Wednesday 6^th July – Sunday 10^th July

Greetings fellow Saltire scholars and blog readers, Chris here reporting in with my first blog. For those of you lovely people who don’t know me I am a Heriot Watt Chemical Engineering student making my debut in the professional engineering world as an intern for General Electric (GE) Energy Europe at their Moerdijk Combined Cycle Steam power plant in Holland. This first blog entry will soon be followed by my second as I am trying to get myself up to date after falling slightly behind the blogging schedule.

So last week I said goodbye to my family and flew out from Edinburgh to Amsterdam.  As I am going solo on this internship, it’s the good old getting thrown in at the deep end routine being by myself in a foreign country. However I managed to get from Amsterdam airport train station (Schiphol) to the location of my accommodation in one piece.

I’ve been set up in an apartment (which is looking pretty awesome I must say) in the city of Breda (near Rotterdam), I’m on the first floor overlooking a quaint little Dutch canal and I’m pretty much slap bang in the middle of the city centre. The flat is fully furnished and has internet access, I even have a mini fridge and microwave in my bedroom for when the journey of walking through the hallway into the kitchen is too much effort. After unpacking my suitcase I proceeded to do a little exploring, locating the local supermarkets, shopping centre, Laundromat, restaurants etc but most importantly I have discovered a guitar shop and plan to investigate the possibility of purchasing a cheap acoustic this weekend. I don’t think I would manage till September without a six string or Facebook, I would probably go insane…

Perhaps now I should talk about work as it is the main point of me being here!

To greet me on the first day of work, a lovely French lady named Veronique picked me up to take me to the plant. After obtaining a visitors pass at the gate Veronique took me on a meet and greet round the site offices where I was introduced to the team.

The GE guys are a right friendly bunch and have made me feel very welcome.  Interestingly, not many of them are Dutch.  Most of the guys are French and we also have Spaniards, Germans, Americans and even a few Englishmen and a guy from Wales. Indeed, the Moerdijk team are a diverse mix, hailing from all over the globe. 

The site (Moerdijk 2) is a combined cycle steam gas turbine which basically means the power plant burns natural gas to make electricity. At the moment it is still under construction, the guys tell me it’s about 85% complete. This plant is right next to the older Moerdijk 1 site and will produce an additional 400 Mega Watts (MW) of electricity. Despite being half the size of the older plant, Moerdijk 2 produces twice as much power, that’s modern technology for you!

 For those of you who aren’t familiar with energy unit terms and have no idea what I’m talking about, 400 MW is roughly one third of the energy required to power the De Lorean from the movie ‘Back To The Future’ in order for it to travel through time. “1.21 Jigawatts!”

Before even starting any work I had to go through a whole load of safety training; in the Netherlands, it is compulsory to have what is known as VCA Health and Safety Certificate to be able to work on construction sites and industrial areas.  Thus, to my distress I was sent into a nose dive of panic on checking my email inbox the day before I was due to start at the site when discovering I had to pass the VCA exam. As without the qualification I cannot become Homer Simpson and work inside the plant.  However, I was allowed to have access to the offices and canteen area of the site in the meantime where I attended a few meetings, the most important being the weekly HSE Toolbox meeting which is an informal gathering of the team where the weeks safety issues and updated are discussed. In addition, I received a guided tour around the plant getting to see all the various components of the installation; the turbine, boiler, generator cooling tower etc, all the stuff that up until now I had only read about in books at University. 

Brushing up on my French from high school and learning some basic Dutch before I flew over was definitely a good decision (thanks Trudy!) as I have mostly been hanging out with the French guys as they all live in Breda. I hope to be speaking at a higher level of French on my return to Scotland!

My first night out with the GE crew began with Friday evening dinner at the restaurant Dickens and Jones followed by a few drinks in the local town square where it is pubs galore! It was a relaxing atmosphere that helped me ease into my new environment and get to know my new colleagues better. I also saw the evening as a kind of celebration as I had received news from home a few hours earlier that I passed all my 4^th year exams at University, 5^th year here I come! My parents also informed me that they are coming over in August with my brother to visit me for my birthday so in all, a day of good news!

Antwerpen City Centre

However, the following day was slightly more adventurous as Veronique invited me out in the afternoon to Antwerpen in Belgium, along with her daughter Anna and her friend Lisa who are up visiting on holiday for the week.

Antwerpen is a very historic city full of lots of old buildings and castles; I put my new camera to good use.  Being my first time in Belgium, it was also my first time on the Belgian tram system and I must say they are having more success with it than the current attempt on Princes Street in Edinburgh…

After arriving back in Breda, Anna, Lisa and I headed out into town after dinner and explored the local pub and club scene.  Included in our adventure was a Spanish bar where we received  quite a few free drinks, the Spanish know how to party though I don’t think my flamenco dancing is quite up to scratch with Anna and Lisa’s. I would say the only disappointing part of the night is that the Dutch haven’t heard of pints…

Lisa and Anna

The weekend wasn’t over yet though, on Sunday afternoon I was invited to a BBQ with the GE team to a lake outside Breda. One of the guys even brought an inflatable boat and we went for a spot of rowing!  After a good day out I rounded off the weekend with Anna and Lisa at McDonalds for dinner, here in The Netherlands they give you a miniature traffic cone while you wait on your burger, strange…

Chris x