Henri's fourth week in Rotterdam!

4th WEEK:(14.05-20.05)

Day 22: Monday

Didn't sleep very good, because mice kept me awake. I woke up like 4 times, they were so noisy! Today we have to talk to our apartment's owner, because, as we are regularly told we paid too high price for the apartment, we should get atleast the best he can offer, I think I will mention our slow internet connection once again, too.
Woke up at 7.20, Endrik was already up. Had a quick shower and a banana for breakfast and off we went. Brenet woke like 7.45, I think he had some troubles with waking up too. Weather was really cold, like 10 degrees and cloudy, luckily I had bought myself a jacket on the weekend, hehe.
At work, we went to Tehnical Centre to wait for Jeroen's arrival and work til then. We both started collecting missing parts and packing the ready-to-ship ones until Anthony asked me to continue testing laptops because their pile was getting too heavy - so I did. When Brenet finished, he joined me for a while. I had brought my laptop with me, so I went to watch engineer's work on the back and learn myself how to assemble a laptop. With Niels' guidance, we cleaned my computer which haven't been cleaned for over 4 years - just because I didn't know how. The dust we found, hehe gross, it was really dirty. Now I finally have a my clean laptop, thanks to Niels and Service Planet! I am really grateful, something I wanted to do since the first hardware-lessons in school but didn't have the oppurtunity there.
When Jeroen arrived, he gave us seats in Contact Centre and guided us in translation-tasks so that we could start translating Service Planet's software into Estonian and then into Russian, the task we had voluntarily taken for ourselves earlier week. I hope we can cope with our taken task. In my opinion, Jeroen is a really good boss, he is a kind, good communicator and considerate man. Also, next week we will work besides with Maarten,  who is updating their software. This will be very exciting! He will comment his work and answer to couple of our questions. And maybe we can even do something and be a part of software-development team, yay! Also, Jeroen invited us over for dinner next week - as I stated earlier, he is a good boss!
Nearly at the end of work-day, I was asked to come play football with the colleagues which I am really looking forward to! We will be playing tomorrow at 6 o'clock on some football field near Telemast in Rotterdam. It's only like 3 kilometres from here, good for me. Hopefully, I play good and Brenet will come too. Let's see how it goes.
Weather had turned very nice, so we rode back with only our T-shirts on and it was still too hot. No bunnies today.. My dear friends, I hope they are okay.
At home, Brenet and Endrik went to gym, I decided to write my post of the day and maybe even correct the earlier ones. And if I still have some time, finally add some pictures and videos, too. For dinner, I think I will eat something healthy, chicken with vegetables. I am already sleepy so I won't make it past 11 pm. Hopefully tomorrow will be a good day and good night!

Engineers working desk:

Me in Contact Center:

Day 23: Tuesday

Today I woke up feeling positive. Maybe because I knew our main task for today and we could work with our laptops which I had really missed. In the early morning, Brenet's girlfriend Elisa had left and Brenet sent her to train station, maybe that's is why Brenet woke up like 12 minutes before our departure 😁 Yogurt and banana and I was ready to roll.
At work me and Brenet started translating Zanata into Estonian. We got our own seats in Contact Center. I started from the beginning, Brenet from the ending so that we could meet halfway there. Translation wasn't very difficult, only some phrases which we weren't heard of. We managed to translate and over-checked 75% of the program's phrases to Estonian and couldn't translate more because they hadn't translated more than 70& to English - Estonian was the most translated language! :D
It was a really nice weather, like 24 degrees and sunny. We rode our bikes home, Brenet went to gym with Endrik, I filled my water bottle and went to football training with the colleagues. I really liked playing football over a long time, I had missed it. I think the training went good, scored couple goals, gave many assists. Sadly, the next training session is on the 28th of May, a day after my departure.
I got home like half past 7, had a shower and waited for guys to return from gym, so that we could go to grocery-store. Me and Brenet were supposed to cook something together for dinner. Surprise, surprise, what could it be? - ofcourse Chilli con Carne. 8 euros for ingridients, only. And we have enough for tomorrow too. I was feeling pretty exhausted, so I went to sleep at 10 already, watching some Friends, hoping that the eardrops in my ear will silence the noisy mice.

