Tag Archives: London

Another year has almost passed

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Sometimes I’m wondering what happened to 2011. Where did it go? What has happened during these 365 days?

It all started in London of course, when I was still working with Ernst & Young. But I was also applying for another job, since I found out that the future that Ernst & Young had in mind for me (which is, actually, a good future) wasn’t my piece of cake. That’s how I came in contact with my current employer, VisitDenmark. On April 1st, I wasn’t fooled but I got an amazing call saying: we’de like to have you on board, could you start as of May 1st? (don’t think it’s so easy to find a job, my first contact with VisitDenmark was already end of January :-p).

With my new job I’ve entered an entire new world, meeting lots of fun and inspiring people.  I also got to know a new city (Copenhagen), which is very easy to fall in love with quickly. I’ve also been to Aarhus one time last September and this week I was in Vejle, but there I haven’t seen much more than the hotel I was staying in :-p. You often hear that Dutch and Danes feel rather close connected to each other, in the way we live, communicate and do business. One thing we can definitely learn from the Danes is their sustainable mindset, it’s amazing to see and read about what they do to decrease their energy consumption.

Unfortunately 2011 hasn’t been a very good year for my gospel choir Reflection in Utrecht. It’s very difficult to find new members, both for the choir and the band. Maintaining members is also a challenge; it feels that being an active member of an association is just not as common anymore as it used to be 10 years ago. Next to that it’s rather hard to find new places to perform, lots of churches also have to cut on expenses and rather create their own little band then hiring somebody. We’ll see what 2012 will bring, maybe the new board members will be full of unexpected ideas :-) .

There are a million other things to tell about 2011, but at some point you should start focusing on the future and see what kind of exciting things the new year has in store for you.

Lucky me :-)

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After the first 2 weeks at my new job at VisitDenmark, I can only say I’m very happy and feeling lucky that I’ve been given this opportunity. Loads of information has been thrown at me during these first days which made my head spin more than once, but it’s amazing to learn about this completely new industry, and destination! I’ve never been in Denmark, but what I’ve learned from it so far makes me want to explore the country to its fullest extend! I’m sure I will get that opportunity ;-) .

The Business Meetings industry is also very interesting and exciting! I’ve become a member of MPI, Meeting Professionals International. This organization brings planners and suppliers together and aims at sharing knowledge and networks. Last Wednesday I went to an event (a so-called ‘educational’) about Event ROI and Meeting Architecture Planning. Informative speeches and inspiring speakers; a great introduction to the club!

The organization has welcomed me very warmly. First of all of course the direct colleagues at the office in Leiden, but also colleagues from other offices in Copenhagen, London and Hamburg. Next week I’ll travel to Copenhagen for the first time in my life for an introduction on all IT systems, and 2 weeks later I’m being invited to London to learn about the MICE industry from UK colleagues who have been working in this industry for years already. Learning from the best first hand ;-) .

So after the first 2 weeks at my new job at VisitDenmark, I can only say I’m very happy and looking forward to all the great things that are still to come!

Saying goodbye to London

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After 5,5 months in London, it became clear last week that this week will be our final. Sad to leave the fun people I’ve met here, but glad to be going home. It’s been quite a trip: lots of fun, sight seeing and musicals, but also lots of snow, several delayed or cancelled flights and long working weeks. But in the end, the client is very happy with our performance and the job we’ve done, and that’s what counts.

To get the most out of my last weekend I’ve planned lots of things to do and see. So I was pretty sad when it turned out to be raining all weekend (how appropriate…), but luckily that didn’t spoil all the fun. I started with the changing of the horse guards on Saturday morning. Unfortunately that wasn’t exciting as I hoped it would be, but it’s great to see all the tradition and customs the English have. After that, I did some shopping and went to Leicester Square where I met Hieke. I know Hieke from my time at university (many years ago ;-) ), and she’s currently in London doing research for her PhD thesis.

At my favourite shop in London (the TKTS discount ticket booth ;-) ) we bought 2 tickets for Blood Brothers. No problem at all I’d seen this musical already last November; I was really excited to see it again! After that we went to St. Paul’s Cathedral to experience the beauty of this cathedral and the crypt, one of Sir Christopher Wren’s master pieces. Actually I like St. Paul’s cathedral better than Westminster Abbey, the latter is more like a huge burial ground while the first is a beautiful organized, structured cathedral without statues and coffins everywhere :-) .

At 5 PM the evensong started at St. Paul’s, so we stayed to listen to the wonderful singing of the cathedral’s choir. After some dinner we took the tube to the Phoenix Theatre at Charring Cross Road where, for the second time, I cried out loud at the finale of Blood Brothers. Such an amazing story, with the first party being hilarious most of the time (when everybody is still young and reckless) and the second part being more serious when life as a grown up can be tough. Highly recommend everybody to see this musical! Thinking about writing a blog post about all the musicals and shows I’ve seen here, just as a recap of the cultural blast of the previous months.

