Henri's first week in Rotterdam!

1. WEEK: (23.04-29.04)

Day 1: Monday

First, take a look at a video of my best friend:

Good guarding dog, isn't he?



Here we go:
One last good-bye with Bob and made sure I had packed everything. My friend Richard gave me a lift to Tartu's bus station where I took a busride to Tallinn's Lennart Meri's airport. I was at airport 15.10 and gave away my luggage at 15.20, an hour and 10 minutes before our flight, luckily it was our own sweet small airport, that's why I didn't have to take extra 2,5 hours for giving away my luggage. Brenet was already waiting for me near security gates and we went to our gate, where we flew to Amsterdam via Copenhagen. Our flight took off 4.30 pm. Flights went pretty fast, 2 hours and 30 minutes in total. I managed to watch a movie during two flights, good old RocknRolla, which is very good movie in my opinion. When we had landed in Amsterdam 7.30 pm, we took our luggage and went under the airport, where railway station was. First, we thought it was a good idea to look around in Amsterdam too, while we are already nearby and bought train tickets to Amsterdam Centraal. We walked like 500 metres from the railway station when we realised our luggage is too heavy burden for us and we couldn't enjoy the walk. So, we went back to railway station and bought tickets to fast line to Rotterdam Centraal for extra 3 euros, but we still managed to get on wrong train and rode 1 hour and 20 minutes instead of 35 minutes. Well, happens. We arrived to Rotterdam in 21.20. Our housing was 1,5 km from Rotterdam Centraal, so we walked through Rotterdam's streets at night, which was great, realising you will be next 5 weeks in a city which never sleeps. When we arrived near the entrance of our apartment, Rudolph(owner) sent Carla to let us in and introduce the apartment. First impressions were good, we moved some furniture around and started unpacking. We were really tired, so after a quick shower, I just collapsed on my bed around 11 pm.

Day 2: Tuesday

I slept horribly, woke up like 6 times during the night. The bed linens were over-washed, so the rose-garden-smell in my nose kept me awake all night. Luckily, we had given a day off, so it wasn't that big of a deal. I woke around 10 feeling exhausted. Our main goals for today were getting groceries and buying bikes. First one we completed early, because we didn't have anything to eat for breakfast. Our "home-store" is around the corner, so no worries there. Grocery prices here are not that much higher than in Estonia, only hams and some berries are more expensive.
After breakfast, I had to change my bed linens and fortunately, I had brought my own. This was a big win for me, I could already feel more comfortable in the bed I am going to sleep in for the next 5 weeks.
After that, we started accomplishing our second goal by looking for bikes in Facebook groups. Brenet had already talked with one bike-seller. He had bargained the price to 70 euros and dude was already waiting for him. He was 3 km far from us, so we took a train there. This dude was a little bit shady, but never mind. We had our first bike ride with Brenet's bike, me on back on the carrier, which was fun. Back home, we had a lunch - some sandwiches.
Around 4, the bike's owner, I had my eye on, contacted me. He said bike is available and gave me his address. Luckily, he was like 400 metres away! Bike was as expected - a beast. Had 6 gears, lights, bag on rear wheel - a solid cruiser. Dude wanted 85 euros for it, gave us some advice about thieves in the city and we wished each other good luck. In the evening we had a meeting with teachers from our school, where we got the information about tomorrow and set the times. Back home me and Brenet planned our tomorrow's morning, ate dinner and went to sleep around 11 pm.

My bed:

Me & statue

From this neighbourhood we bought Brenet's bike:

Day 3: Wednesday

I woke up around 7.30 and had a quick shower. For breakfast I ate 2 bananas and around 8 we rode our bikes to our company. This was our first day. It was a cloudy day, around 14 degrees, nice for the first bike ride. We arrived 8.30 and we were let in. We waited in the conference room til Lennart came to introduce us the company and colleagues. We had to leave at 10, because we had to be already in the Rotterdam Centre at 11 o'clock, where Endrik's Coder's Academy was.
Coder's Academy was founded and is led by two friends, who are the only workers there, all the other people are doing their internship. During the intership they work on real projects and if they get stuck as team, their supervisor helps out. They also had a dog there - unreal! I would love working in dog-friendly environment. Lucky Endrik!
After Endrik's company we had to be in Albeda College at 1 pm. It was 7 km bike ride, over Erasmus' bridge which has a long rise, what a good training. Our welcome in Albeda college was great. We got to hear perspectives from teacher's and student's point of view. Student's name was Edgar, but I think it was Edgars hehehe, doesn't matter, dude was really friendly, also had great English and Dutch. We had mini-lecture from one of the IT system' specialists, who gave us great advice about cyber-security and our field. Wise words, which I will remember!
After college, we had to be in our company at 4pm. It was 15 km bike ride there. Uuuh, we were a little bit tired when we arrived. We had to wait for our teachers because of the traffic. Traffic-jams here are huge time-wasters. Easier to buy a scooter. Lennart introduced company to teachers and our duties during internship. We got home around 6 pm and were exhausted from all the bike rides(total 50km) and meeting with new people. Had a shower, dinner and watch some Netflix. I think I fell to sleep around 10pm.

