Home again

There is something quite delightful about coming home.  This time was a bit different though, for the first thing we had to do was put the house back together again. 

The new floor is lovely--and what a difference from the wall-to-wall carpet that we used to have.  For me, I am exhausted, but we couldn't go pick up the cat until we covered up all the vents again.  So, we washed walls and returned the house to order,  and then went and pulled Lynxy away from her grandparents.  They were sad to see her go, and that was charming to me in the most inexplicable way. 

But she is home.  And he is home.  

So am I. 

Happy birthday, old friend

Hey friend...

I am thinking of you, and hope that your day is perfect.
You really make my world better!

Happy birthday!

Holland has a way

Holland has a way of saying

• "hello" with rainy weather
• "are you enjoying your visit?" with stormy weather

and

• "come visit again soon" with a gorgeous cloudless day.

Hmmmm. Is she really trying to tell me something else?

Cheese and Mustard

Yesterday when I was taking the train, I wisely decided that it couldn't hurt to have a sandwich in my bag, since you never know what will happen. It was a good choice, given that the trip was twice as long as it should have been. The problem is deciphering the menu choices in a short amount of time--I resorted once again to the point at the food, lift one finger method.

First bite in totally reminded me of my grandmother. When I was a kid, she once called downstairs to me and said 'What do you want on your bologna sandwich?!' "Cheese and mustard," I replied.

But she apparently didn't hear me so she called again "what do you want on your sandwich?" "Cheese and mustard", I repeated.

And that's what I got. Just cheese and mustard, no lettuce, no bologna, nuthin extra.

And that's pretty much what I had yesterday too, though I would venture that there was more mustard than cheese on that bun.

I miss you Gram. Thanks for 'visiting' me yesterday.

Back in Amsterdam...still going in circles

Oh my this day has been frustrating. I had a later start than I wanted just because I had to wait for the post office to open. Once there, I needed more Dutch than I have to make myself understood, but eventually we got my kit and my books all packed up and ready to be mailed. I am not surprised, given the weight and the size of the thing, that it was expensive, but in fact it cost more to send these gifts home to Canada than it did to send me between two cities on the train. Ah well, it is done.

The train was to have been a simple affair, but somewhere along the way, the problems (I am assuming here) of yesterday's schedule seem to have carried over. So, We pulled over to the 'side of the track' and waited while two trains passed us. Then we carried on with all sorts of explanation but in the midst of it, I thought I understood that my train was going to be a half hour late. Not bad that, considering that I don't know Dutch. That was before we pulled over for somethign a second time. In the end, I missed my connecting train, which resulted in me needing two transfers instead of one, and the trip was an hour and a half longer than it was supposed to be.

That being said, I made it, and I'm proud of myself for doing so. So proud in fact that I looked at my map of Amsterdam on the train and forgot to pull it out for the actual walk to my hotel. You see, I have a compass now, so I wasn't supposed to get lost.

Except I did. I even knew why I was lost, thanks to the compass which said to me, "you're too far south and not far enough west". I found my street, and I recognized that I was only two blocks away from the mistake that I made last week doing the same thing. This is silly. There are SIGNS to Westerkerk, and my hotel is but a block away. It's sillier too to watch my little compass take me south, west, north...and yet, I barely felt the direction change. What a lesson for me.

Nonetheless, here I am. There is a delightful woman who is training at this hotel, and she checked me out last week, and in this week. I appreciated her smiling friendly face, for I am anxious to get back to familiar things.

And that will happen tomorrow when I fly home. My old home with my newer floors!

I can't wait :-)

I've lost my opportunity to go shopping today, which had been my original plan. I probably have about two hours of light left, so I am going to see what I can see, shop where I can and that will be that.

I'm taking the map AND the compass.

Raining, yet again

I am a bit disappointed, I have to confess. I've been hoping that the rain would let up just long enough to be able to take some pictures, but really I have very few. Today I woke up to howling winds, which frankly had been doing so all night long. And it was accompanied by drenching rain, that just never quit. I had all these plans and none of them are coming true thanks to the weather.

But it is an interesting thing, rain in Holland. I am complaining a bit because I wanted to take pictures, but I love my little camera, and don't think it would function well in the wet. But the Hollanders are out in force. Today happens to be the only shopping Sunday in October, sot he streets were well crowded with people, french fries, umbrellas, lovers holding hands, parents guiding children, pastries, more umbrellas, students reading while walking (an interesting feat indeed), and yet again, more umbrellas.

Which all makes it sound as though I didn't go to school myself today. Our conference started at 8 a.m, breakfast meeting. A colleague of mine who excels in training methodology had called a cab to take us to the conference, and I was so grateful. I've been walking, and I've enjoyed that but today a cab was an extra special treat. It turned out that there was a problem with the room he had already set up (as in, someone else took it away from him) so he was a bit flustered with having to reset somewhere else. I stayed and helped him, and in the process I was able to get a glimpse of some of what he is doing. He is talented, no mistake about it, and he is passionate about it, which makes it all the better. And not only that, he has asked me to give an interactive presentation at his conference next October in London. I have to think about that, though I am terribly flattered. His rule however is that it needs to be dynamic and interactive, so I have to really analyze if there is anything I can do in that realm.

The session that I did attend this morning after helping him, was on essentials of participation. It was really a theory of change management and there were times when I was rather lost with it all. However, after the break we regrouped and ran it as a peer coaching or mentoring session. From that angle I could really see some benefit, and since I have been asked to mentor some colleagues when I get home, I think that there are things that I can use. It also makes me think more about my own life, and so I will use this method to analyse some decisions that I must make.

For lunch today, I had more cheese sandwiches and while it was tasty and all that, I confess I am getting tired of bread. The Dutch seem to eat a lot of it--bread and cheese for breakfast, bread and cheese for lunch, more bread for supper. I like bread well enough, but I have probably eaten more these last few days than all of last year. It isn't that there isn't other things available, for certainly they eat more than that. Rather it is that the venue we were at was a bit limited for weekend choices (and was much better during the week).

There was more networking and discussion in the afternoon but the most prevalent topic of conversation was 'how are you getting to Schiphol?'. Today apparently is a routine maintenance day for the rail system, but the day turned out not to be so routine after all, and there are many many many delays. I am grateful that I don't need to take a train until tomorrow, and then just to Amsterdam. I will take the long trip home the following day. I have a bit of freedom tomorrow morning, but I have discovered that the post office opens at 10, and I have decided to parcel post my books and supplies home. I can make most of them fit so that I just have carry on, but they are dreadfully heavy, and it seems silly, really, to fight that hard to get them there.

The problems with the train have also derailed some of our final plans for the day, as many people who were going to leave this evening have been worried over hte delays and have decided to head out now. It will mean some waiting at airports and train stations, but there it is.

So I'm by myself again. I'm not sure what I will do for supper tonight. I find that I am tired and a bit cold, and still fighting the chill I got on the way over here last week. I will probably finish packing, take a bath and call it a day.

This conference week has been very good for me. I've learned a great deal, been affirmed on some of my skills, and encouraged to do more. I have made friends from London and Dublin, and also here in Groningen. There was a young student named Hannah who wants to do her communication internship in Canada. She was delightful, and so I will try to find some information for her. She certainly was very helpful to me. At the conference, I saw some excellent facilitators do their thing, I learned a few new methods to try, and truthfully, I also saw some things that I want to ensure I don't do. I hope that I will be able to take the best of it all and begin to apply it to my own sessions. Some of them will be simple to implement and others will take a bit more creativity. But I have been well challenged, that is for sure.

And I am ready to go home. Tomorrow, I head to Amsterdam, and Tuesday it's back to Canada.

I didn't plan for this!

So today we had another full conference day. My first session was on peer coaching, and we actually ran through a small case presented by one of hte participants. It was quite enlightening from a process point of view, and I can see that there are some techniques that could be quite useful to me.

Later, I attended a 'top up your toolbox' session which was quite frankly, brilliant. The facilitator has become a colleague; we attended the pre-conference session together. And it was fascinating to see how different his personality was portrayed in the session. It was fun, and energetic, and he pulled out some techniques that I had never seen before, and hope to use before too long. So much information, but those three hours flew by.

And at the end of it, I won a door prize--a facilitation kit that is loaded with paper and stickies and good markers. I know that this is a good product, but quite frankly I think it is overpriced. That being said, I'm thrilled to have it. It's quality stuff, and it will last me a long time.

Now I just have to figure out how to get it home. With the materials from the pre-conference, and the conference, and this door prize, and the book I won earlier--and the one wee little book I bought, I have enough stuff, in pounds and dimension both, to double what I brought with me.

I didn't plan on that!