Day 8 (Final Destination)

Well, today was our last day. With our bags packed, we were ready to bid this land farewell. This was a very rewarding trip; we were able to meet so many new people and obtain the ever so important relationship and contract with Royal Dutch Shell. We were even able to meet some fellow Canadian relations that we could do business with in the future in Canada. A path into the well-regarded Netherlands also opens many other ventures in more inward countries. Overall the combination of successful business trip and an enjoyable ride all the way made this trip very worthwhile. So, on our last half day of the trip, we really wanted to try some of the famous Hollandse Nieuwe Haring. The Herring season starts in May and ends in July and this dish is a famous a must have when in the area. (or so we were told). It is herring that is conserved in a special type of salt and then served with onion and pickles. I myself am not too big of a fan of raw onions, but it was still very good. With our plane leaving at 15h00, we left the restaurant at about 12h00 and arrived at the airport at about 12h30. With practically the same luggage we came with, we boarded the plane and were on our way back to Vancouver. Once again it literally was a “plain ride” with nothing to special going on. We did meet another Canadian business man though, who luckily enough for us was somewhat in need for shipping services. Though not specifically to the Netherlands, he needed shipping services for his products in Canada, and was in the Dutch country on vacation. He was from Calgary, and he left us his contact information. We arrived safe and sound at the Vancouver International Airport at about 4 p.m. in the afternoon. We were rested and ready for the next days work. Jet lag was not really an issue for us going there and shouldn’t be an issue coming back either. We both can’t wait to share the good news with our company about our experiences and our new contract and contacts around the world.

Day 7 (The Arts)

I have a really big art fetish. Going to the Van Gogh museum a few days ago was one of my things to cross off on the bucket list. Now we get go to more museums! Before moving to the business with Carl I studied graphic design and concept art in my post secondary education. I whole heartily believe that art is detrimental to a society and business. Art is a reflection of our progression of culture and shows how far we have come. Art communicates ideas, events and the dreams of the artists. With this in mind I also believe doing a business is an art that we must use to serve humanity and continually develop it for the sake of the world. I think to myself that our business which connects the consumer to the developer is a language of communication. With our business I believe that as we expand our business connecting the businesses to the consumer will be our number one priority. I don't think that Carl enjoys the art as much as I do or understands it the way I do. Looking at the art in in Amsterdam’s museums really inspires me to do the best I can for the company and for myself.

Day 6 (Tourism)

Today was one of our more touristy days.  We went on a guided tour through the city of Amsterdam. When we stopped for a lunch break at we met another pair of enterprising people. It turns out they were here in Amsterdam to try and reach out to a shipping line to try and spread their products, funny enough they were rejected by Maersk as well (they were even Canadian). 
Unfortunately since we got sucked into the conversation with our fellow Canadians, our museum tour group left us moving to the next museum. However this potential  conversation is a lot more valuable than a few hours experience with art, since we now have new contacts for our company! With local contacts from Canada who we can easily do business with we could have a solid client on our hands.

Unfortunately since we got sucked into the conversation with our fellow Canadians, our museum tour group left us moving to the next museum. However this potential conversation is a lot more valuable than a few hours experience with art, since we now have new contacts for our company! With local contacts from Canada who we can easily do business with we could have a solid client on our hands. We parted ways with the business men after around 3 O’clock to catch up on the rest and relaxation this day was supposed to be.

Day 5 (King's Day)

Another glorious day was on deck today. Today was King’s day. A common theme throughout the day was: the colour orange. Often seen representing many Dutch Sports teams and the like, the colour was definitely omnipresent throughout the day. The preparations for the night’s events had begun. Everywhere we went we were greeted by smiling faces. The events didn’t start until late at night so we decided to do some touring around the city once again. We had a supper invitation to the corporate manager’s house today for 18h00. We didn’t want to be late for that. 

We spent much of our morning at the exciting Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. It was a wondrous gallery with many different paintings and pieces alike. A very interesting trip it was, to say the least. We also decided to have some more food on our list of foods we needed to try. Although somewhat of a snack food, we decided to go for an all out Bitterballen for lunch. Bitterballen are deep-fried balls coated in a crunchy breadcrumb mixture and filled with hot and savoury beef, beef broth, herbs spices, and many other fillings. We decided to go traditional and go for the regular beef-filled balls. They were very good, and this time time I can’t

really find to much of a comparison to any Canadian food. Maybe a jelly-filled Timbit, that has a savoury soup on the inside? I really don’t know. As a side note, it is a good idea to take caution when eating them. The soup inside is very hot, especially when you get it served. Gio found it out the hard way after burning his tongue on the hot, fried Bitterballen. He said part of his tongue was numb and that the sour mustard sauce served with the the Bitterballen hurt his tongue. Bad news aside, it wasn’t anything life-threatening and should heal in a few days.

After all of our morning travels, it was already 14h00. We decided to just go back to the hotel and relax and not be late for the supper. It was a pretty calm and quiet afternoon, with nothing too crazy going on. We really needed to get dialed in for the night’s festivities. 

We left the hotel at around 17h00 and arrived at his house at around 17h40. We were greeted by him and welcomed into his house. It was a rather large house that was decorated in a more traditional type of way. He introduced us tot his wife and 2 kids. When we arrived dinner was almost prepared and we got in a few business words, before it would be all about enjoying ourselves at dinner. The dinner was just the four of us (him and his wife), his children were picked up by their uncle to go to the movies. The table was piled with foods like Snert, Stamppot, and Kapucijnerschote. It was all quite delicious and were then treated to desert. Dessert included a wide variety of Dutch deserts: Limburgse Vlaai and Stroopwafels. I must say my favourite dish was the Limburgse Vlaai. It is a sweet Dutch dish is thinner than most pies we know of and ours was filled with a delicious apricot-cherry filling. 

Dessert











With the dining done for the day, we accompanied the manager for a night’s celebration; just the three of us. He brought us to the Melkweg (Milky Way) one of Amsterdam’s best entertainment venues located in the heart of the city. It was an amazing with many great times had. Many different bands including Goldfish, Yellow Claw and Joris Voorn, were playing that night and it was overall a very cultural and modern experience. Our event ended at around 2h00 in the morning and it was a good thing neither of us had to work the next day because we were extremely tired after.

We took a taxi home and hoped for an equally exciting day tomorrow.


Carl Turner

Day 4 (Re-Enter: Royal Dutch Shell)

After a less than fortunate meeting with Hagemeyer, we started our day with our heads held high. We got on the bus hoping to make a successful deal today. It was a long bus ride, the traffic today was unusually slow. I was really hoping that we wouldn’t get stuck in traffic and be late for the day’s 13h00 meeting. Luckily for us, the green lights seemed to love us and we were able to follow through to the meeting; we even arrived half an hour early.

So there we were at the building. It looked especially tall today and we were both nervous upon entering. This was our final chance to seal the deal. So we walked in and were greeted by what seemed to be the same woman: “Welkom”. She remembered us and brought us straight to the room. Upon entering we greeted everyone and sat at our seats. As if sensing or testing our nerves, they took an uncharacteristically long time to get to the point. (Well at least according to our research, the Dutch are pretty direct and dont like to waste time.) Exactly 36 minutes into the meeting, they told us what we were waiting for all day. “Wij aanvaarden uw transactie” Basically they had thought about and decided to accept our deal. We were extremely glad and breathed each breathed a huge sigh of relief. The corporate manager even invited us to “Koningsdag” with him. Koningsdag is also known as “King’s Day”; it is a holiday held on the 27th of April, but since it falls on a Sunday this year, it will be held on the Sunday. Overjoyed with the great news, we immediately shook everyone’s hands.

After the meeting, it was already, 16h00 and we were really hungry after waiting patiently for the a response. So, we decided to celebrate that night. Although we didn’t succeed in both of our deals, one contract was definitely worth the trip. We decided to explore the city to see what kind of foods we could find. We looked around and immediately spotted the following items that we knew we wanted to try: Limburgse Vlaai, Patat, Bitterballen, and a premature Hollandse Nieuwe Haring. We decide to hold out on the Haring, as the actual herring season doesn’t start until May, so we wanted to come as close as possible to the actual date. What we finally decided on was the Patat; it is fries topped with a variety of toppings including peanut saté sauce, mayo, onions, and ketchup. It’s kind of like our poutine. We both decided to get the Patat Oorlog where “Oorlog” literally means war. It was very good, and definitely a new (or old) spin on our everyday poutines. Though, I will say I still prefer poutines better. After exploring the city and stuffing our bellies, we decided to call it a day, and prepare for more touring of the city tomorrow and King’s day festivities.

Day 3 (Enter: Hagemeyer)

Well that was an interesting meeting. Today’s meeting with Hagemeyer did not end so well with the meeting. First of all they did not like our business plans. They found many holes in our plans, from our investments to other companies besides Shiptur, the companies we were affiliated with, and lastly they did not want to part with their current shipping company. Their shipping company they have been relying on, called Maersk ,is a much bigger shipping company than ours and has become known world wide while also being a native Denmark company. Situations like these are very disheartening for both Carl and I, however nothing washes out problems like a pint of beer. Since we are in the netherlands we decided to try a few of their local beers. My favourite one was La Trappe Tripel a nice strong ale. Even with this depressing news I still believe our shipping company has a shot at the market here in Europe. Our previous meeting with the Royal Dutch Shell still proves that we can do business internationally and that gives me hope for success in our company.

Day 2 (Game Day)

day 2(G)

Went by train to cologne, Germany took 2 1/2 hours (about)

Today was a fun day for me and Carl as we both went our seperate ways to pursue our hobbies. Carl went to a MTG tournament while I took a 2 and a half hour train to Cologne Germany to visit the EU League Championship Series studio. 

To give some background on the matter League of Legends is a Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, or Moba, computer game. It is a very popular game around the world for all ages. On my visit to the studios I got to meet the players from my favourite EU teams Gambit Gaming (a Russian team) and Roccat. I also got to meet the shout casters (people who spectate and provide info to the audience about what’s going on in the game). Afterwards playing with them was very fun. I got to jungle against one of the top tier players. Much trolling was had.

The ride to and from Germany was quite efficient. The environment is quite relaxing, I recommend it over having to drive or take a cab, but then again I might be biased since I like sleeping when I’m travelling.



Day (2) (C)

Today was all about the play. After having scheduled business appointments yesterday, tomorrow, thursday, I decided that today was the day. It was actually the whole point of making this trip at this time. It was actually perfect timing, because we had billing issues back in Vancouver and were unable to leave until now. Of course, what I am talking about is Magic: The Gathering and Grand Prix Utrecht. 

Magic: The Gathering or MTG is a competitive card game that has been around for 20 years. I’ve just recently started playing a few years ago and thoroughly enjoyed my experiences. Gio isn’t as interested in MTG and honestly I don’t really know what he did. I basically got on the 40 minute train from Amsterdam to Utrecht and didn’t hear from him until night. We did pick up a roaming plan with Rogers that included 100 minutes and 150 text messages for $100.00. We each had to get a plan, and we desperately tried not to waste those precious minutes, so we didn’t actually see each other until 20:00. 

Anyways, the event was amazing; there were over 600 participants including the Hall of Famer Kamiel Cornelissen himself. I was unfortunately not able to play the legend himself, but I was able to get a few words with him. Anyways, I played G/U devotion, and I went 5-5 missing the cut for Top 8. Overall it was a fun time with some very interesting matchups and characters. I wouldn’t have changed it for a second, and this will definitely be one of the premier highlights of this trip.

Below are some of the pictures I took of the beautiful city.

Carl Turner