Sunbathing on the North Sea...

I finally made it to the beach a couple times this week, which was a lot of fun. The North Sea is just a couple miles from me, so it was easy to bike down there with a couple of friends. (See, the bike is already coming in handy...) The beach near me is called Scheveningen ($10 to anyone who can pronounce it), and apparently it’s the most popular beach in the Netherlands. There are lots of open air restaurants, a casino, a pier, and other fun stuff. It’s not the most beautiful beach I’ve ever seen, but it’s at least as nice as those in LA. The only downside is that it was only about 60 degrees when I was there (and occasionally drizzling), and this is about as good as it gets. Still, we had a nice brunch and walked along the water – very relaxing, and not too crowded.

When we went to the beach last week, we were all having trouble reading the menus and asked if the restaurant had English menus (many places here do). When they brought the English menus, I couldn't help but notice that all of the food was about three times more expensive than on the Dutch menu. So, I’m trying to get a little better at reading the menus in Dutch – mainly, I’m trying to learn the words for foods I have to avoid. In general, my Dutch skills have been progressing very, very slowly. Surprisingly, the language that’s been the most helpful to me so far has been Yiddish, since the few random words that I know are pretty much the same in Dutch (since Dutch is very similar to German). It’s been especially helpful with street signs (e.g. verboden = forbidden), so I’m grateful to have a few words I can read...

I also went to a few new bars this week, so I’m learning the city. I haven’t been feeling well lately, so all I drank at the bar was tea. (I’m just that cool.) I’m getting to know the other interns a little better, and there’s about 25 more people starting today, so it’ll be good to have some new people. (Many of the summer interns left on Friday – now I’m one of the more seasoned interns, after two weeks...) Not sure how much I can say online about work, but hopefully I’m getting transferred to a new team soon, where I’ll have a bit more to do.

Oh, and random note: For two days in a row, when I’ve told people that I’m from Ohio, they’ve asked me if I grew up near Des Moines. And twice now people have thought “Jordan” was a girl when I emailed them. Crazy Dutch...