The Netherlands With Office

Zanse Schans near Amsterdam. A touristy spot for windmills.

In August 2017 I visited The Netherlands for three days on an office junket. Two days in Amsterdam and a day in The Hague. This trip, though extremely short, is special to me because this was my first visit to Europe. I have been to Australia and the United States but never to Europe. 

I am calling this a junket, a word borrowed from the world of journalism, to describe a trip where all expenses are paid for by a company and though there is an alibi of some official work, the real purpose of such trips is pleasure and holiday. Here the official reason was a dealer conference which was held at The Hague. More than 1500 dealers went and we were a 200-strong contingent of office colleagues. I have no clue why I was nominated. I guess it was the magnanimity of my MD & CEO who possibly nominated me. 

From Calcutta we flew first to Dubai by an Emirates flight. Although I was one of the first to reach the check in area, I ended up being one of the last at the counter because I had reached too early and didn't know where to stand. Inevitably I stood at the wrong place and when the line actually started I became one of the last. :-) Anyway, I reasoned that no matter who checks in first and who checks in last, we are all going to fly together at the same time. 

I got an aisle side seat. Next was my visit to the immigration counter. These days you don't need to fill up any forms any more. You put your finger on a machine, look at another machine with your spects off and the immigration officer puts a stamp on your passport. 

Next stop was security check and they have thankfully discontinued the custom of stamping your tag on the hand baggage. I had the Deuter 26 as my hand bag with my camera in it and the Dell laptop in its bag. I switched off the data on my mobile right after take off. In the plane one does get access to free internet, which I used. It's for two hours and ten MB data that you can use - whichever comes first. After that one has to pay for staying connected. 

At Dubai we didn't have too much time at our disposal. Had to go through a brief security screening and boarded the connecting flight to Dusseldorf. Yes, we were going to enter Amsterdam through Dusseldorf in Germany, which is about 3/4 hours by road. The Dusseldorf airport is a small one but with very strong free internet. Spoke to Monisha in India and Sophie/Sujoy in Germany. Completed the immigration process quickly. The lady didn't ask anything. It took a long time for my luggage to arrive, perhaps one of the last ones. 

Two buses were waiting outside the airport for us. Large luxury buses. Though it was late in the evening local time, like 10 pm or so, there was enough light in the sky. In Calcutta that would be like 6 pm light on a summer day. The buses took us to the centre of Dusseldorf city to a small Indian restaurant called Mayur. There was hardly any traffic or pedestrian on the roads. It was totally empty. Dusseldorf is really a small city. And it felt like we were in a dead city with not a soul in sight anywhere.

At Mayur we had a typical Indian dinner with rice, chicken masala curry and daal etc. It is run by an Indian family. Two guys and a woman. Possibly Punjabis. Food wasn't so bad. I heard one of the dealers later saying, "while away from home we must taste the local cuisine. One can get bhat-dal-chicken at home every day." I quite agreed with him mentally. 

In the bus, as in the plane also, Surajit, Jawhar Sengupta and I were together. After dinner the long drive to Amsterdam started. The long day was gradually coming to an end. But the prospect of some eighty people checking in together in the dead of night was daunting. We finally reached hotel Movenpick and I got the room key after some struggle. Key means a card. My room was on the 19th floor.

I entered the room to a stunningly beautiful night view of the city. The hotel is right on the bank of a wide canal down which ships and other marine vessels ply. To the left of the canal is the sprawling city. All dazzling at night. Despite being so tired from a nearly 24 hour journey, I couldn't help marvel at the sight. I have never slept on 19th floor of any building.

I was under the impression that the room would be on a twin sharing basis. And waited to see who might turn up. But after about half an hour realised that no one was possibly coming. It made me very happy. Checked out the bathroom. It had a bathtub. And a very nice concave shaving mirror.

Went promptly to sleep.

Next morning I woke up to the telephone call of Surajit (on whatsapp of course) who in his enthusiasm went for a morning walk and asked me if I would be interested to join. I thanked him for the offer and went back to sleep :-)

When I finally woke up and went down for breakfast I wasn't too late. The buffet breakfast spread was pretty large. I chose grilled tomatoes, giant mushrooms, eggs, bacon etc. Some bread and butter too. There were lots of other things, including Indian puri-bhaji. I strictly avoided the Indian stuff.

After the sumptuous breakfast it was time to go out. Boarded our bus to go to Zaanse Schans. This is a very very touristy place (meaning a place meant only for tourists) a little outside the main city of Amsterdam. There are several windmills here that actually work, in the sense the arms go round and round with wind. The Netherlands is otherwise dotted with lots of windmills but they are possibly defunct now. There are cheese shops and souvenir shops. You could go to the observation decks of some of the windmills. There is even a workshop that makes wooden boots for tourists. We saw a demo of how the shoes are made.