Wednesday Story!

Ok, this has not happened before this year: a Wednesday Story!

Last week was filled with getting ready to leave lovely London. First of all, I had to leave my room in Bow in East London. After packing all of my stuff (which is A LOT), I moved everything to Greenford, in West London. Fortunately, I had some help from Kirsten and Lauren. So now, I am a West London-girl! Just for a week though. My friend Carly needed someone to take care of her two cats while she is on a holiday. 

The last week and a half have been crazy busy: handing over my work at Netberg, packing, moving, taking care of the cats and, unfortunately: saying goodbye to people. Yup, that time is here again. After leaving Swansea I thought I was done saying goodbye to people that I met there. But i kept seeing a lof of my lovely Swansea friends during my time in London, which was great of course! But it also means I have to say goodbye to them again. It started with Rachel last week, and yesterday I had my last drinks with Roma. This weekend I will hopefully see Manvir as well to give her one last hug. But that is not all: I also have to say goodbye to my London people! I'm really gonna miss my collgues at Netberg, after working with them for 5 months. Fortunately I will see a few of them in Amsterdam in August and hopefully this will be the start of an annual reunion! I also have to say goodbye to my housemate and good friend, Lauren. We met on the night we both moved in to the house in Bow, and we have been good fiends ever since. 

So this weekend is filled with goodbyes. But luckily, it's also filled with fun things! Tomorrow night, my mum will arrive in London, ready for a weekend of all that London has to offer! And after taht, on Monday I have to say the biggest goodbyes of all: to the UK...

Love,

Yolanda

Busy busy busy!

The end of another week. The start of a cold.
This week has been crazy busy, hence not enough sleep, hence a cold. But I have to say, it was worth it!

After a few 'normal' days at the Netberg office, I went to a fancy party at DSTRKT near Piccadilly Circus with some friends on Wednesday night. It was supposed to be a 'Made in Chelsea' party, where the cast would be, and they would film. I'm pretty sure that was just some PR talk to get more people to the party because I just saw two people of the cast, and no camera's. But ah well, the party was good anyway :)
And then on Thursday night, it was finally time for the World Cup to start! I don't normally watch football, but when the World Cup is on, suddenly my football-fan-side comes out! It was fun to watch the opening match, but of course, I was waiting for Spain vs. the Netherlands on Friday night....
But before it was Friday night, it was Friday. I went to an event at Google Campus to listen to people from the industry to talk about Social Media strategies. Google Campus is a place Google set up for (tech) entrepreneurs. They offer office space, opportunities to get advice from Google employees, opportunities to pitch ideas, and events to learn. It was a really interesting day and I learned so much more about Social Media than I already knew. Of course, I will be leaving Netberg in two weeks, but I still have enough time to share this knowledge with the team before I leave.

And then... the big game!! I didn't really believe in the Dutch national team, as many others with me. But still, to represent my country, I showed up at the office (where we would watch the game altogether) in my orange t-shirt. And I'm glad I did because Holland was a-ma-zing!

The previous night, Rachel had arrived in London! This is our last weekend together before we both leave the UK. So we planned an amazing trip: to the Harry Potter studio tour! But first, it was time for breakfast, which we had at my favourite place around the corner from my house. After that, we made our way to Leavesden. The tour was amazing! It was so cool to see the sets and the props from the movies. To see with how much detail these were made, was really impressive. But mostly it was a trip down memory lane for us, because we basically grew up with the books and the films.
After our journey back to East London, we headed to the pub to watch England - Italy. It was a really bad game and England lost, but the vibe in the pub was really fun anyway!

So today, another Sunday. A Sunday where I really have to say goodbye to Rachel, after sharing so much with her this year. Also a Sunday where I have to start thinking about packing, as I am leaving this house next week already. And a Sunday where I have to think about all the things I still want to do in London before I go home in two weeks....

Love,
Yolanda

Perfect London

Wow, this week London was perfect.
On Tuesday night, I went to an 'Introduction to Mindfulness' meeting. This was done by the Leith, who also runs the philosophical meet-ups on Friday night. It was really interesting to learn a bit about mindfulness, and to do some meditation. Unfortunately I cannot do Leith's Mindfulness course, because I will be going back to Holland soon. But it's definitely something I will explore more in the future.

After having a nice week at work, we got the Friday off! The weather was really nice so I decided to go to Camden and walk along the canal to go to Primrose Hill. Primrose Hill is one of my favourite places in London. It's a really nice park in London with, of course, a hill. When you walk up this hill, you have a beautiful view of the London skyline. Priceless.

At night, I was going to a philosophy meeting with Kirsten and Lauren again. When we arrived at the restaurant, Leith wasn't there. Due to a misunderstanding, he did not show up. So it was just Kirsten, Lauren, me and a lady from Colombia. She actually turned out to be a consultant/life coach for business people in big corporations. So she offered to be the facilitator that night. And we had such a good night with the four of us. Good food, some drinks, and good philosophical conversations.
We went really deep into the concept of different emotions, and how those emotions are linked to the past, the present, and the future. Turns out, most of the negative emotions were linked to the past and the future, and the positive emotions were linked to the present. So it should be easy: be in the present. But of course, it's not that easy. We are mostly thinking about the past or the future. We concluded that sometimes it is useful to think about the past, because we can learn from it. And at the same time, it's useful to think about the future, because we can prepare ourselves for what is coming. But when you are not learning or preparing: don't be in the past of the future. Be in the present.

With this in mind, I really enjoyed my weekend. After doing the usual Saturday stuff (laundry, cleaning, grocery shopping) I spent most of my afternoon and night in the pub. I have to enjoy the British pubs while I can, right?

Today was just perfect. After waking up with a minor headache caused by a few pints from the night before, Lauren and I made our way to Greenwich. And it was amazing. The weather was so good, and it felt like being on a holiday. Even though we had a view of the London skyline, Greenwich really doesn't feel like London. Lauren and I walked around like real tourist, and spend a few hours sunbathing in Greenwich Park. On our way home, we stopped at Tesco to pick up some nice food and wine. We ended the day drinking, eating and listening to music, while enjoying the last sunshine of the day on our improvised balcony. It was a perfect housemate day. Actually, Lauren and I are so much more than just housemates. She is really on of my favourite people ever, and I am gonna miss her so much when I'm gone.

So that's it, only three weeks left! Fortunately, these three weeks are filled with amazing plans. Read all about it next week ;)

Love,
Yolanda

It's JUNE already?!

I know it's getting old but I have to say it again: time is going by so quickly! It's already June!

This week was another nice working week at Netberg! Especially Friday: the bosses were out for a meeting and my iPhone was connected to the boxes. This meant: DISNEY PARTY. Listening and singing along to all the best Disney songs. Yes, I am still the only girl at the office. So yes, the boys were also singing along (probably louder than me...).
After that, we all went down to Borough Market and had a lovely lunch together. We went back to the office and did some more work. Just a bit of work, because it was time to play football! After the football, we all rushed home to shower, change and eat dinner. I actually managed to do all of this within 1,5 hours! We all met in the office again, to start drinking, because it was Tom's leaving party! It was a crazy night filled with enough alcohol, and salsa dancing to techno music(yes, that was my fault...)

Saturday was Saturday. And I stayed in bed for most of it.

I did get a very exciting email! For a week now, I have been looking for an organic farm in Italy to work for a week. And I got an email from one of the farms that I can come in July! Hopefully, everything will go as plannend, and I will work at a farm in Suvereto, Toscany!
Today was a lovely day as well: I went to St. James' Park for a stroll and to film for the video about my time in London that I'm making(stay tuned, I'll post it to my blog sometime in July!)

Also, some more Netberg news: I wrote a press release about our launch event, and Friday afternoon we sent it out. There are already a few online magazines/papers that published it! You can see it here.

Love,
Yolanda