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After the group won in Brussels, they went on to the finals in Sevilla! So here is the update!

Day 0
All aboard the NS train to Schiphol, the journey starts. Through this blog, we hope to give you a taste of our adventure in Seville. This time, the previous team of Egbert, Casper and Alex has brought 33% more manpower and 12% more brainpower with the addition of Kris. The four of us traversed the country, with the train ride being made even better by watching some StucTV. No hiccups so far, but after Brussels, we have set our expectations very low. 

Arriving at our accommodation, we are positively surprised. It seems Estiem Seville has arranged a proper place to stay, 20 meters away from the engineering building. A swimming pool, a ping pong table, a cinema room, a gym, and a table football. Sadly, the swimming pool seems to have dried up due to the heat.

After a cold dinner at 22:30 and meeting the first of our adversaries, we learned that all the places to get a beer were closed or too far away, so we went to bed.

Day 1
A fresh morning in Seville and the first case day. After waking up with a perfectly made 2 rounds-heated microwave coffee and a piece of bread with oil and tomato paste, we were ready to go. It is as the old saying goes: “Give a man a fishing rod and he fishes, give a man a microwave and he creates coffee”. Kris finished his second breakfast in a Spanish style; a coffee and a cigarette.

Afterwards it was time for the daily episode of StucTV. Somehow there seems to be a correlation between engineering studies and crappy buildings. Brussels and Seville have not disproven this theory. In the light of StucTV, we would say: ‘godkanker hier is toch niet tegen aan te plamuren, probeer maar is’

Luckily today the ping pong table was allowed to be used and Egbert went full camping mode; shorts, a T-shirt and no shoes.

The case concerned a technical miracle on gamma radiation protection for Astro physical objects, requiring a full PhD to solve. Sadly, our knowledge of Star Wars did not help us much in this case. But with the power of Dutch classics such as natte vissticks, de spook trein, and turfy gang, we powered through. What also helped was the unlimited supply of instant coffee (we even got brought our own kettle: @Lugus learn from this). Afterwards we went to the city for a beautiful walk and some drinks. We managed to catch our host drinking Buffalo three times, after which we renamed him “San Miguel, the holy patron of beers”, or how we also like to call him: “Maricón”. After dinner, we finished the day with some more beers while the rest of the teams already went to bed. All of a sudden our saint Miguel ascended again. With that, we mean that he arrived in a car (still drunk), with a liter bottle of beer! Our goal in life is not to win in Seville, but to be an apostle of San Miguel.

Day 2

Today we could sleep in a little bit, and on top of that, we had prepared well and bought some extra food. We were happy hobbits with our second breakfast. The daily episode of StucTV brought a laugh to all of our faces. 

After arriving at the case room early, there was some time for getting an even better mood with some Dutch bangers or ‘ploadies’. Some bouncy dancing helped us get the creative juices flowing.

Our mood only got better when we opened the case. The case was about how to set up an offshore wind park and power distribution in the North Sea. Since Egbert has practically sold his soul to this subject for the past half year, we didn’t have to do that. 

After all the cases we waited for over an hour (15 Spanish minutes) for something very important: the reveal of the new Seville ESTIEM logo. We can describe it to you in two words: it exists. 

Next, we had 20 minutes to change before we went for our city walk to Plaza de España. After 60 minutes of waiting, we decided it was long enough and we went for another escape room during an ESTIEM event. This time it was escaping from the group and finding our own way to the city. Our first attempt failed as we just missed the bus, and our second attempt was almost sabotaged by Casper who was intentionally letting himself be slowed down by one of our Finnish adversaries: “Katrina”. What a thirsty boy. 

Nevertheless, the attempt was successful, and we made our way to a very nice restaurant for some good dinner. After having dessert served at a very Spanish time of 23:30, it was time to head back home for some well-deserved sleep. What a nice day.

Day 3
Unfortunately, we lost one of our members this fresh morning. Egbert was feeling unwell so slept for a couple of extra hours. Luckily, our case only started at 12:00. The remaining three boys went to visit some more Seville highlights. Watching Stuc TV came in extremely handy as now the quality of all buildings could easily be validated. During our second breakfast, we were surrounded by some of Seville's finest stukadoors. They were enjoying their second breakfast; beer and cigarettes. This gave great insight into the reasons for the terrible ‘stucwerk’ visible all over town. 

The bullfighting arena was properly stuced and looked quite nice. Sadly, no bulls were present, only Spanish people trying to figure out how to unload sand from a truck. We headed back to the hostel afterwards.

