New Years 2009: Amsterdam

After Christmas, we began making plans, not for exams yet, but what was to be done for New Years Eve [or Old Years, as we call it in Trinidad]. Since the last year was spent lost in Helsinki, it was set that we'd lose ourselves in Amsterdam.

With Amsterdam being one of the "global playboys", like New York, London, etc; we expected that it would be one of the biggest New Years Celebrations in the World. :). It was Wasiq, Slavica, Biljana, their friend, Salman, and I on the train to Amsterdam; we met Ahmed and Marcos there. It was indeed an exciting scene in the Sin City [as my mom would say: a "Den of iniquity!". And what is better to break in the New Year in Amsterdam than with a bottle of rum [that Marcos brought from duty free]!

We walked around a bit, got totally wasted, went to KFC, sobered up, and then went out again in time for the break of the New Year. However, it [the fireworks] was not as grand as I expected, The fireworks was out, everyone screaming, happy, fun, random wild and drunk girls rushing up to you screaming happy new year, and then of course the city of Amsterdam announced quite diplomatically at 12:30 am: "Happy new year to all, now we would kindly appreciate if you could all clear the area and go home" ha-ha.

So we proceeded to a bar where we spent the rest of the night talking and waiting for our trains back home. So goes our New Years adventure, at least we didn't get lost this time..or did we? Can't remember :P

For more pictures, see:

• New Years 2009: Amsterdam

Demolishing History

After experiencing so much culture, heritage, and historic architecture in Europe, I am almost jealous, and now seek out my own culture in Trinidad; and have a deeper appreciation for some of the historic artifacts and remnants of the Victorian era and colonial days. Even fountains, which I had previously ignored, are now apparent to me, and hold some artistic or historical relevance!

It has recently been brought to my attention that one of our very significant monuments, "The Boissiere House", is at stake of being demolished.

The Boissiere House is a prime example of the late Victorian creole "gingerbread" architecture that was once characteristic of Port of Spain. It is a landmark known to hundreds of thousands, and a national architectural treasure.

Please put forward your support in any way possible to help prevent this from happening. Click the image below for more information and to see how you can help.

Christmas 2008: The Shopping-Cart Chicken Project

Christmas this year was spent with IMMIT [or at least most of us]. With exams approaching, no one was in the mood to celebrate, and also most people went off to see family, friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, etc. However, we decided to make the most of it, and spend it together, and in good humor, although the weather was cold and uninviting, and the city and Stappegoorweg [where we held the event] was a ghost town [as most exchange students had left].

We wanted to bake a turkey but decided that that process would be largely complex and difficult to spawn relatively good results from. So we proceeded with The "shopping cart project", which turned out to be still largely complex, yet successful never-the-less. The project was largely lead by Wasiq, yet each of us had our important roles to play and fulfill. Here it goes: BBQ coals, aluminum foil, and a shopping cart that needed to be turned into an oven suitable for baking and not BBQ-ing; and 3 chickens and stuffing that needed to be turned into a Christmas Lunch for 12 people.

It was a large risk [as all our stomachs depended on these chickens spinning on a stick, but as can be seen in the pictures, it turned out quite successful and delicious! With what little resources we had, we turned a shopping cart into a blasting 350 Degrees oven capable of baking 3 whole chickens on a rotating stick. :) Call us what you want, managers, innovators, cooks, we just had an enjoyable and memorable time doing it. [I do not have much pictures, since I was either helping out or drinking :P]

For more pictures, see:

• Christmas BBQ 2008 [My Pictures]
• Christmas BBQ 2008 [Biljana's Pictures]

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Of Fog & Bad Weather

I remember back in Trinidad, on our drives into the “high” mountains on the way to Maracas beach, that we would be so amazed by the “fog”. Technically, it was not fog, but low hanging clouds around the mountains’ highest points, but for us, it was the closest thing that we could get to fog, and it was amazing. In Trinidad there’s no such thing as fog, since it never gets cold enough for the condensation to occur [of course there may have been one of two freak occurrences where it appeared].

Looking out of my window at 8:00 am this morning, the sun hadn’t risen, it was still dark [now being the dark period of winter], and there was the mysterious and eerie but fascinating fog engulfing all that was outside; the scanty and naked leafless trees almost seemed shivering.

