First night in a foreign land...

Rather than ramble through every moment of my time in Eindhoven, I figured I will focus on the key events/activities/observations.

First Night...
Walking into the bar in our hotel, we were pleasantly surprised to see that they were strong supporters of Movember. It was nice to see something familar and know that such a wonderful cause/program is supported world wide. We decided to hang out and have a drink to support their support. :)

Nothing like having bitterballen to support the balls.

We then headed out for dinner. I think of the things that I love so far about traveling in Europe is that no one knows you are foreign (Well, until they attempt to speak to you). This is much different from Mexico where we tend to not blend as well, despite our attempts to blend with our fabulous language skills (where-o is-o the-o beach-o?, Doug's version of Spanish) and attire (doesn't everyone where their swimsuit every day in Mexico?).  It has been nice to not be hassled, stared down or asked if I would like to take a motor taxi...however, we are without sun here...so I guess we can't have everything.

We went to a Thai restuarant, and I am upset to say I can't remember the name. I would ask Doug but last time he was asked where he went, he looked at the receipt and told them  :)"klant bon," which they responded meant "Customer Receipt." :)  Obviously his Dutch is not as strong as his spanish.

After that we ended up walking around the center and people watching, there were a lot of young college/high school aged people out. We ended up settling at an Irish Bar (which, I was at first against because why go to an Irish bar when you are going to Ireland within the week?). However, after we went in, it was my favorite and the musican there was really great.

Sleep...
As you can imagine, the time change has been having an impact on my sleep, I not being one who likes to sleep in, seem to now have no issue sleeping in or staying up late, although I do like my nap times. With the time change and the fabulous black out curtains in the hotel, we had no problem sleeping until after noon. Our goal had been to get up and go check out the shops and all that, but since we were unable to motivate ourselves out of bed, we ended up, just grabbing lunch and then going to meet up with some co-workers/friends of Doug for a movie.   We saw the new James Bond movie, Skyfall and then went out for tapas at a restaurant called Si Senor.  Ordered...fill the table and tried lots of fun things...ended up at our Irish Bar with great conversation and friends. Closed the night off with a stroopewafel mcflurry from MacDonald's (Scottish Restaurant...maybe you have heard of it) and of course frikandellen.

Darn birds

Have you ever heard of a bird strike? Well, I hadn't, we ran into some issue escaping the Netherlands and heading to Ireland, the birds decided to attack our plane as it was flying in to pick us up. This is not something you want to see next to your plane. After a few hours we were allowed to board.  Lets just say that the Eindhoven airport is small and has limited internet connectivity.

We finally made our way to Ireland....