This week we’re wrapping up our work, getting rid of the last to-do’s on our list. Friday morning I’m flying back home, with lots of good memories of these months in London. After a (hopefully) quiet weekend I’ll be back in business next week Monday, starting a new assignment in The Hague.

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye!

Exploring London

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Although this is my 4th month in London, there’s still loads left to explore. Luckily there’s also much time, since I’m not going home as much as I did last year. This morning I first had a 40 minute swim at the Tiller Leisure Center, which is actually very close by my apartment. So that’s not an excuse anymore. Let’s just hope I can continue this behavior :-p.

The Lonely Planet with all the earmarked todo’s got stolen last year after I left it in my mailbox for a colleague, so after my swim I worked my way through my newly bought Rough Guide of London. Earmarked everything again, and realized I have to spend my spare time more efficiently if I want to tick-mark all earmarks :-p. So I walked to the tube at Canary Wharf to get to Leicester Square for my first goal of the afternoon: musical ticket. And yes, they had a perfect seat available at Queen’s ‘We Will Rock You’ at the enormous Dominion Theater at Tottenham Court Road.

After this victory I went to St. Martin’s in the Field, a little church next to Trafalgar Square. When my mom was in London last November, she told me about the world famous orchestra of this church (which I’d never heard of), and almost made me promise I’d go to a concert at this church one day. So I went inside to get the program for the next few months, and lucky as I was, a little orchestra was rehearsing for tonight’s concert! So I took a seat in the benches and enjoyed the beautiful music for some time. But it already started to get dark (at 3.30 PM, I’m ready for Spring to come again!) and I still wanted to take a walk outside, so I took off to Temple and Holborn, where I wandered around for some time. Later that afternoon, my colleague Dominic texted me if I was in for some drinks, so we met at the tube station and found a beautiful old pub, called the White Hart.

(7 PM)
And now I’m at the theater, waiting for the show to begin and using the time to pre-type this blog post, so I can directly upload it when I’m back home. And of course I’ll add a little review about the musical :-) .

(9 PM)
Okay, it’s break now, and this musical is just mind-blowing, freaking AWESOME!! All the elements of a fantastic musical are there: beautiful, rocking music, a big cast with fantastic dancing, a great story and a beautiful stage. It’s awesome to hear all these familiar songs and lyrics, and the writers made an amazing (and hilarious) story out of it where all the songs fit in perfectly! Thank God there’s a second part, can’t wait until the break is over!

(10.45 PM, in the tube back home)
*speechless*
*flabbergasted*

Well, let me give it a try… The second part was as extraordinary as the first part, and the grand finale was just…. I don’t know the perfect word for it. Loud rocking music and lights flashing everywhere! Adrenaline raging through every body in the theater, including the actors. And that voice of the main character (who isn’t really playing Freddy Mercury, but he could be)!!! All the big hits passed by, ending with Bohemian Rhapsody, with a brilliant guitar solo. It still gives me goose bumps thinking about it.

I can only recommend to everyone to go and see this musical and experience yourself how this musical affects you. With having seen more than 20 musicals in my life, I rate We Will Rock as the most awesome so far!


(thanks to wewillrockyou.co.uk for the pictures :-) )

Back in town

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After 2 delightful weeks of holiday at home in my new apartment (it’s still new to me, I’ve only lived there for a few weeks in total!), I’m back in town again. London that it. Last week Monday I flew back to my spot in Canary Wharf. A different apartment, but still the same. Just a few floors higher and red cushions instead of green, but furthermore it’s all the same.

At first I didn’t really feel like going back, I loved being at home! But when I thought at all the things I still hadn’t visited (Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Windsor Castle, etc.) and all the musicals I hadn’t seen (Billy Elliot, The Phantom of the Opera, Jersey Boys, etc.) I got more and more excited about going back to this amazing city called London!

But of course the main reason for me to be here is work. Monday January 3rd was a Bank Holiday, so we started on Tuesday January 4th. Right now it’s only me and one other colleague, compared to the group of 5 we were last December. That’s because the majority of work is finished, but what’s left is still a big chunk. And what makes it more difficult, is that the people we need to provide us documentation, are extremely busy closing the books and drawing up the Annual Report. But it’s good to be back, we’re having fun again and the client appreciates our work. So I’m sure it’s going to be hard working, lots of fun, and lots of opportunity to enjoy London!