I once met a Mexican guy in Brussels, who shared the same fascination for this odd weather as I did, and he explained: that Europeans don’t have an appreciation for it, since they are accustomed to it, however for tourists [for lack of a better word] like ourselves, or at least people who have grown up devoid of exposure to these natural but peculiar anomalies, the occurrence is almost magical. I disagree with him on the specificity of “European”; I would say anyone can lose appreciation for anything if exposed to it for an extended period of time. So the beach, which will be a tropical paradise to most Europeans, may seem mundane to me since I see it all the time and it’s not considered as a “luxury”, but as an “amenity”.

For instance, a simple thing as snow-fall and the soft and powerful glow given by the reflection of moonlight amazes and perplexes most international students [like myself]. I remember once in "management of knowledge and innovation" class, it began to snow heavily outside, all the Dutch students were paying attention and taking notes, while all the internationals were deeply entranced by the beauty and peculiarity of the snow. A person familiar with snow just hates it and wants it to go away, while we go running about nakedly and rolling in it [at -30 degrees Celsius].

It’s like the rain in London, that everyone needs to experience to bask in the true spirit of the city, while Londoners most often complain that London is wet always. If anyone who has seen films about London goes there, I’m pretty sure they would want to see the city in the way it was depicted: wet!

It’s like my visit to Bruges involved horridly freezing weather, however it was my first time to see hail, balls of ice hard as rock falling heavily, it was unregrettable. It’s like my visit to Finland where it was the first time I saw and felt -30 degrees Celsius and a frozen sea. It’s like the sheep here in The Netherlands: I’ve never seen in real life a sheep as depicted on TV before, with the fluffy wool coat, since the sheep in Trinidad are adapted to [in fact: bred for] the hot climate and actually have hair instead of wool. So, even the fields of boring sheep interests me here, although I’m a very “nature-exposed” person.

It’s just something I’ve never seen before in my life. Europe to me and some other people, who perhaps grew up closer to the equator, holds certain cliché, specific and special images: the fog over the canals, cobblestone streets with a dark, historic, and semi-romantic semi-mysterious feeling to it. It's the same way that Europeans have a clichéd view of the Caribbean: palm trees [which are found mostly only on the coastlines], white sand, dried coconut cups [which we never use, we drink from green/yellow coconuts], and pineapples [which we don't eat that often]. So next time you see me taking a picture of something strange, don’t just think of me a tourist and laugh; because when you come to my place the tables will be turned when you take out your camera to ‘capture the beach’.


The images in this post are not mine, please see below for the sources [in order of appearance in this post]:

• Foggy Amsterdam
• Snowy Turku [Aura River] 1
• Rainy London
• Sheep [like there are in The Netherlands]
  
• Snowy Turku [Aura River] 2

Ireland: Dublin & Howth

It has been my dream ever since to visit Ireland. While growing up, my ideal picture of Europe was Ireland, with green rolling fields and Cliffs, and strong culture & history. I have also been always fascinated by Celtic culture and music, which are both part of Ireland's olden times. I finally decided to go there, with Marcos, to experience it for myself.

Although I did not get the opportunity to see the green fields and more of the nature and old ruins of Ireland, I did however experience the multiculturalism and night culture of Dublin. I accepted the compromise of Dublin considering that we had no car to freely roam about the country [trains were a bit expensive] and agreed with myself to visit another time in my life when I had more free time. Another thing we missed was the traditional Irish Dance [see video below], but our tour guide played some traditional flute music for us in compensation for the loss.

Welcome to Dublin! From the Celtics to the Vikings, invaders have tried to tame this wild island, a place of legends, traditions, and lore. 750 years of resistance and rebellion would culminate in the tragedy of the Easter Rising in the middle of the First World War. Testament to the will of the local people, just a few generations later and Dublin is one of the leading business centers of Europe.

So we spent 2 days in Dublin, roaming about, bar hoping in the Temple bar district, touring [with the awesome guys of Sandeman's Free New Dublin Tours], and discovering some of the Irish heritage and history. For me, being a native English speaker, the accent was especially intriguing, and totally typical Irish. We realized also, due to the strange words on street signs, that there was indeed a language of the Irish called "Irish Gaelic", which we didn't know existed before.

Dublin is a vibrant city with live music in every pub - after visiting Irish pubs in almost all European cities, we finally got the chance to visit an actual Irish pub, sampling Guinness and Irish coffee, [consisting of hot coffee, Irish whiskey, and brown sugar, stirred, and topped with thick cream] in Ireland!! Still, it was super-expensive: the standard of living was quite high, with a simple, non-filling sandwich costing the same as a full course restaurant meal in Europe - 8€-10€. The funny/weird thing, though, was that a hair-cut was super-cheap, costing 2-3 times less than in Europe.

On our final day there, having not much to do, we visited a small "village type" town called Howth, there were supposed to be some magnificent cliffs there, however we had no time to see them; and for fear of missing our return flights, we had to leave prematurely.

For more pictures, see:

• Ireland: Dublin & Howth

The Exchange Girls' Visit

It's been almost 7 months since leaving Finland, and our dear exchange friends from there. This month, the exchange girls [Veronika Hradilikova and Klara Churanova from Czech Republic, and Małgorzata Kwiecińskafrom Poland - cool names huh?] who we hung out with there decided to visit us and The Netherlands.

It's really sad, this Erasmus concept, where we meet people and then have to leave them in such short periods of time, yet these girls kept to their word and kept our friendships alive! We gave them a tour of this boring Tilburg and exposed them to some of our Dutch nightlife here. It was a refreshing reminder of our Finnish party days and the picture crazy frenzy that Veronica often gets into.

For more pictures see:

• The Exchange Girls' Visit

Zeeland: Cottage Getaway

Ah, IMMIT! Our last semester together; we decided to spend some quality bonding time together in a remote cottage getaway.

The place: Center Parcs, Zeeland ["Sealand" I guess], a resort built on a reclaimed piece of land in the south west of The Netherlands. The Dutch are masters of land reclamation and dijk [dike] building. When entering the resort, there was a sign of Nederlands with a cross through it [signifying that you are leaving the Netherlands :|.

The resort: several cottages built along the harbor and west coast, with facilities including several swimming pools and 3 water slides, saunas [which were added costs], and some expensive restaurants/bars. In all, it was quite expensive, so we just used the facilities which were included in the initial cottage rental fee. The Caribia hotel pools in Turku and the cottages in Lapland were much better; this place was not really that beautiful either [considering the weather and rainy/cloudy atmosphere of winter] but it was still enjoyable and spent with good company. It may have been more enjoyable in summer.

It was quite crowded surprisingly, apparently a lot of Dutch people crave the hot tropical resort ambiance in the cold winters here [plus it's cheaper in winter]. We touched the North Sea, spent time in some of the Dutch "country-side", swam in outdoor heated pools, and even met Sinterklaas [the Dutch version of Santa Claus, who is really a Saint that arrives by boat to most of the harbors in The Netherlands during Christmas].

For more pictures see:

• Zeeland: Cottage Getaway

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Welcome Winter: Snow in The Netherlands

Today was the first snowfall in Tilburg for the winter season! Yay! It's so different; and amazing how the atmosphere changes within a couple of months. This tree is the same one I took a picture of in fall. Now, it's just snow, snow, soft white glowing winter snow! Ah, memories of Finland...

Belgium: Brussels & Bruges

For the international student festival at IAE in Aix [France] last year, I had the opportunity to befriend the first Ukrainian girl that I've ever met in my life. This year, almost by chance, we re-discovered each other in the cyber-realm. It just so happened that she was working in Belgium, and being the friendly person that she is, I was offered accommodation there, in Brussels, if ever I decided to visit.

This semester I really hadn't traveled much; so being the travel-enthusiast that I always was, and having never visited Belgium before, and considering my desire to taste Belgian beer, fries, and culture, I decided to visit [obviously; considering this post].

It was indeed exciting, bringing up a sense of nostalgia as I sat on the Dutch train to Brussels actually hearing passengers speaking French. It's such a delicate beautiful language compared to the coarse German-like Dutch language. As I switched trains to the Belgian line, I immediately felt the multiculturalism of Belgium, since the train conductors announced the stops in Three languages: Flemish, French, and English, [unlike the Dutch-only announcements here in the Netherlands]. Getting off the train in Brussels, I immediately felt somehow comfortable, since the signs were all in three languages as well, people spoke familiar languages to me [I could even understand some Flemish since it's similar to Dutch]. Of course the main purpose of this is because Brussels is some-what of the European political capital [the de-facto capital city of the European Union]; it hosts most of the national embassies, and is a melting-pot of nationalities.

