While Kathy was enjoying Amsterdam at a leisurely pace, I went to the suburbs every day to the IBM office for training. Although this was occurring in the Netherlands, it was an interesting reminder of how small the world is when you work for a global enterprise. The Europeans are also frequently locked in conference rooms all day just like in the Midwest. Curiously, the cafeteria does not accept cash. For no reason I could discern, you are issued an employee badge (temporary in my case) that is based on standard smart credit card chip technology. Before entering the cafe, one inserts your employee card in a machine that then sends money to your employee card from your credit card. It seems like it would be simpler to avoid this step. At the end our your visit, you go back to the machine and hit the refund button. Coins flow into a little bowl. Understanding how to use this process, not why, took 2 days since all of the instructions are only in Dutch and the German guy in the class dismissed the idea that he could puzzle out the Dutch instructions. Like a small village, many very highly paid sales reps, spent time sharing this knowledge with each other. There were nuances like -- not all credit cards worked. The folks from Japan were the worse off given that knowledge of Japanese doesn't help much when trying to figure our what Dutch phrases meant. Fueled by lots of "kafee groot" (that's, a large coffee, don't ask for decaf they think you are crazy and respond with a emphatic - "We don't have that") I got through the training which included how to closely read the IBM contracts - line by line.
Off we went. I collected Kathy at the hotel in my cab - we loaded up and headed to the train station. We acquired some snacks for the ride and are about 1 1/2 hours out from the Gare du Nord. I think I will sleep late tomorrow, find a croissant and coffee, read my book and leisurely plan our next move.
The French at the training session suggested L'Ambroise on the Place du Voges for an elegant dinner and also recommended the Jules Verne on the deuxieme etage of the Tour Eiffel. Our 25th anniversary celebration has finally begun. I like to think that it will be worth the wait !!
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