Mission impossible!?

The last trip of this term is this one. I am now in the Netherlands. Yesterday we spent a couple of hours in Amsterdam which is where the photos above are from. Then we took the train to Utrecht and from there to Zeist and finally a taxi to Woudschoten conference centre. I got up at 4.20 a.m. yesterday morning and we got here about 6 p.m. Finnish time. In the meanwhile I managed to burn my arms and neck walking about Amsterdam but it was great to get see it nonetheless.
So what was it again that I'm doing here you are asking, right? Well, I am attending the Conference of European Chaplains 2007. The theme is:
Mission impossible!?
The art of Chaplaincy in a secular and pluralistic context.
Our first keynote speaker was Markha Valenta. Accoriding to the background information we got "She's an assistant professor in the Department of Contemporary History here in the Netherlands and she's examined the place of Muslims and Islam in Dutch and American society in relation to questions of national identity, democracy and globalization. More generally, her work considers the interaction of religions and politics, the problem of democratic pluralism, American global power, (international) violence and justice."
She was brilliant!
Her title was Of Pride and Prejudice: Dutch Experiments in Taming Immigrants, Sex and Death, which certainly caught everyone's attention :). She's actually from the United States so it was easy to listen to her (no interpretation or accent problems there) and she gave a really interesting talk about how the Dutch society has come to where it now is. It was fascinating, insightful and thought provoking, in other words a very good speech.
After that there was another keynote speaker but I wanted to digest what Markha had talked about so I took a break then. After lunch we got to getter for a discussion with my reflection group which was also really interesting. We're two people from the Netherlands, one Swede, one Norwegian, one Britt, one Australian and three (!) Finns.
Now I'm off to our European Market. Each group brings foods and stuff with them to represent their country (we've got reindeer meat, rye bread, bread cheese with cloudberry jam, chocolate etc.) It's always great fun and a good chance to mingle and get to know people better.
This is a really nice conference centre and my absolute favorite are the bunnies you see hopping about and the birds singing. We're literally in the middle of a forest. Oh, and there's a little bond just outside my window. I'm not a big fan of living in hotels but if you have to then this is certainly a nice place to stay.