Brussels is a nice city [although people say it's not the best of Belgium], I liked it, with semi modern, semi antique buildings, squares, shops, and of course the cobble stoned streets. Everywhere you turn, you can find stalls selling fries [Belgium is the birthplace of 'French fries'], Belgian chocolate [which is amazing], and Belgian waffles with sugar, chocolate or ice cream toppings. Reading a corny but compact tourist guide [a short list of things you should do/try in Brussels], I had lunch at a nice tourist-trap restaurant [located on a beautiful restaurant street] selling what was supposed to be a very traditional or at least very typical 'Brusselian' dish: Mussels [hm, mussels from Brussels], or Moules as they are called, with fries [and of course a Belgian beer].

I spent about 20 minutes walking to see a statue that was supposed to be really famous only to find a tiny statue of a boy urinating called "Manneken Pis", which is seen as a symbol of French and Dutch cohabitation in Brussels. Anyways, after seeing the city in one day, I met Yuliya [my Ukrainian friend], and delved right into the night-life of Brussels. Trying some dark beers along the way, we finally ended up in an underground party with drunken ravers which was just too much for us, so we went home for the night.

Day two in Belgium, we spent in the charming miniature city of Bruges. Bruges is the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium and is located in the northwest of the country. The historic city centre is veined with canals [sometimes being called the Venice of the North] and is a prominent World Heritage Site of UNESCO. The movie 'in Bruges' even contests to claim it's one of the most beautiful cities in the world and that it is a "fairytale city"! It's a great movie that shows the best of the town. I'd say, it's...well, beautiful, but maybe not the most beautiful: a very romantic city however, with narrow paths between old buildings and a gorgeous central square. There was even a heavily hail shower in the mid-afternoon [something I have never seen before, but that amazed me [the weather was quite bad but I enjoyed the visit none-the-less].

There are a lot of things in Belgium that I did not get the opportunity to see/visit due to the limitation on time. For example, Brussels is famous for its Flower carpet in the central square [but it was just too cold, and not the season for it]. I did, however, see what I wanted to see, [as much as I could], ate/sampled the famous foods/drinks, saw two popular Belgian cities, was amazed by the mixed breed of French-Dutch looking girls, and got to meet my good friend once more.

For more pictures see:

• Belgium: Brussels
• Belgium: Bruges

Lacuna Coil & Bullet for my Valentine Concert

Continuing my concert series, I had booked tickets to see Lacuna Coil and Bullet for my valentine on the 18th of November. This time attended with Marcos, Jeffery and Cristina [a girl from Guatemala]. I really went only for Lacuna Coil and their singer Cristina Scabbia's beautiful vocals, but Bullet for my Valentine turned out to be quite OK as well.

The only problem at this concert was that Lacuna who was an opening band, played for a mere 15 minutes and then left. Also it was held at 013 and the drinks were quite expensive there as usual. It was nice, however, listening to the live music of this band that I grew up on. I didn't get much pictures though, since it was a bit dark, and I was not that close to the stage, I did get some videos, but they're a bit large to upload.

For more pictures, see:

• Lacuna Coil Concert

The Hague: Political Capital of The Netherlands

The Hague also known as "Den Haag" or "'s-Gravenhage" means "The Count's Wood" and is the third-largest city in the Netherlands after Amsterdam and Rotterdam. It is located in the west of the country, in the province of South Holland, of which it is also the provincial capital. The Hague is the de facto seat of government, but, somewhat anomalously, not the official capital of the Netherlands. [source]

The IMMIT group was offered free travel and tickets to a "Day of International Students" to be hosted by Nuffic in the world forum complex in Den Haag. What a great [and free] opportunity to see the city of Den Haag as well as partake in intercultural events/workshops and the meeting of other international students in The Netherlands. Of course a major incentive for this event was the free T-shirt, dinner and drinks!

So a group of about 8 of us atteneded the event and Ting Ting even won the fasion show competition with her chinese attire, Merie also entered the competition. We had little time to see the city and spent most of our time at the event, however we saw enough to determine that it's an "ok" city, not that beautiful, but cool enough. It's just that there's not much motivation left for traveling, most of the cities are very similar and have nothing new or exciting to offer.

For more pictures, see:

• The Hague: DIS

Concerts: Epica & Kittie

We have an autumn break in The Netherlands for one week in October. Everyone on campus has something planned: some are traveling [Valencia, Spain, etc]; some visiting friends, girlfriends, boyfriends, or family; and some even going back home to visit. However, I am stuck here, with no motivation to travel alone, no girlfriend to visit, and family and home is too far to visit. So my plan was to stay here, catch up with studies, apply for jobs, and go to concerts! I attended two great concerts this weekend.

