I'll pick this up in no time

I enjoy my first week at Winkle, get shown around in the city by a colleague and start learning dutch.
Wednesday morning I was filled with excitement as I rang the doorbell of Winkle for the first time. The office building is located right next to Keizersgracht, the second of the three canals that circle the city center. The staircase led me to the fourth floor were I walked into the office of Happen and greeted the first person I met. He welcomed me and quickly led me to the Winkle side of the office, which is where I will be working for the next three months. It is a spacious room with around 15 wide office tables, carpet floor and large windows facing east and west. This is where most of the work of Winkle is being done, although the company also has sales offices/departments in London, Toronto, New York and Sydney.
The first day here was one of many introductions. I met a lot of employees, got introduced to the company's organization and their operations. In return I told them of my background and expectations of my stay. That could be done quite rapidly, as I had only just arrived the day before and I had no clue what to expect. What I could tell them, though, is that Aarhus University does not expect much of me, and I am therefore free to work on anything that they find relevant. I think that puts me in a good position, where I can say yes to any task they propose, without fear of getting off-topic in relation to some assignment of my own.
At lunchtime, we all sat down together and had a meal family-style. I rather enjoyed this and I was able to copy some dutch lunch-eating habits, such as eating chocolate flakes on white bread. Essentially it becomes a cookie, so I don't think it will become a part of my usual meal, even though it is fun and tasty.
After work Thursday I participated in a monthly social event, which was supposed to be grill in the park, but ended up as tapas at the office due to the weather. Almost everyone participated and they each brought a dish for the meal. After dinner, we went to the rooftop terrace, which has a spectacular view over the south-western part of Amsterdam. It ended up getting late, but I still made it home with the regular bus routes and didn't have to wait for a nighttime bus.
Friday the office was almost empty, but the four of us, who were there had fun after hours playing Wii in the conference room. I must say, that I was very surprised with this, and I am not sure if it was in honor of me having nothing to do on a Friday night or to say goodbye to Fieke, who was leaving on vacation the next day. Regardless why, we sure had fun and became the end of my introductions week at Winkle. On a side note, Fieke is going to Ebeltoft, Denmark, so I hope my country presents itself well to her.
Saturday I was shown around by Martijn, who knows all the cool places in Amsterdam. We walked through Red Light District, which I had not expected to be so lively at 10 a.m., on to Nieuwmarkt. From there, we walked on to China Town, where we visited a temple, before walking south to Rembrandtplein, where we had a cold drink. We both needed that, as Amsterdam was bathed in sun and the wind would only come in short gusts. It was perfect weather for walking, so we strolled past the Flower market through the Vondelpark and found a nice place for lunch on Museumsplein. We then decided to visit the modern art museum nicknamed 'the bathtub'. The first floor was full of paintings by great artists, like Monèt, Picasso, Rembrandt and Kadinsky. On the second floor we found sculptures and installations and below ground was a large video-exposition. I liked the visit a lot, and I would definitely recommend the museum to anyone interested in art. I think Aros with a good special exhibition compares nicely to it though, as both museums boast nice architecture, good explanatory texts and great art. Later that day we went to a sushi restaurant, which served great food at very fair price. To round off the tour, Martijn showed me a bar he used to work in. It is a very particular bar, which only plays music from the era right after WWII. Some of it is jazz and I don't really know what the other genres were, but it is happy music that makes you want to dance. The bar had a very diverse clientele ranging from young party-goers, to people in their forties who also liked the atmosphere. I think that is definitely I place that I will visit again during my stay here.
Throughout all of these experiences I have heard and seen a lot of dutch words and come to a new conclusion regarding learning the language. Before coming to Amsterdam, I had decided that three months was too short to learn the language, but now, I think I will pick it up in no time. The structure of the language almost identical to that of Danish, and most words resemble ones from either Danish, German, English or French. I'm starting out with some free online courses, and then we'll see how I feel about it in a couple of weeks.