Before the start of the case we played our usual hits; this time vibing on dark techno with the Spanish. For this case, we had to revise all our thermodynamics. The additional 12% brainpower from Kris came in handy as he went full overdrive with the chalk and soon a proper heat balance equation and quantitative analysis were created. 

A case, many minutes of waiting due to Spanish punctuality, and a couple of wardrobe changes later, the outcome of this adventure would be announced. The winner of this year's Estiem case event, sadly, is not us. The result was especially tough for Egbert, as the jury for the second case did not remotely understand the Dutch energy market. However, we won’t bore you with the details, instead, we present you the adventure of drinking away our tears.

To encourage drinking, every fart by Kris meant a sip, every time Egbert thought negatively about the judges, a sip, and lastly every time Casper thought of Katrina: a sip. The latter is important as we found out today Kristina actually has a boyfriend.

As in Brussels, the final also ended with an all-you-can-drink dinner. Luckily, the Spanish restaurant is not a cheapskate and had no problem bringing the non-stop incoming order “ocho tinto mas”. 15 Tinto's later, Casper and our legend San Miguel were almost not capable of coming to the club, but luckily both pulled through. During the dinner Casper again became the Rizzler, keeping both options of a Spanish Maria and Finnish Kristina (codename Donald Duck) open. Although we had found out Donald Duck had a boyfriend, this didn’t stop Rizztmas from coming early this year: she indulged that she actually was in an open relationship, so all the doors were still open. In the club, Casper first arranged with Maria, who had also just kissed some other Spanish guy. The now-eager Donald Duck also wanted a taste. And not shortly after, this is exactly what happened with the help of Miguel to distract the other Finnish girl.

In the meantime, Alex also found an American girl in the club who wanted to marry at first sight to extend her visa. Egbert was just vibing and Kris had outdrank his own liver and drank the light from his eyes; In short; ‘wel gelachen, niet geneukt’. Casper still owes us 5 sips. 

When Kris seemed almost unable to remain standing, Alex abandoned his girl, Casper tried to convince Donald Duck one last time to come to his room in the hostel and Egbert fixed our Uber ride back. Kris had a nice snack eating his leftover chorizo while sitting in the shower and the rest went to bed. Donald Duck never showed up in Casper's room.

Day 4
We packed our bags, thanked the participants and the Seville organizers with some stroopwafels and headed back to Groningen. Sadly, this brings us to the end of our adventure. Hopefully, you have all enjoyed us taking you along for the ride and have inspired you to also reach the Estiem final.

Lastly, if you have gotten this far reading the blog, you deserve a treat, so trek een bak.

Belgium is like the Netherlands but organized by the French

Day 1

After a 5-hour train journey, and a short meeting with one of last year's winners, we arrived into the ‘ordered’ chaos called Estiem Brussels. But after 20L of La Chouffe, how much order can be left? As a promising start, the beer tank was empty as soon as we tried to get a taste of our first Belgian beer. After a short night of going out and enjoying some Goldstrike, it was time for bed. Not without an emotional goodbye to Casper, the lucky victim sleeping in his own private room with a missing host. Luckily Casper was able to drop his luggage in a gray car described as ‘an apple green car’ later driven by Alex and Egbert’s drunk host.

For Egbert and Alex, it was a relaxing night on a freshly washed and still-moist bed. In the background, acoustic whale sounds from a puking Turkish guy as well as the relaxing sound of Egbert chopping down multiple trees in his sleep. One additional benefit is, windows do not have blinders so Brussels night light could enter the room all night.

Day 2

For Casper, the day started with a surprise. A total stranger had crashed on the couch of his host. Speaking about his host, her whereabouts are still unknown.

For Egbert and Alex, it was a cozy and intimate awakening on their ‘twijfelaar’. For non-Dutchies; a small bed is good if you’re sleeping with your girlfriend, but not so good otherwise.

After being reunited with Casper on campus, it was time for some lovely breakfast. Everyone had an appetite for some coffee and a few pastries. What a shame that our Belgian hosts amazed us again by creating a weirdly-tasting tea-like beverage from a coffee machine. Note to self: tomorrow we buy our own breakfast (spoiler: we forgot).

The program for the day was simple, a short presentation followed by a tour of the European Parliament and a tour of Brussels afterwards. However, planning is not one of the strong points of Belgians. We were supposed to be at some lunch location around 12. We arrived at the European Parliament at 12. Somehow, the day started with a 2-hour delay.

The lunch was a local specialty called: Croque Monsieur, aka Tosti. Our Belgian friends do know how to make those, lunch be bussing fr fr no cap. However, the promising start of the afternoon offered by the lunch quickly turned into the (by now usual) sense of disappointment. After waiting for what felt like an eternity until some Swedish guys finished their last tosti, Egbert and Alex resorted to drinking very cheap beer in a ‘Lugus Lounge on steroids’.