I had to go to Eindhoven for the first performance on Friday 17th; this band was Epica, a Dutch band newly introduced to me, but whose style and genre of music I appreciate very much: Gothic-symphonic-theater style like Nightwish. They were quite impressive, with the beautiful red-haired vocalist Simone Simons. The 'epic', operatic, medieval melodies, the contrasting screaming of the male singer, and brutal guitar support all blended together just made this band stand out to me, and it goes right up there in my list of favourites!



The second band performed on Saturday 18th, I traveled to Amsterdam to see, I met Marcos there, and we had some pre-fun going to a whiskey bar that had a menu of 1001 whiskeys, and then it was on to the concert! The band was one that I grew up listening to and appreciated ever since they appeared on that morning on MTV with their song "Charlotte"; I still remember that day, and the video, and how impressed I was with this all-girl band growling up the stage! Kittie is the name of this Canadian "female-Korn" band. I must admit, their performance wasn't as impressive or I should say "dramatic" as these bands like Within Temptation and Epica, but then again it's a different style of music. Also, some of the original members that I was obsessed with in my teen-years have left the band. Nevertheless, they impressed me with their intense growls, rough riffs, mosh-pit-inducing-music, and grungy-attractiveness of course. The DJ opened their performance with a song by Lords of Acid.



For more pictures, see:

• Epica Concert
• Kittie Concert

's-Hertogenbosch [Den Bosch]

I had to visit Den Bosch [or 's-Hertogenbosch] to collect my Dutch Residence Permit, and decided to see the city along the way. It turned out to be quite a beautiful, charming, and possibly even romantic city [at least compared to Tilburg]. Small, with old [Dutch] architecture, and networked with many small channels and canals, with archways that make beautiful reflections on the water beneath.

's-Hertogenbosch (literally meaning "The Duke's Forest"), colloquially known as Den Bosch is a municipality in the Netherlands, and also the capital of the province of North Brabant. It is located in the south of the Netherlands, some 80 km south of Amsterdam.

One thing that I absolutely needed to try there was the Bosschebollen, or Bosch Balls. It is a specialty cake from 's-Hertogenbosch, which is baked on choux herd, then filled with whipped cream and glazed with melted chocolate. Bossche balls have a diameter of about 12 cm and are thus large pastries. These are the most amazing scrumptious pastries I've ever tasted and I recommend anyone to visit Den Bosch just to taste these! I had them at what is supposed to be the original bakery that invented it: Jan de Groot. Have it with a coffee and your day is perfect! Lekker [delicious in Dutch]!

For more pictures, see:

• Den Bosche

Dedicated-Beer-Fridge

My entire life's thus far has been devoted to this. Ever since I was growing up, my dream was to have a mini fridge in my room. And now, thanks to Marcos, we found one outside [being thrown away], and took it :), for free! Hey it's not stealing if it's in the garbage. Anyways, we took it in, cleaned it up, and guess what? It works! This is so fun, so accessible, and so cool to say that I have a mini fridge in my room! And better yet, we've made it a dedicated-beer-fridge! What better to stock it with than The Netherlands' finest beer: Heineken. Very cool!








I've also started cooking a lot, as I said before. Now, i can handle two different meals at the same time ;) the one on top is curry-geera [cumin] chicken, and below is Chinese Szechuan Chicken. All from scratch! It's quite enjoyable and now i know why Kris and Waziq like it so much; it's almost therapeutic.

Rotterdam & De Biesbosch

The last trip with ESN [Erasmus Student Network] was quite successful and worthy! So when we heard of this trip to Rotterdam, we couldn't help but sign up for it. At the standard price of 24 euros, we got a transport to/from Rotterdam, a tour of De Biesbosch [wet-/swamp-lands of The Netherlands], a harbour tour of Rotterdam, free time to roam, and entrance to the Euromast! So here we were, a group of IMMIT students once more still struggling to integrate with the international [exchange] students. At least on this trip we had our newly-formed 'Dutch' friend Jeffery [who happens to be a magnificent photographer; check out this excellent picture of Wasiq by him!

Firstly in the morning we stopped off at De Biesbosch, one of the largest national parks in the Netherlands, and one of the last freshwater tide areas in Europe, rich in flora and fauna. It was pleasant stroll through nature, but nothing that I haven't seen before, cows, grass, trees, and geese: the norm. The only thing rather fascinating here was that colonies of beavers inhabit the area. Unfortunately, we didn't manage to see any since beavers are known to be nocturnal animals.