Highgate Cemetery

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With all my earmarked pages in the Lonely Planet, I was rather indecisive yesterday about what to do. So I started at Borough Market, and walked to the Tower of London afterward. But the crowds didn’t really please me, so I thought of another thing to do. I came up with visiting Highgate Cemetery, which was supposed to be a beautiful cemetery in North London.

Around 14.30 I arrived at the gate of the cemetery, and found out there was a tour at the west part of the cemetery 15 minutes later. Highgate Cemetery opened in 1839 and is part of the “Magnificent Seven”, seven cemetery around London. The tour was unexpectedly very interesting and informative (I won’t call it entertaining). The girl that showed us around had fabulous stories about some of the people buried, and the cemetery was really beautiful. For example, this is the tomb of George Wombwell, a famous menagerist in the 1800′s.


One of the items from his animal collection, the lion Nero, lies on top of his tomb.

And this is the tomb of Thomas Sayers, an English bare-knuckle prize fighter and national hero. He wasn’t very fortunate in love, so his dog called ‘Lion’ was the chief mourner during his funeral, which was attended by thousands of people.

The class system from the Victorian time also shows on the cemetery, the closer your lot was to the footpath, the richer you were. One man (Julius Beer, owner of The Observer) had an entire mausoleum built. Not to have himself or his family buried, but just to show off his wealth. At the time the mausoleum was built, it cost 5,000 pounds, which equals 3 million pounds nowadays.

Another beautiful grave is the one with the sleeping angel on top of it. According to the guide it is also one of the most photographed graves. I must say, it is really gorgeous…

Never would have expected that the trip to this cemetery would be so amazing, I can highly recommend everybody to go and see the cemetery and do the tour! Please do click on the Wikipedia links and read the stories of the people, they are worth it! Check out for more pictures the London 2010 album.

London life

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It’s been 2,5 months now that I’m in London, and I’m still enjoying every day. Although the weather is getting worse and day light is getting scarce, the Christmas light are being lit which brightens up the days again :-) .

Work is progressing pretty good and the client is very satisfied with us. People are coming and going, which is sad for the people leaving and happy for the people joining. But we’re still having loads of fun, and the dashboard monitoring our progress at work is turning greener towards 100% every hour.

Every Tuesday evening we’re trying to plan a team event, together with some other Dutch colleagues that are momentarily based in London. Last week everybody canceled, except me and a senior manager working at another client, so we had a very nice dinner at an Italian restaurant just of Oxford Street. A few weeks ago we had a full house during our team event, and we went to a comedy club at Leicester Square. It was a hilarious, bizarre, and very funny evening with 3 stand-up comedians and a host who was a very good comedian herself too.

I’ve been quite some weekends at home in the Netherlands, enjoying my new home and fixing some final DIY jobs so it’s completely becoming my home :-) . But this weekend (and partly last weekend) I’m in London, which is great fun too. I earmarked all the pages in the Lonely Planet with sights I want to see, so it’s the ultimate goal to leave this city with no earmarks ;-) . But it looks like I’ll be returning to London for January-February, so probably I’m having some more time to achieve that goal. And of course I want to see several musicals! A few weeks ago I went to see Les Miserables, and last Saturday I saw Blood Brothers, which was an amazingly beautiful, but tear-jerking story. Even the actors were crying at the final song! So that sets my musical score at 2, but I want to have it at 5 at least ;-) .

Not sure yet what I’ll be visiting this weekend, also depends on the weather. Want to visit St. Paul’s Cathedral and climb one of the towers (which is supposed to give a beautiful view on the city), but only when it’s not that cloudy or rainy. And maybe Sunday morning I’ll attend a church service somewhere, since it’s Remembrance Sunday this Sunday. A few weeks ago I’ve been to the Hillsong Church at the Dominion Theater, which was an awesome experience!

Start of a new adventure

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Last week Sunday, September 12, I packed my bags and left for London. A new adventure had begun, not really knowing what to expect. When I arrived at London City Airport, I took a cab to my apartment, but because the apartment building was so new, the cab driver couldn’t find it. After circling around for almost 30 minutes, we finally reached the place where I was welcome by the manager of the building. He showed me to my apartment, a studio on the 5th floor.

View from my balcony

Living room

The apartment is close to Canary Wharf, where I’ll be working together with 3 other colleagues from the Dutch practice (Jan-Willem, Dominic and Erik). So it’s a nice 20 minute walk every day and evening to get to work or home.

On Sunday evening I had a look around at the giant maze of shopping malls, tube (underground) stations and offices, also known as ‘Canary Wharf’. Canary Wharf is about 25 years old and is known as the financial center of London, with some of the tallest building in the country. Approximately 100,000 people work / live in Canary Wharf, which makes it a lively buzz during the week, and quiet and deserted during the weekend.