Spider-bro in Contact Center:

Translation:

Football training with colleagues:

Day 24: Wednesday

Morning like every weekday's morning, we arrived to work on time, at 8.28. Had some coffees with Brennu and went to Contact Center. Rest of the week we were supposed to be out with the engineers. I was with Joey 1, Brenet went with Joey 2, the one he had already worked with couple times. I was supposed to be working with Brenet's-friend-Joey, but Brenet wanted change so badly, so we asked our supervisor Lennart if he can change our Joeys :D. Lennart who is also a really accommodative and kind man, made the change, so yay for Brenet.
The younger Joey, who I was working with today, is a really cool and funny guy, also a very good engineer and due to that he can work very quickly.
We started with picking up TV from Leiden and installing it in the closet for father and son. It was a bit difficult, but we managed. Next we repaired a laptop's screen for one young man, also in Leiden. Then we drove to Alphen aan Den Rijn where we installed a TV for elderly woman, who had 2 dogs and 8 parrots in her apartment. Then we drove to eldely care, where we installed a TV for a very old woman. She hadn't ordered all the correct and required channels, so we couldn't install all the channels. Then we drove to Hellevoetluis past Port Of Rotterdam. The fourth biggest port in the world and I could see the power and greatness far away. Just WOW, no other words needed.
Then we drove back to Centre of Holland and went to Papendrecht, where we changed a WIFI card for lovely elderly couple, they were really friendly and wished me good luck on my trip.
I got home couple minutes before 5. Brenet came 10 minutes later, I went to have a bar-training session, guys went to gym. Got home like 7 pm, heated up yesterday's dinner for me and Brenet. In the evening, I just watched some series on Netlix, fell asleep around 10-11.

And it goes on like this for 40 kilometres?

Day 25: Thursday

Morning like every morning this week, arrived to work at 8.30. We were supposed to be out with engineers, but Maarten came and said we will be working with him today.
Started working with Maarten, he is a really friendly and good developer. I could also watch what was Chi doing, Chi tried to fix a problem where the whole website crashes when someone has some errors on their website. Also a very friendly guy, commented his work so that I could understand what he was doing. We started with finding the bugs with Maarten. We managed to debug couple, but the main thing I learned is, programs to not count the human errors - we tried finding one bug for over an hour, the lines of code they have - over many thousands. And the error wasn't made by code, but people had used the program incorrectly. Also, what I learned is using "find context usage" opinion which easens a lot of your job. Maarten used React Native Framework which I had never heard of. You could make mobile apps basically only using javascript and then make corrections in CSS or HTML. I definetly have to check out this framework, also Electron would come handy. Chi and Maarten answered all our stupid questions without any displeasment, I really liked working with them and other developers today! We can work in our speciality and co-operate with colleagues if we can. Chi has this brilliant keyboard with his own modifications. He has changed some of the keys to make keyboard more comfortable, it was really good to write with, I can see why he's so keen to his keyboard and waited almost a year for missing keys.
We were told they are all basically back-end developers, but Marten is the only one doing Front-End. They use Vaadin framework which allows them to program in Java and adds requied HTML&CSS. They didn't recommend us to use it, not much Front-End is modifyable there.
Another thing we did today, were making changes in CSS of the mobile-app they are using - where everything should be, how checked ones a indicated and the buttons's adjustments. Maarten used totally different variables than I have used, but it wasn't that difficult to understand them.
I understood the basics of how QR code works. Basically, it is modifying string into a QR code. Everything that will be scanned, has it's own STRING code in them.
Works with so many different programs: Eclipse, IntellJIDEA, Atom, React Native etc.
Found out the importance of commenting your code - their predecessor didn't comment anything and this makes modifying or finding the correct line very difficult. Chi made a great joke(from Samuel L. Jackson's collection):"Surprise Motherf***er" which suited brilliantly with the situation - it's very hard to understand what other person has done when he hasn't commented his work.
We finished at 5, had a little chat with Jeroen, our boss. We set the dinner time for next week on Wednesday, Jeroen invited us over and he will cook Dutch-related dinner for us  - very cool!!!
Today, me and Brenet came home on a different road which was even more beautiful, only no bunnies, that's sad. But bunnies have been too scared of us lately, so we take home a different road now.
I went to bars, did some pull-ups, push-up and abs training. Brenet and Endrik also went to gym. Was home at 7, heated up last portion of Chilli con Carne and just relaxed like half an hour, my eyes were pretty tired because they haven't been used to 9 hours of screen-working per day anymore. I was exhausted all evening, just watched funny videos on the internet and half episode of Spartacus, til I fell asleep around 10.

Chi's working desk

Chi's keyboard:

 Bars:

Day 26: Friday

Woke up at 7.20, didn't feel like getting up. Layed on bed like 5 minutes, til Endrik's alarm started. Got up, had a shower, banana for breakfast and we started our bike ride at 8.10, because we we're kind of sleepy this morning. We were 1 minute late, so it wasn't that bad. We took coffees and went to Contact Center. Today we were supposed to be out with engineers. Brenet went with Pascal, me with Joey again, very good for me, he's a very good hard-working engineer and also, very fast, because he knows his jobs very well. There were some problems in our route, so we had to wait a little, I took another coffee, because I was still tired. I remember, that the mice woke me up around 3 again, darn mice. Atleast it is Friday, a little motivation for the day.