After this it was straight on to Rotterdam, the 2nd-largest city by population in the Netherlands. I’ve always heard about this city but I knew nothing of it, except that it had one of the largest ports in the world [now the largest in Europe]. A total contrast from Biesbosch: I was totally astonished by the modernity of this city; it was definitely the first modern European city that I have seen since I came here. Contributing to this effect was the magnificent skyline and weird-modern architecture and design [like the Kubuswoningen, or cube houses among other buildings]. Even if the buildings don't mean anything, even if they're just apartments, they're built with style and with an expensive/high-tech/futuro-look to them. It was interesting, different, and satisfying. There was an enormous shopping district, and the diversity of people quadrupled over Tilburg.

While there we saw four main sites that we couldn’t have missed. The Port of Rotterdam, ESN gave us this boat tour, and it was nothing less than informative, and as we are currently following a series of courses pertaining to logistics, and supply chain management, it was quite exciting to see this mammoth sized port, and imagine how everything is coordinated and structured. To try to explain how large this port is, imagine 40 kilometers of harbour! Next was the Erasmusbrug, or the Erasmus Bridge, of course this was moving for us since we’re part of this Erasmus Mundus Programme, and I believe most of the Erasmus concepts began in Rotterdam. When one goes to Rotterdam I think it’s fairly necessary to see the Kubuswoningen, or cube houses, even if you don’t appreciate modern art. It’s very strange to see these cube-shaped buildings in the middle of the city, and wonder what the hell the artist was thinking when he created them. What’s even more amazing is that people actually live in them [it must be quite tight inside, and it requires a lot of imagination on what furniture to buy and how to arrange them]. Lastly, we had a rotating elevator ride [and guided tour] on the Euromast, a tower in Rotterdam that is about 185 meters high, and where you can see views as far as the North Pole [they claim].

The day was fun, and the only thing that was a bit harassing was how cold and windy it was, but otherwise, it was well spent.

For more pictures, see:

• Rotterdam

Tilburg Culinair Festival

I have been in this city for almost 2 months now and I have not seen anything close to cultural [less you call pubs cultural]. I have seen the brief carnival-like parade on the first Sunday that I was here, but it was only for a short moment. I have been intending to visit some of the museums here but I haven’t gotten the time or energy to cycle all the way there.

However, on this night, Minh, Marcos, and I went to the Tilburg Culinair, a once-in-a-year festival with music, food and drink [they even organized a big club-/disco-like tent for partying. It’s an opportunity to taste a selection of dishes from some of the most expensive/famous restaurants in Tilburg, for a fairly cheap price [considering the high quality of meals].

On the familiar location on the William Square, the visitors enjoyed special dishes of top restaurants from Tilburg and surroundings.

William Square is a square that lies in front of the City Hall [a castle like building in the town centre]. It’s supposed to be the tastiest festival in town! We had our fun, going to four different restaurant huts [which are set up in a real classy restaurant style/ambiance], and having sampled 4 different meals: Mussels, Chinese teriyaki chicken, Lobster, and Lamb [which was extremely good]. It was a very small portion, but in the end it was just to taste and have fun.

At least I experienced this cultural event in time, and it was well worth the little money I spend on meals. Next up, museums!

For more pictures please see:

• Tilburg Culinair

Hofstede Conference

Since I've started studying a bit of management and the business world, since I was in France, and while I was in Finland, and even now in the classes in the Netherlands, there has been mention of the Five cultural dimensions of Hofstede. Geert Hofstede's study demonstrated that there are national and regional cultural groupings that affect the behaviour of societies and organizations, and that are very persistent across time. These groupings include: Small vs. Large Power Distance, Individualism vs. collectivism, Masculinity vs. femininity, Uncertainty avoidance, Long vs. short term orientation.

I am not exaggerating, this guys is famous in business and Information Technology, and he has come up several times in discussions; for example the designer of any website needs to consider these factors if it is to be successful on a global scale. In any case, the guy is famous, quoted in several articles, books, and classes, and what's great is that he is a member of the faculty of the university that I attend [Tilburg University]; what's even greater is that I saw his lecture and I actually met him! I have the picture to prove it!

Anwyay, this was an exciting day for us, we had lunch with ING Bank, and several lectures on Trust. It was a seminar organised by ASSET student organisation and included Mr. Geert Hofstede as a closing presenter. It really is amazing to see in real life the person who's work you studied for the past year or so.

For more pictures see:

• Hofstede Conference