to buy a piece of property in the Netherlands. We have been keeping our eye on things from afar with the internet. Technology is great when you can view all of the houses from 6000 miles away. But, as nice as that is, you still have to see it in person. So, at the last second, things fell into place. I was able to get a ticket using miles, Nandus offered his house and his wife's car while they are away in Czech Republic, and I was able to set up some time to go to Utrecht Medical Center (the University hospital). I will be doing some talks about American emergency medicine, patient safety, quality improvement, and whatever else comes up.

As of today, I have now visited 2 1/2 properties. If I could combine them (and get the lowest cost) I would be sold right now. Unfortunately, each one has just enough of a problem that I don't know that they will work. I have a couple of agents I am working with, and I think we might hire one as a buying agent.  After I was done looking at properties, I went by my grandfather's gravesite and my dad's old house.  The one across the street is for sale if any Notenboom wants to really get back to their roots.

It is nice to be back though.  I have already hit some of the old favorites (Vatican, Jonck Vrouw, Vlaamse Frites) but I have a few more to go.  Things have been very easy otherwise.  I seem to understand the Dutch better and I know my way around (literally and figuratively).

I did have some problems at the airport to start (missing luggage for an hour, credit card not working as AMEX was worried about fraud, and phone not working).  Two of the three were taken care of in advance, but still seemed to fail.  It wasn't that big of a deal as it all resolved without too much incident.

Tomorrow will be my first lecture day at UMC.  Then for the next 2 or 3 days I think I will do some more scouting by train.  I want to see if there are any other diamonds in the rough like Zutphen.  I think I will focus around Utrecht on the first day, then head up to the very north of the country.  I haven't done that yet, and it really isn't too much farther from the airport.  Maybe it is cheaper?

I will leave you with a picture from each of the places I saw today.

Maybe some ED pictures from UMC tomorrow.  Not sure if I will be in that part or not.

HTN

Day 33 - Sadness

Well, this will be our last post before we get home. There is so much to reflect on that I don't think I can probably do it justice in one post. I think I will save that for once we are back in our own home. But, needless to say, the experience was everything we hoped for and more. We saw amazing sights, went to amazing places, ate great food, met new friends, and most importantly tried to be a part of this place for the short time that we were here.

Of course, we have to thank the Smelik's for doing the exchange with us. We hope that their experience was similar to ours. I think that we have lifetime friends and I am sure that we will keep in close touch. The paradox of the home exchange is that you feel that you get to know the people you exchange with, but you don't get the opportunity to spend time together. I hope that we can change that in the future.

But, enough reflecting. A quick recap of our last day....

For the last full day, we had lots to do. We had to pack, clean, and do all of the chores. However, we still tried to squeeze in any opportunity to do something new. We started by going to the pancake house near the train station (it opens much earlier than the others). We had our last fill of pancakes and kip nuggets.

We are located near the headquarters of the WWF. Not Hulk Hogan, but the World Wildlife Fund. We figured that the kids would want to at least see the building. It's quite unique. I went inside, but the only thing they have for a tourist is a small shop that sells stuffed animals. Clearly, we already have enough of these at home that we didn't need to haul any more on the plane with us.



We didn't stay for long. We drove to the pyramid...the same one that we have been in the past. This time, it was open. Normally we had been there in the evenings when the tower wasn't open to climb. Today we finally made it to the top. You can see as far as you can see...Austerlitz is only 2km away in this picture, but the forest is so dense you can't even see it...



I tried to take a couple of pictures of the cities. I think the easiest thing to see is the Dom Tower in Utrecht. It is in the right/center of the pictures. As the crow flies, Amsterdam isn't too far (43km), and Rotterdam is about 60ish km. I think there is an ordinance in Utrecht that says no buildings can be higher than the Dom Tower, though this is apparently being challenged right now. Click on the picture to see a larger version. I think you can pick out the detail a bit better.





It was nice to finally get to see it up close. The climb is fairly steep. In the past, there were no stairs. You just climbed the grass 'steps' to the top. Erosion made this unsafe, and for awhile you weren't allowed to climb it at all.







We were glad that we finally made the trip to the top. Riding our bikes here made for a nice trip a few different times, but climbing the pyramid completed it.

On our way out, there was an airplane that started doing loops, rolls, and stalls right above the pyramid.

