Greetings from Holland!

The first week went by faster than ever and I've gotten a really good first impression of this country and all the people in here. The city i'm living in (s' Hertogenbosch, more commonly know as Den Bosch) is relatively small, much smaller than Helsinki. But I like it, it's a really beautiful town in the southern parth of the Netherlands.

The begininning of my trip was quite a hassle, first of all our flight was delayed for two hours. We were already sitting in the plane with Lotta when they informed us that we are not able to leave the airport becouse of the bad weather in Amsterdam and due to the fact that there was only one runway available in Amsterdam airport. So every single flight wich was leaving from or going to Amsterdam was delayed that day. But nevertheless, after waiting for a while our journey towards Holland could begin!

When we arrived in Amsterdam and after we had gotten our luggage, the first thing that was in mind was food. Neither one of us hadn't eaten a proper breakfast, so we grabbed something to eat and then went  looking for the right train wich would take us to Den Bosch. The train trip from Amsterdam to Den Bosch lasts for like one hour or so which isnt that bad, but  I was pretty tired since I didnt sleep so well the night before.

After arriving in Den Bosch, me and Lotta seperated since we live in different locations. My landlord picked me up from the station and we drove to my apartment. I was really amazed when I first got to my place, since it's pretty big and well furnished. I have my own living room, bedroom, kitchen and of course bathroom and a shower. And the place is also in a perfect location, our work place is withing a few minute walking distance and also the Den Bosch train station is less than one kilometer away from here.

The second thing which didn't go as planned was getting the BNS numbers. I believe that all the dutch people get them automatically, but foreigners need to fill in some papers to get them. They are a personal serie of numbers, and if you dont't have them, you can't work here in the Netherlands. We weren't quite sure how to get them, so we went to our workplace, V&D, to ask for help. They were happy to help us with our little problem, but it turned out that we couldn't get them anymore during monday, since the city town hall had already closed it's doors. Also, I heard from my landlord that you need to make an appointment for the BSN numbers, but the people at V&D said that you could just walk right in there without an appointment. So we agreed that we'll start working the next day after we had gotten the numbers.

So on Tuesday morning, me and Lotta headed to Eindhoven, which is about 20 minutes by train from Den Bosch. When we arrived in the town hall, the lady there told us that we indeed had to make an appointment for the numbers. And this day was fully booked, so the next available time was on Wednesday. This meant that we couldn't start working today either. But we made the appointment for the next day in the morning and got the numbers.

Finally on Wednesday we were able to start working. I arrived at V&D in 12 o clock and we started by signing the contract with my boss and she told me all the rules, policies and regulations in V&D. After that we took a tour around the shop and she introduced me to all the people working there. This day wasn't really the first actual working day, since I didn't do any actual tasks, I was told to just hang around in the store and get to know all the different departments and of course, the people.

On Thursday we got to do some actual work. Our first tasks was to do a little bit of cleaning. That didn't take too long, and then we had to do the "rituals". It meant unpacking some products, putting the alarm tags in all of them and arranging them in the storage room. Next task was to do the same with sunglasses. After that I got to do promotion for the rest of the day, which was fun. V&D had sales going on, the "Prizjen Circus" as they called it, so I had to hand out some flyers to the customers. Some customers were pretty confused when I told them that I dont speak dutch since i'm from Finland. Many people started happily asking me guestions like what am I doing here and how is it like in Finland. They also warmly welcomed me to their home country.

We had friday and the whole weekend off from work, so our next day working day was on Monday. I already had made a friend here in Holland, and we went out for a couple of drinks on and he showed me around the town. His name was Pim, which I though was quite unusual and I said it to him, to which he just laughed and said "Yeah, I bet you dont have many Pims in Finland". I also went to Amsterdam for a dance music event, and I had a blast there! The music, the people and the overall atmosphere was absolutely great and I really enjoyed the show.

So what do I have to say after the first week? I think that Holland is great, such a beautiful country and all the people here are so nice with a laidback attitude. I'm absolutely looking forward for what more Holland has to offer!