This was on one of the doors of school:

Birds & traffic:

Day 4: Thursday

Woke up at 7.15, quick shower and breakfast before heading to work. Arrived on time, had some coffee and we were shown our tasks for today. Our today's tasks were testing the computers, looking for defects and cleaning the tested ones. Our today's supervisor was Jeremy, 18-year-old Dutch who is also doing an internship here, he has to do 800 hours! Dutch school-system is really great. You have to work a lot more, than study from the books. Both are necessary, but practice makes perfect! Something to think about my dear Estonian Education goverment. Our second supervisor for today was Anthony, who is also a really cool, helpful and friendly guy.
All the programs and software we were using on testing had been worked out by 5 developers, who are the only people working upstairs. Their contribution to company is seen by eye. Testing was really easy. All the defected ones we had to take to engineers in the back, who fixed the defect. In my opinion, we managed our tasks really well, we had tested over 30 computers in a day. Testing takes time, otherwise we could have tested a lot more.
Work-day ends 5pm, everyone left so quickly, we had a little talk with our supervisors about tomorrow and Monday. Turned out tomorrow is free, because it is a national holiday in the Netherlands - King's Day. One of the biggest holidays of the Dutch. In the evening, we got some groceries and had a dinner with teachers in Pickles' Burgers and Wine near Markethal in Centre. I had some Croquettes(Krokets) which were deliciouuus!
We got home a little past 10 pm, went to sleep around 11 pm watching Friends and Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

Nice picture of Erasmus' bridge:

Day 5: Friday

King's Day
So, a free day for us, yay! Slept til 10 until it was time for breakfast. After breakfast, we hung out a little and set plans for today. We started with riding our bikes to Centre. Celebrations were going on all over the city, it was brilliant sight! Everyone were wearing orange-colored, the king's color(national color), outfits. There was this outdoor-party for adults where DJs had gathered from over the country. Music from there was heard 2km away. Only the skyscrapers could silence the noise. We didn't visit the party, but loud music was still cool. Wonder the feeling inside!
We had heard from our boss, Jeroen, that there are couple of kilometres from Centre, in Liskwartier, a more Dutch-related quiter celebrations. People were dancing, partying, selling unnecessary things from their home on the street and the best, Dutch food! Children were playing on streets and really enjoying themselves. Me, Endrik and Brenet bought our first Broodje Frikandels, which were delicious! The way back was as awesome as the way there was. Everywhere were people celebrating and partying colored in orange. There was a possibility of making 2 euros into 20 euros, if you are able to ride 8 metres with a bike which rides backwards, under this I mean you steer left, but wheel goes right. I had seen from documentary about brain's compentence, difference between grown-up's and children's brain. It took 3-4 months for a grown-up to learn to ride this kind of bike, for children, only 2-3 days. That's why I didn't participate.
When we got home, we were a little bit tired from the long trip, but still pushed ourselves to store to grab some beers for our first Friday night. We drank like two 0,33 beers and had a little bikeride around the city. We avoided the traffic and went to a park nearby, also we weren't feeling drunk at all, so I think it was okay. We hung there a little bit, got home a little bit past 1 am, had some snacks and went to sleep.

A view to our "yard":

Centre:

Liskwartier:

Day 6: Saturday

Everyone had a long sleep, we woke up around noon. Weather outside was terrible, it had rained all morning. We had some breakfast and started with the best activity for this kind of weather - e-sports. Me, Endrik and Brenet played some League of Legends videogames until 3pm, when we left to Cinema IMAX to watch new Avengers movie. I took large nachos with Guacemole and Cheese dips, should have taken both Cheese, Cheese dip was gooood. I'm not that familiar with Avengers and their story, but luckily I had Brenet on my side, who answered all my questions during the movie. Movie was good, I liked it, the ending wasn't as expected.
At home we watched Dutch "cult film" New Kids Turbo, but we didn't had English subtitles so it didn't turn out so great. After the movie, we had some chicken buckets from KFC and came home, had a little stomach ache from over-eating, had another gaming-session with boys and went to sleep around midnight.

Large Nachos:

Day 7: Sunday

Woke up at 11, weather was terrible, again. Raining and dark all day. Had some breakfast, learned a little about the Netherlands and their arhitecture, how it was built and so on. It is really cool, amazing what humans is capable of!
I found myself a closet which wasn't stinking of smoke like all the others or the apartment(now we have managed to get rid of it). So I put all my things there and got some more space near my bed, yay. Brenet and Endrik went to their first gym-session, me and Tarvi went to a pub to watch Feyenoord vs Sparta game, the biggest derby in the Rotterdam. Unfortunately, I was too late with buying the tickets for the match, it would have been amazing to enjoy the athmosphere of the derby. In the pub, our seats weren't the best ones and when we left, we noticed that we had missed the best ones behind the wall with big screen and cushions to sit on - next time wiser! At home, I watched the game of the best football club in the World, Manchester United. Got some groceries for dinner and tomorrow. We had our first dinner together, rice and chicken, another short gaming-session and watched some serials. Fell to sleep around 11 pm.

Hot dog I had in bar:

and one well-parked bicycle: