Work trip to Utrecht, Netherlands - 20th October 2008

A day trip to my office in Zeist (which is a lovely little town in the middle of nowhere, close to Utrecht), meant a very early alarm call in the morning - a 4:40am taxi to get to the airport in time for the first flight of the day. In fact, I think my flight (the 6:25am British Midland, if you care) is the very first flight of the day to take off from Heathrow. Once the plane was full and it pushed back from the gate, we sat on the tarmac until precisely 7am, whereupon we took off - I guess because the Heathrow runway only opened for takeoff at that time. A huge 37 minutes later, and we had landed in Amsterdam, and an annoying 15 minute taxi after that, we were at the gate. It is often irritating to lose an hour on the way from the UK to Europe, because no matter how early you get up, it is virtually impossible to get anywhere by 9am.

After a quick injection of caffeine in Schiphol airport, I met a colleague, and we embarked on the train journey to Zeist. Obviously, being the Netherlands, this is a rather unremarkable journey across flat countryside, although we did see some windmills and farm animals on the way. Plus the Amsterdam Arena. A change in Utrecht, where we bought some very nice chips with mayonnaise, and we arrived in Zeist about an hour after we left the airport. Picking up more colleagues there, we though we would be better served heading back towards the bright lights of Utrecht for some lunch.

That was a mistake. Being a Monday, and being a town which is occasionally lively but mostly quite pedestrian, there were not an abundance of places to get food. We walked around the whole city centre, past the Dom church tower, which is the tallest and most recognisable building in the city. Despite a few tourists around, there seemed to be no restaurants open for lunch. So, we eventually retreated back towards the station, for one of the strangest Chinese (or more likely, Indonesian) meals I have ever had. Obviously, the Dutch used to own Indonesia, but the food they got back was perhaps not the best - it looked to me like the Indonesians may have played a small joke on their colonial masters, at least in this restaurant.

Eventually, by 4pm, it was time to head back to Schiphol - after a very long day that had left me flagging. One of those journeys followed where you just want to get home as quickly as possible, but everything seems to be happening really slowly. A delayed plane, a big queue for immigration, and long wait for the Heathrow Express back into London - all most annoying. It was a good day, certainly better than a day in the office, but the length of the day reminded me exactly why I usually try to spend a night when I visit the Netherlands.