A few weekends ago we went up to Amsterdam. All American women's clubs in the world are under an umbrella organization called FAWCO (Federation of American Women's Clubs Overseas). The AWCB needed a representative to attend the regional conference, so I went up there for it. I am always amazed when I meet business people who can talk for hours on end about EU regulation, legal procurement, antitrust, etc. Whenever Kyle has a lunch meeting with someone I always say, "You mean you talked for two hours about competition law and never once talked about anything personal?!?!" So it was fun for me to attend an eight-hour conference and talk about membership retention, increasing volunteerism, membership rates and requirements, and clubhouse facilities all day long. I finally realized that if you know a lot about a topic and you are involved with it on a day-to-day basis, it is pretty easy to talk knowledgably about it for a long time. I met many great women from all over our region (Stockholm, Amsterdam, The Hague, Antwerp, Rotterdam, Paris and Luxembourg). It was neat to hear their experiences with their women's clubs and with being an expat.
Amsterdam was beautiful and we enjoyed getting to tour around. For the first time in three years we forgot to bring our camera. Kyle pointed out that we have over 4,000 other pictures (yes, really 4,000) from all of our other trips so perhaps missing a few isn't too bad. Together we saw the Anne Frank house and the Dutch Resistance museum and on Saturday Kyle saw the Van Gogh Museum and Rijksmuseum (national history and art) on his own. Seeing the number of bikes there was incredible. To give you an idea, there are 700,000 people in the city and about 700,000 bikes too. Parking for cars is between 2.60-4.60 euros per hour throughout the entire city, so biking is a much more economical option over driving (and having to park). Kyle and I enjoyed sitting outside at cafes and just watching the cars, bikes, and pedestrians navigate. I am amazed there are not more accidents there.
Last weekend we went to our third Capitalist Ball. We know a fair amount of the attendees now, so we really had fun eating, drinking and dancing. We ended up getting home at 5am which is the latest we have stayed out in a long time.
If any of you recall last year's photos, many of the same people attended this year too. I have no clue where this woman shops, but she has a very distinctive style called "Almost flashing her nipple and a slit up to her hip."
http://www.cne.org/2005_capball/pages/800_20E27D~1.htm
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