Queen of Scots: The Day with Men on Boats

Karen and me had the opportunity to attend a 'borrel' (social evening) on a huge Dutch Navy ship a couple of weeks ago. Annemieke had gotten invited to this evening since the commander of the Dutch maritime forces is married to her cousin and she is a member of the Dutch community here in Glasgow. But since she was not going to be in Glasgow that evening she had asked the Dutch consulate if it was okay if she sent two Dutch students instead...
Karen was very excited when I invited her :) Soon we called the approaching day of the borrel the Day with Men on Boats.

The borrel was to be held on the HNLMS Rotterdam, one of the largest ships in the Dutch fleet. (http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/rotterdam/) You should realise that there is a staff on this ship of about 150 and the ship is designed to accommodate a marine battalion of up to 620 troops. The ship can also transport 160 armoured landing vehicles and has space in its hangar for 6 helicopters.
Get it? It's BIG.

I had told my grandfather that I was going on this ship and he was almost as excited as Karen and I :) He made sure I promised him to tell the officers we would meet that my grandfather had been 'one of them' and that I had Navy blood running through my veins. And of course I did. Since Karen and me were the only females under 40 there without a uniform on the young officers found us surprisingly fast ;)
The social was held literally in between the landing vehicals.

I remember feeling very comfortable there. I found out that I know a lot more about the navy and the army then I had realised before. I was actually quite proud I was able to joke with them about the red stripe on the marines' trousers and silly inside info like that. I must have learnt a lot from my grandfathers old stories and the experiences in the army or navy of other men close to me.
I'm probably going to sound weird here, but I sort of felt my grandmother there. I felt she was proud of me and happy that I could see part of their lives and the position she had often been in as an 'outsider' woman on a Navy ship. I could vey clearly picture her feeling as comfortable there as I was standing between these young officers.
Anyway! I was very curious to see the rest of the ship and fortunately one of the officers we'd met could show us most of it. As said before, it is HUGE. It is as big as a skyscraper and contains a whole world. We saw everything, from the kitchens, the sleeping quarters and the hospitalwing to the platform and the guns. Of course we also had to meet the commander of the forces. When asking our new officer friends which one of the uniformed people he was they dropped their jaws and were impressed when we went up to him to introduce ourselves. 'Do you know him??' Well...he's family of a friend, so now we do :)

The ship had been on a training mission in the two weeks before, so this was the first evening most of the staff and marines had a night off. The official social where we were at had most of the officers there but obviously there were about 600 other people there too that were having small parties all over the ship. Walking up onto the bridge with two girls at their side probably made the two officers with us quite popular to the guys having their party there, haha.
We ended up taking three of the guys (who had changed their uniforms for normal clothes...pity but understandable :P) back up to the West End with us to show them some of the places students here go out in. We ended up having a lot of fun and having tea at my place in the middle of the night accompanied by strange conversations about Ikea foods and Karen leaving in a cab with all three of them :)