WOW! What an amazing week we had with Lex and his team from region 6. They had a great programme for us and we were very sad to leave today :(
Our final full day in the area was yesterday of which we spent the morning exploring the old fortress on the Island at Ijmuidn. It was a wierd atmosphere as there was so much history and the thought that men really lived in concrete bunkers in those conditions was contrasted with the fact the facility is now used for corporate events and team building days with all the modern luxuries installed! We had lunch in an old bunker that slept 24 men! Hard to imagine when you see how small the room was.
After lunch we jumped back on a boat to the mainland to be taken to Corus, a massive steel manufacturing plant now owned by the Indian company Tata. We arrived and were shown a DVD about the plant and how the steel making process works. (At which stage Thijs had a bit of a kip ;)). After that we were fitted with a host of protective clothing; lab coat, steel capped boots, goggles, hair nets, hard hats and ear pieces. This meant another episode of Nageen swimming in oversized things, although she really did look the part!
All 11 of us were taken to a tour bus, yes a massive 50 or so seater just for us, to be driven around the site. The plant is huge with more roading in Kms than we could have walked in a day. During the tour we saw the melting process and looked into a liquid steel mixture. We had to walk over plates that could be lifted to access the liquid, this was a bit of a worry and so Shanna avoided them whenever she could, images of falling in were rife! We also got to see the flattening process where the steel slabs are squashed and stretched to specific sizes, then the quality section where they test for all sorts of components to make sure the steel is of the higest standard.
It is a massive operation and gave us an insight into another world of which 9000 people work. While most of the chemistry of it all was lost on the team (evident in my lack of clear explanation here!), Chris stepped up and was in his element as a Chemistry teacher asking all sorts of questions I could not even attempt to repeat!
That concluded the day and we all returned to our host families for our last night with them.
This morning we had breakfast in Limmen with our current Rotary coordinators and our new host families. Lex gave a great goodbye speech and warned our new hosts that we were trigger happy with the old photos! When in Rome we say!! It was a sad goodbye as Jan, Lex, Roel and Thijs amongst others all put so much into the week for us and we will miss them!
We spent the afternoon on vocational visits but will update you about them this weekend as well as adding images to this blog.
So a new week, new families and new adventures! Until then, we wil be enjoying the gorgeous old city of Alkmaar!
Doei Doei!
Sonya
View of Corus from the skyline of Ijmuiden
Flag atop the fortess that was once home to the Germans in WWII
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