Also, today is the birthday of my best friend - Bob!!! Happy birthday to my dear buddy, see you soon! You truly are the best!

I miss you buddy.

We started our drive couple minutes past 9. We saw 200-thousand-euro-Lamborgini driving past us, nice. First place where we went was in Den Hague, a beautiful city where the Dutch government is. There we took one TV and headed to Leimuiden, to lovely elderly couple's home. They had a really beautiful home with a big garden. They lived outside of big cities and on the shore of one lake, I think they really enjoy living there :D We installed a TV for them, they were very friendly and offered us anything to drink. I had already drank 2 coffees this morning, so I was refused, and Joey doesn't drink that much coffee, I have noticed.
Our second costumer was in Amsterdam. Actually in a school of Amsterdam. They had some problems with motherboard, so me and Joey changed it or basically Joey did, I don't have much experience with motherboard changing, so I just learned and helped as much as I could. There were a problem with the USB, so we had to take a laptop with us.

Joey dropped me off near Service Planet, I rode home on the new road, again. We went to the last training-session of the week around 6, Tarvi went to Primark.
For dinner, Me and Brenet made some chiken with paprika, onion, garlic and chilli sauce.
Bought me some Coronas for the evening, thought I'm gonna have a little gaming session. In conclusion, I just had 1 game and 1 beer and went to bed, because I was to exhausted. Fell to sleep a little bit past midnight.

Some sheep on our way to work:

Back home:

Day 27: Saturday

Today was a lazy day. Maybe because of weather? I'm not sure.
Well, it was 10 degrees and so cold in the apartment, I had to turn on some degrees on thermostat.
Others woke up at 11, we all had some breakfast, I had 3 sandwiches. Brenet and Endrik went to gym, I watched Spartacus which I'm really doubtful at the moment, it got really boring. Tarvi went to MediaMarkt to change his DVDs because they didn't have English subtitles.
My main event for today was Machester United - Chelsea FA CUP final, which I had been looking forward to since my arrival here. I had some Coronas left from yesterday, so I started to drink them, hehe it was only 3 pm. The game started at 6, so I watched Estonian Cup Final for entertainment before the real one. I was wise to drink couple beers before heading to bar, because I paid 5,8 euros for a Pint. That's too much for me, a poor student hehe. Anyways, Manchested United lost and day was ruined. Both team's gameplay was just so terrible, so boring to watch, Chelsea managed to score a goal from penaltykick after Estonian-4th-League-Defending-By-Phil-"EASYBOT"-Jones. This lad's defending skills are equal to 10-year-olds, unreal..
Bought myself some groceries for the evening and came home to finish the blog, because of bad weather I really didn't feel like being outside.
Heated up some left-overs from yesterday, drank some Coronas due to sadness, played couple League of Legends games and went to sleep around 11 pm. To be honest, today was a really shit day.

Day 28: Sunday

Woke up early, at 8 already, don't know why so. Endrik also woke up and started to read a book. I thought it's good idea to just visit internet world. Damn, what funny videos you can find from there, I really had a blast watching them. I watched them over an hour, until my stomach was too empty to continue, so I just had to get up. Ate some sandwiches, Endrik had finished his reading and came to make breakfast, too. Don't remember what he ate, but I think some eggs with tuna or something like that. Brenet and Tarvi quickly joined us.
After breakfast, boys went to gym, I chilled at home til had a bike ride in the city. Found really beautiful park, Het Park, and came home to invite guys to enjoy weather.
Around 2 or 3 pm we went to a that same park. It was a really nice weather and park was overcrowded with people. We found ourselves a nice place to enjoy sun and sunbathe in the corner of the park. Uuuh, sun was too hot, couldn't sunbathe too long, had to take some pauses, otherwise I would be a nice pink Flamingo in the next day. I think we were like 4 hours in the park, then we took a little route in the city, where saw some brilliant views - high skyscrapers, wide river, lot of big boats/ships, rich houses and cars etc. Got home couple minutes past 8, Brenet had to finish his school work. Me and Endrik watched Black Mirror series which Endrik hadn't seen before, he really liked it.
For dinner I ate Dürüm kebab next to our building. Went to sleep around midnight, but mice this time started to fight each other and squeal, so we had to mess with them. Finally managed to fall asleep at 2 am.

Enjoying the sunny weather and beautiful park:

A view of the City: