Poffertjes* for Lunch, 5 Dozens of White Rose, and 2 Books about the Dutch

Tomorrow would be my last working day at the AEC office, folks. Oh, dear, I am never good at Good-Byes.
As a farewell thingy, my office colleagues (that’s Martin the Chief Executive, Janneke the Office Manager, Christine the Project Manager and Ilaria, the new intern from Italy) had a lunch in this poffertjes-house near the central station. Christine and I ordered a normal portion with chocolate-sauce on it, Janneke without, Ilaria small, and Martin the large one, water for Christine and Ilaria, tea for martin, cola-light for Janneke, and of course, for me it has to be cappuccino.
So we talked about stuffs, how Martin started the whole Office concept by himself, the AEC used to have the administration taken care of by the institution which was appointed as the Secretary General. It also means that every year the office personnel changes. He also mentioned that with the current state of membership (around 20% of the member institutions are always late in paying the membership fee, if not never at all), in 2 years the AEC can only support one-and-a-half person to keep the Office running.
But if the Office is growing like it is now, (with all the projects and the monetary support from the European Union), in 10 years the AEC could hire the Ganzenmarkt** building all for themselves :D

Speaking of job, we also talked about the ups-and-downs of working part-time in a restaurant (even those with Dutch owners are not any better). Ilaria used to work in a French cuisine restaurant in Muiderpoort, while Christine has experiences working at an (filthy) English pub, and Janneke has worked in six restaurants, Martin spent of his student-lifetime working as a cellist (well.. he was a music student, and according to him, music students made money by doing performances)

Talk about my school life, I told them that the school is arranging a joint-student project with a university in Essen, twenty-students from Diemen and another twenty from the University, and that we have to organize a corporate event. Janneke exclaimed that with a group of 40 people, we could as well start our own government (really..? that’ll be rather cool)

Oh, and as a farewell gift they gave me the rose bouquet (my first ever bouquet), ‘the Dutch, I presume?’ and ‘De Hollandse keuken / Dutch Cuisine’ ( a COOKBOOK.
w-o-n-d-e-r-f-u-l.

*) Poffertjes = small pancakes, traditional Dutch snack, di Jakarta udah banyak yg jual – incl. my sister’s school canteen
**) Ganzenmarkt building is where the Office is situated right now, we share the building with other companies working in the field of culture and art.