Official trip to Netherlands - Groningen Part 1

It was all rainy and fogged up as we landed here in amsterdam. However as our aircraft descended there was surprisingly no turbulence, quite typical of such foggy and rainy conditions. The pilot made a silky smooth landing and I bet that if anyone was sleeping at that time, he wouldnt have woken up !! Schipol is a spacious airport with 4 lounges (main waiting areas). It seems to be pretty much busy too. I think the reason for that would be that there are many connecting flights from Schipol to other parts of the world. We headed to passport control (immigration) where they asked us the usual questions. Q: Purpose of your visit? A: Business meeting. Q: What kinda business meeting? A: A scope identification sort of business meeting !! Q: Could you show me your invitation letter please? A: Yeah. Sure....here it is. The man looked at the invitation letter and looked impressed (Because the name of our company is quite famous apparently!!) "Hmm.... !!!" He said !! He immediately stamped my passport. All 14 of us, then picked up our baggage and assembled in the pickup area. The pickup fellow was there holding an identification board. He took us to the cabs waiting for us and helped us with our luggage. It was a good 2 hour drive from Amsterdam airport to Groningen. The distance between the two is approximately 253 Kms and so as per the math, the average speed was a fast 125 Km / hr !!! On the way, we enjoyed seeing the lovely dutch countryside. The fields here are stretched as far as the eye can see and the greenery is amazing. There was also a lot of cattle grazing in many of these fields. Netherlands is known for its dairy products like cheese. The dutch also harness a lot of wind energy, which is evident from the large no. of windmills that we saw along the way. We reached Groningen at around 10 AM local time here. Had the complimentary breakfast and went around to roam in groups of threes or fours (Our group for most of the time was me, Jaggu, VDP and SW from electrical). Groningen is a very quiet place. When we came here, it was as if we had come into a curfew area !! The receptionist told us that its because it was sunday and shops are closed and people too, sleep late into the morning, We were quite amused by this. She asked us on what day are shops closed in Mumbai? We told her that they are not closed on any day and are open till atleast 10 in the night !! It was her turn to be amused after that !!! After that we went out to roam around in Groningen, since our rooms would be ready after some time. Actually we just walked around just surveying what shops are there and where the eating places are as all of them were closed !! We saw a sort of 'Fun fair' area which was buzzing with activity when we went out later in the afternoon after returning to our hotel rooms and catching a short nap. We also saw a couple of subway outlets and macdonalds outlets which are open after 6 PM in the afternoon, meaning that we can go there to have our dinner meal !! Groningen has a lot of canals too and I saw a lot of people fishing as well.