When we got home, there were some more chores to be done...recycling, mowing, more cleaning. We also spoke for some time with Nandus. We gave him a quick consultation on his painting project (read Heather, not me). Heather has also cemented a place in the heart of Nandus. Earlier today, he came to our door very excited and asking for help. Turns out he had a spider living inside a lamp. The spider looked very similar to the one in Zoe's shoe. Nandus said that the last time this happened, he had to call two different neighbors to help him get the spider out of his house. Today, Heather did the job for him. As you might be able to tell, Nandus hates spiders. They make the hair on his arm stand up...literally...I saw it. So Heather vanquished the spider and set him free...far from Nandus' house.

After some more chatting, we made sure to get a new picture with my new friend Nandus. It's too bad his children were on holiday. They are very close in age to ours and would have had a great time I think.



So back to packing and more procrastinating. Our next post will be from the USA. Again, I don't I can thank all of the people that helped us (my family here in the Netherlands, in Washington, and at home, Heather's parents, the Smeliks, Nandus, Cece and Marc, Care'e....the list goes on and I am sure I am going to forget people. I am thankful that I was able to arrange this with work too. It's been a life changing experience and I hope to try it all again someday.

Until the USA....

HTN

Day 32 - Utrecht...Getting close to home...

Today we headed back to Utrecht for what will proabably be the last time for this trip. The girls all wore some new dresses and decided to pose for a quick picture before we left. We needed to tie up a couple of loose ends and run some errands while we were there.

We took the train from Driebergen Zeist station...finally got one of the ICE trains passing through town on video. for once.

One we got to Utrecht, we had some lunch. I ended up getting some shoarma at a place I have been eyeing the entire trip. It was pretty good. Heather was going to get a new purse. In Paris I spilled something on her current purse, so we have been saying I owe her a new one. After weeks of looking at the same purse, she didn't pull the trigger though.

After walking around a bit more, the big girls and I decided to do a water bike through the canals. We went through the Oudegracht (old canal) similar to the tour boat, but then traveled the entire Nieuwegracht (new canal). This is a very small canal that can't have motorized boats. It is a beautiful and very quiet part of the city. We got to see lots of cool things on this part. New is also a relative term since this canal was completed in 1393.

We got a clsoer look at some of the carvings...like the Smeebrug and the 7 virtues...





We entered the new canal...



It had many beautiful bridges and sights to be seen...









It's funny how you come around a corner and you are looking right in someone's back door. They have a toy sailboat and a cat to make it look extra quaint...





Another nice back porch...



There is more than just the Domkerk in Utrecht...



If you get hungry or thirsty along the way, just pull your boat up to the cafe take out window. You can get a brownie, sandwich, some drinks, or perhaps a scone...



We also learned more about the carvings along the canal walls. In addition to marking things like the blacksmith (Smeebrug), there are depictions of the seven virtues (faith, hope, love, wisdom/prudence, justice, soberness, and courage), the seven vices (slowness, rage, jealousy, lust, greed, pride and avarice), and carving of the various guilds in Utrecht. Here is one for the tobacco sellers. I have more pictures of these on the flickr pages too...



We finally floated back into the Oudegracht and to some familiar waters. The cafes on the canal were starting to fill up. I love these spots...



We found Heather, Will and Lena waiting for us to pass by on a bridge. They gave us a good welcome (video)....



After we left our canal bike, we headed up to the flower market. There are lots of great pictures to take at the flower market...











While we were there, we bought some sunflowers...



Now we just had to get them home...





They are heavier than they look if anyone is wondering...



Back to the train station and we were homeward bound...



We had a great day, and needless to say, we love Utrecht. Both Heather and I still feel like we have some unfinished business here and are resolved to return at some point. It was sad to leave knowing that are trip is coming to an end, but I feel like we will be back here some day...hopefully soon.

When we finally made it back to Austerlitz, we had to hustle. We arranged to make dinner for Nandus, and he requested something American. Hamburgers, corn on the cob, and chips...can't beat that. We had a nice dinner with Nandus, and then he was off to play tennis. I got a bye tonight...which is good since I definitely got my exercise in with the canal bike. I think Nandus has some plans for me to help him do some moving tomorrow. We will probably try to make it to the pyramid and climb it before we leave too. One more trip to the pancake house, some packing, and we will be homeward bound. The girls say that they are excited to get home to see the pets and some of their friends, but they also say that they don't really want to leave either. They would like to have their cake and eat it too...



Until tomorrow...As usual, go to the flickr site and there are many more pictures...

HTN