As soon as we arrived in the city center, we started looking for options to accidentally lose the group. Close to the Groote Markt, we had our first break-away attempt, but we were caught in the process by our hosts. Our second attempt was successful, and we quickly disappeared into some of the smaller streets of Brussels. In one corner we saw a small kid pissing, apparently, Belgians think that is so special they even made a statue out of it. Again, Belgians are weird.

As we thought our first escape attempt wasn’t enough of a challenge, we found a VR Escape Room. This was nice.

Before dinner, Casper and Egbert tried to play beer-pong with a bottle cap. This turns out to be very difficult. Belgians like Prosecco, especially very cheap Prosecco.
As we’ve so far indulged ourselves in all the good Brussels has to offer, Alex and Egbert enthusiastically accepted some glasses. Glasses turned into bottles and when our Finnish friends refused all prosecco we had to finish the bottle with the two of us. To ensure the quality of taste, we put the cork in our glasses. ‘Gast, ik proef gewoon nog steeds kurk’.

Quick note: Casper acted like a Finnish guy, what a disappointment.

After dinner, we had an international night in which everyone brought some local specialties. 

We brought Stroopwafellikeur, much to the displeasure of one of our Belgian friends: ‘You don’t have Goldstrike?’ 

Egbert participated in the local contest of drinking beer directly from the tap. He came to a respectable count of 6 crocodiles. The Finnish didn’t even try, again.

It’s great public transport is free in Brussels, although some people use something looking like an ‘OV-chipkaart’ or their pinpas. We haven’t figured out why.

Day 3

This time, Alex and Egbert were pleasantly surprised by a stranger on the couch. Our Turkish roommates had been disqualified from the competition, and didn’t even bother waking up for the case anymore.

On campus, the mood quickly turned into a sense of panic in the organization. The proposed schedule was not according to the rules of the Times Case (thanks for noticing Finnish friends…). The result, many hours of delay. We chose to flee from campus to have proper breakfast, and when we returned around 12 it was time to start the case.

Despite a short intermezzo for some chewy and cold knakworsten, the case went very fast and smoothly. After some beers with the rest of the group: dinner time. Having made our so many-th joke about the Belgians, we had a moment of contemplation. What is the chance any of our hosts will ever read this (not so nice to Belgians) blog? In conclusion, we don’t actually care.

Day 4

Despite an early awakening and a long night for Alex due to Egberts’ snoring, the day started very well. We appear to be learning from our mistakes and no longer assume our hosts are capable of starting on time or providing breakfast.

As such, the text message by the organization stressing that we should arrive at 8:30 sharp, was not taken very seriously. So we arrived about 20 minutes late, took good breakfast and were still well on time (what a surprise…).

The main reason for the delay was total confusion when the presentation system was not working for over half an hour. A lot of stressful walking in- and out the room by the Belgians to try every cable present in Belgium later, Casper and Alex took the liberty of taking the matter into their own hands. 1 cable, 1 button and about 10 seconds later, everything was working as it should. 

To eliminate any confusion it is key to send as many different schedules as possible. At least 3 survival guides per participant, all with different time schedules for the days to eliminate nasty surprises. Today we are going to be the third group to start, no wait actually we go first. But ow no, the person with the key to the pinthouse (where we could leave our bags the night before) is nowhere to be found. So we start second. The Swedish are now allowed first and got booked to a spacious highly-facilitated room, the toilet. 

With all these surprises, the creative juices were fully flowing for the Groningen group and the case went well. Although we are starting to feel a bit sick of the cheesy, much too visual presentations we are spewing out. Luckily the jury enjoyed it.

The first moments of free time were greatly appreciated before heading to the gala dinner. An all you can eat-and-drink event as long as the first or main course has not finished. The Belgian restaurant personnel do appear to understand the spirit of working timely, especially when the first chugs started. They were throwing the main dishes on the table before we even finished the starters, in order to minimize the time of unlimited drinking. Finally, the moment all of you have been waiting for…. Who won the competition??? Egbert and Alex’s host already knew the score, but naturally, we were still completely in the dark. One loud drum ruffle later, the winner was announced  by one of the Estiem staff:

‘And the winner is… you and your group!’ He says pointing to someone….

Luckily this someone was Casper, so Sevilla here we come! And you can join this thrilling experience as well, in our next blog coming march 26th.

En voor onze Nederlandse lezers;

Brussel was mooi :).