This past week was one of my favorites! Throughout the work week, I got closer with my team at my company through our sports bettings on the soccer games. My teams are Switzerland and Serbia which is not too promising but it is still a fun time and everyone is competitive enough, that’s for sure. I have been working on the website they are revamping at the moment. So far, I made entire pages for their website and have been in communication with the tech person they hired to make their website dreams come true, it is a slow process but it is coming along well.
This past weekend I and eleven others in my program visited Amsterdam! We left super early in the morning and were able to spend our whole first day exploring the city and looking around. The canals were super interesting to see and the fact that they are still used for touring and transportation made the city so much more unique, as Dublin doesn’t have canalways. We did take a boat ride to see the city from the water as well which was a great experience to share with one another. We also took a coach bus over to Zaans Schan, Holland which gave us a tour of the cutest village! We saw the iconic windmills as you would on the postcards, and we saw cheese making and learned about the history of it in the area, specifically Gouda, and we watched how wooden clogs are made and the use of them in the Netherlands. I was disappointed we were unable to see the fields of tulips that everyone talks about and posts beautiful photos of, but since they are not currently in season we had to go without. During our stay, we also had some interesting Dutch food (which certainly was not my favorite) and we went to two museums. We went to the Rijksmuseum and saw some Van Gogh works as well as other famous painters and sculptures, it was all beautiful and made me miss the Carnegie Mellon museum at home in Pittsburgh, just a little bit.
With my host country being Dublin, Ireland there are a few things I find slightly difficult to assimilate with in general and in the workplace. To begin, I get asked about politics a lot, a lot more than I ever expected and it takes me aback each time. Casual conversations turn into even lighter conversations about politics. In my opinion, the Irish people have a much more genuine consensus on their views of politics which makes our rivalry so intriguing to them. The politics here are much different and certainly less extreme than ours, but I do not want to discuss my views on Donald Trump and Joe Biden every day, it simply does not interest me and I am not educated enough on either end to share a valid opinion on specific things each has done and currently does. It’s difficult to adapt to because it is a touchy subject in America, and the complete opposite here. The Gaelic culture is not too prominent any longer it seems, but things are still difficult like the Irish accent. Especially in more Northern parts, it is super hard to understand and almost sounds like they are speaking a different language. I think it goes both ways though because I get asked to repeat myself numerous times a day as well. The cuisine here as well I do not think is too different from America. However, the dishes here are definitely heavier, it seems portion wise, especially items like the meat and potatoes that they sell at almost every restaurant. The food here though is super similar to what I eat at home so thankfully it is not too difficult to become assimilated within that.
In the workplace, I find it difficult to grasp the workload they give me sometimes. While this is not necessarily a cultural thing, my workplace in Pittsburgh has me constantly running around because there is always something that needs to be done or somebody waiting to be helped. I hardly have to be told what to do unless my boss specifically needs a task to be managed. However, here I am finding myself having to ask what to do each day and for something to work on because while I do not mind sitting there sipping my coffee and playing the NYT daily games, I do want to get the most out of this work experience as possible. This is hard for me to adapt to because I am not used to having to ask for work to do or find new things to learn within my company.
Regardless, so far I have learned to further my adaptability and flexibility which will only make me a stronger worker for the future and my professional career.
