Day 11 (Takin' Care of BUSINESS)-Amsterdam

            First and foremost, here’s a little advice for those of you who plan to study abroad. DO NOT room with people who have a completely opposite schedule than you! For the week in Amsterdam, I decided to room with students who weren’t necessarily in my class so that I could branch out and get to know a variety of people. It turns out that when I’m awake and getting ready for my morning, they are sleeping and struggling to ignore me. When I’m headed to bed and trying to get ready for a 6:30am wake up call, they are up and wired!   

           

My pass to tour the RELX Group company

Anyway, this morning the class took a trip to visit RELX group, which is a business consulting company. We had an awesome speaker, who gave us a ton of information about their company and how the tactics that they use are globally transferrable. Though I struggled to stay awake and had to drink an emergency cup of coffee, I really enjoyed touring the company getting to see what the work environment of an American company in The Netherlands actually looks like.

The manager of Flevo Dancewear and I

            Immediately after the company visit, off to the field I went! Another interview goes down into the books of my dance marketing research. It took a while to find this one though. Public transportation in Amsterdam is soooo much harder to use than the metro! We ended up just having to make a good 30-minute walk. Upon my visit, I was able to talk with the manager of the store for a few minutes, and one of the questions that I asked her was, “Who do you compete with in the area?” I am so glad that I asked this question, because her answer was, “We used to compete with a store called Papillon, but now they’re bankrupt!” How ironic is it that our next stop was going to be to visit that very store. She definitely saved me from a wasted 35 minute walking trip. lol