Cucuhouse blog: 2008-03-16

First of all, sorry for the long blog absence. I lost my camera in a ski trip some weeks ago, and I have been very sad since then (in reality I did not lost it, but it would be very unpolite to write here that a friend of mine lost it when she left my poor camera abandoned inside a bag in front of the hotel). I loved that camera, and this blog has lived from its pictures since it was born. Anyway, just a weekend in Amsterdam has been enough to solve the camera situation (Schipol Airport offer, got a new Sony Cyber-shot with 950,000 megapixels and 2 milion hours battery for 120 eur), the bogging absence, and other things such as not seeing the people from iese that I met there for some time.

AMSTERDAM

Projection Bias definition: Think that future preferences/views will be similar or the same than current preferences/views.

I did not think about this when I talked to Lena some weeks ago, and she told me that Pablo, Oriol and Vlad would be going to Amsterdam for a weekend to meet her and Ryan, and that I should join them in the mini-IESE reunion. Well, at that moment I thought it would be good to go, but I had other things in mind which were upwards in the list, so I said to Lena that I would love to see them again but it was not going to be the 14th of March in Amsterdam.

2 weeks later I find myself flying to Breda for work, and a few hours later, while having lunch with a Belgium colleague (if eating a tuna-mayo sandwich at 12:00 in a meeting room is considered lunch) who was complainig about the Dutch habit of drinking milk during lunchtime in the office, I start to receive emails from my friends who would be meeting in Amsterdam the next day for the weekend. Suddenly, an impulse that I did not feel until that mid-day makes me type "vuelos barcelona amsterdam" on my laptop keyboard several times. 10 minutes later a phone operator from KLM mentions that I have to pay more than 800 eur to go to Amsterdam. Damn it!! Once more, my intuition has proved wrong, and 2 weeks after the phone conversation with Lena, I am valuing much higher the fact of being in Amsterdam with her, Pablo, Ryan, Oriol and Vlad for 3 days (ok, not 800 eur, but a lot higher than two weeks before). At least I still haven't heard that suffering from Projection Bias is a very very bad thing with no remedy.

Anyway, I managed to get a "not so ridiculously expensive" flight for the day after, and finishing work earlier on friday, there I was eating my friday night KLM sandwich. Another good sentence from our decision analyis class: The later a task is completed, the higher the cost (especially true when buying flights and dish-washing).

Around 12:30 I make it to Ryan's place, where everybody is waiting, and then I realize how stupid I was when thinking about not going to Amsterdam. Some beers on friday night and go to sleep not very late to be ready for the touristic day.

Lena, my host in Amsterdam.

After breakfast and a mini-bike tour, we go to a bike rental place so that everybody is full-equiped to go around the city day and night.

Racing in the canal while hearing Vlad shouting to Pablo "vamos Indrain!!!" (for Miguel Indurain) was quite an experience, especially for the people walking, who were a bit in danger because of Pablo Royo's ability of braking with a pedal-braking bike.

Pablo: Groot Problem!!!

Afternoon in Amsterdam terraces and then, of course, we are tourists, we had to go to the red light district.

We ask the Indian guy running a strange bar with no alcohol if the juices in the menu are natural, and the answer is "Yes, of course, everything is natural, very good juice". So we start ordering juices and Vlad asks for a juice of two tastes. The guy says that combinations of flavours are not possible, only what is in the menu ? ? ? Ok well, then just an apple juice.

Here myself enjoying one of those home-made "natural" juices. If you have to work in a place with "not very clean" air the whole day, one of the results may be that you end up confusing the concepts natural and "completely artificial with no taste" when talking with your about to be customers.

Vlad: Look at that girl man! uhhaaaa!!

me: Vlad, that is not a girl

Vlad: What do you mean, not a girl??

me: I am telling you that almost half of those girls in the windows are not exactly what they look like.

Vlad: What? This is onlybecause the afternoon shift is not so good as the night shift.

Ryan: Of course! There are no men here, no way

me: It does not matter. I am telling you that the girl there was not a girl, that was definetely a man.

Vlad: Shut up! you are sick!

Sunday: Rain and cold. My initial saturday thoughts abbout living in Amterdam are changing a bit after facing weather reality. However, I get up early and go to see if I can visit at least the Rijksmuseum while the rest of the group prefers to stay warm in front of Ryan's Wii. The 100m cue of people holding their umbrellas in front of the museum and my headache make me reassess my cultual needs of the day, so I change plans and join the group again for a recovering coffee. After all, that was not supposed to be a museum weekend at all.