Summary in 50 words
Lot of trees, cycle, trams, metro, bus, cars, clean city, no mud/sand, cigarette smoke , more smoke, quite law abiding people , casual and formal dressing sense(there is no semi casual dressing .If u find a guy in non-white shirt and jeans, there are 85% chance that he is a desi and 99% chance he is a software guy(remember conditional probability ))
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I once saw a lady riding a cycle. She stops at the start of an intersection, opens a big pouch hanging to her cycle . I was damn sure she would take out a poly pack of garbage and would throw it there(as it was an isolated place with lots of trees and not much visited by people). What came out was a dog which she placed on the floor and started riding bike. The dog started following her. Another thing that appealed a lot the patience people carried while driving in city. I can count on fingers the number of times I heard horns here. I believe these guys do not know the meaning of honking. People would be standing peacefully on a traffic signal on a road which would be 1 lane thick and wont yell out despite of the fact it takes 5 minutes to cross the signal.
But this place is a cold place. People said it never snowed here but i can still feel the chill . And the best part is it is Summers. I can imagine me taking a rajai to the office during winters. Sitting on my seat with rajai on, monkey cap on my head , i would still be shivering. But that is still away. For the time being, I am happy with my jacket which is able to keep me warm in the Dutch summers.
Ever since I moved in, I have been struggling with the food. In most of the breads have egg used in there preparations. But there are options which are eggless . Also there are Indian restaurant in ample number in amsterdam which u can always rely on in the worst case. You also get maggi which can turn out to be life saver for dumb guys like me whose cooking knowledge was limited to the fact that baking soda can be used with whiskey if we can filter out the baking part from it.With such rare skillset, I am here on my own, struggling to cook something which can be fed to dogs(atleast).
City as a whole is a engineering wonder. Almost 50% of the city is build on reclaimed land from sea. City is properly laid out with ample space for parks,parking(this is debatable now) and shopping arcades. The high rises that you see are made in record time and are mostly assembled at the site rather than constructing it from the ground. All the intersection have been accurately timed. Seldom do you see any delay in Metro's or trams or Trains. If you got a map of the city, you will reach to your destination by just knowing its location on that piece of paper. Accuracy and Fun are the attributes on which this city and its people cherish.
But even here, govt dept sucks and govt employees go on strike keeping the general masses on ransom. But thing missing here in comparison to india is corruption (atleast at lower levels). People are focused in there work. During work hours, they dont want any kind of disturbance. But at the same time, they have there priorities set. They know where to put there hand down in office. They have clear and well accepted demarcation between personal and office life. So far I have not seen anyone staying later than 7 Pm in the evening. That too was because I was late in the morning and wanted to finish off some work. No one in offices bothers what u r doing on ur comp because they believe in you and your capabilities. Task assigned to you would be finished. If you are not able to finish, raise a flag and your manager/lead can see what can be done. The thing that i liked here was the calmness in the attitude of the co-workers. My team mates had lots of work, but they always listened to my query in a peaceful and calm manner as if they were there only for my assistance. You some time feel that it is a laid back attitude(especially if you have worked in any american based company) But it is not the case. The serenity in the air is due to the fact that they had spend there effort in planning things before they actually started executing it. This gave them a foresight into what all needs to be done and thus avoid the surprises. I also learned that Surprise is nothing but a result on inadequate planning and that it is a mistake which should be corrected and lessons learned from.
Bas bahut gun gaan kar diya. But before I close, I mast say Hats off to the Dutch. They love my national game more than what me and Most of the Indians do. They take Field Hockey as a religion and would spend couple of hours everyday practicing it . The dedication towards hockey is simply amazing
take care
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