Monday morning we started working at the client where we will be part of the team that is involved with SOx testing. It’s a really nice team and everybody’s is happy that the reinforcements have arrived :-) . Days are long, but we’re also having a lot of fun. And hey, we’re in London!

Monday night we went out for dinner to Maze Grill, a delicious steak house of Gordon Ramsay. Although we didn’t take the beer-fed, hand massaged steak (market price of 90 pounds :-p), we had a perfect dinner together with 2 other colleagues from Amsterdam. They had some meetings at the London office, so a great opportunity to spend the evening together.

Tuesday and Wednesday evening we (the Dutch guys) also had dinner together, but now we kept it at pasta & pizza :-p. On Thursday evening, after a really nice Chinese dim sum lunch with a manager from the EY London office, Jan-Willem and Erik had to fly back to the Netherlands to attend university on Friday. Dominic and I stayed in London, and because the work is still going a bit slow (until we get all the SOx documentation from the business…) we had Friday off. Of course I grabbed my camera that day and headed downtown, where I visited Buckingham Palace, Regent Street, Oxford Circus and Harrods. The Christmas shop is already open at Harrods! :-O. In the afternoon I called Dominic and we had a drink near the Tower Bridge where the EY London office is located.

Tower Bridge

This weekend I’m spending back home in Amsterdam, which is also very nice. I can bring some stuff from home that I forgot, and there’s always enough to do when I’m at home, so I won’t get bored. But I’m also looking forward to the first weekend (which will be in 2 weeks) that I’ll be in London!

P.S. You can view all my pictures in the ‘Pictures’ section of my website, or directly at my Picasa account.

Life smiles, smile back!

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“Life is a roller coaster.”
“Nothing is impossible.”

Just some thoughts that have been crossing my mind the last few weeks. If somebody told me I would be moving to Amsterdam within 6 weeks, I’d probably call him crazy. And if that somebody would also tell me that I would go to London for 5 months, starting in September, I’d probably thought he’d gone completely nuts.

Who would have thought that it all would go so fast?

When I came back from holiday end of June, I wanted to put more effort into finding housing in or around Amsterdam, to get rid of the daily traffic jam. I hoped that I could move before the end of the year, but considered myself very lucky if that would be the case. So on Monday June 28th, I had a look at a housing site to see what they had to offer. I saw to apartments in Duivendrecht (which is surrounded by the city of Amsterdam) and decided to send an email to the real estate agent that placed the ads. They invited me to come and have a look on Thursday July 1st, 3 days later. The apartments looked nice, they were spacious and well maintained. The neighbourhood looked nice too. The guy that showed us (5-6 people showed up) around told us that we could enroll for the apartments anyway, and if we weren’t selected for one of these 2 apartments, we would be called first if other apartments would become available. So I fixed all the paperwork and sent everything to the real estate agent on Monday morning July 5th. Imagine how shocked I was when I received an email the day after (!) that said “congratulations, you’ve been selected for one of the apartments in Duivendrecht. We’re going to fix the contract, and you’ll be invited to sign the contract and receive the keys before August 1st.”

(2 weeks later)

Last week Tuesday, I had an event from my work in Frankfurt, Germany. Together with 12 Dutch colleagues we flew to Germany to meet our European colleagues and to learn about the services and solutions they are offering. In the plane, a colleague told me he was looking for somebody who would be interested to work in London for 5 months, starting September. He asked me, and of course my answer was positive! But I have to say that these kind of questions have come by a few times the last few months, and every time it got canceled last-minute. Or the client called off, or the local office could staff the project after all. Several emails went back and forth with the UK last week, but since Friday I hadn’t heard anything anymore. So I actually thought that it got canceled again. Imagine how shocked I was when I received an email on Tuesday evening that said “congratulations, the client has approved the assignment and wants to hire you. You’ll be going to London for 5 months, starting August 30th.”

Two amazing stories, and I happen to be involved in both of them! August is going to be a very busy, crazy, but fun month. Next week Thursday I’m going to sign the contract and get the keys of my apartment. Then 2,5 weeks of hard work will start, to make my apartment ready to be lived in (only evenings and weekends, because the job goes on!). On August 15, friends and family are coming to help me move all my furniture and clear my apartment in Nieuwegein. And then 2 weeks later, I’ll be off to London, hahaha! Luckily I’ll have the opportunity to fly back home every weekend, so I can enjoy my new apartment during the weekends. And with Duivendrecht being very close to the airport, and London being only 45 minutes flying, I think it’s doable to come home often. But of course, spending the weekend in London isn’t bad either ;-) .

So if you want to visit me for the next few months, you can choose from 2 amazing cities: London or Amsterdam. It’s your call!