Randomness #3

Biking to and from class is always interesting. On the one hand, you do get to bike with a beautiful landscape in the background and I can't help not smiling to myself.  But on the other, as the weather gets cooler, I am freezing the first 10 minutes and sweating bullets the second 10 minutes.  When I get to class all I want to do is strip my clothes...which would just be awkward.

A beautiful morning from Zeist and De Uithof

One Friday night 4 of my roommates and I went out to an Argentinian restaurant in town for some steak and wine.  We had a good time and hopefully can do it again in the future and perhaps get all 10 of us together?? That would be quite the feat.

Eduardo (Columbia), Lisa (California), Camillo (Columbia) and Valentina (Germany)

Last quarter my Principles of Groundwater Flow class went on two field trips.  The first one was to a groundwater treatment plant not that far from Utrecht.  Our tour guide could only speak Dutch and thankfully my Belgian classmate was able to successfully translate the parts I did not understand.  The powerpoint they had was really helpful with the diagrams.  When I taught Environmental Geology labs back at GWU, I would do a mini water treatment experiment and it was cool to see the large scale version of that same lab.  The only change was that instead of adding a touch of bleach at the end, they used UV rays.

My classmate, Matthew (Ireland), having a good laugh at the plant

The groundwater treatment plant we visited

View from the plant, lots of fog!

A Dutch classmate of mine, Iris, decided to make a Dutch dinner for 2 other international classmates and I.  The Dutch love their potatoes, we had 2 different potato dishes!  We definitely had a very entertaining night and lots of laughs!  I was stuffed...but still managed to eat the majority of a ice cream cake for dessert (in addition to a pudding-quark mixture also for dessert). Let's just say, if you know me at all, me and sweets get along very well.

Roulade, Bloemkool, & Potatoes

I made pumpkin cookies twice in the past month and they are so good! They are quite the hit with me friends, so I really hope to make them again thanks to the pumpkin I can buy at a local food store.  The plan is to also make pumpkin gingerbread and of course lots of pumpkin pies!!

While studying for finals, I took a break with a friend and went to Kingsalmarkt in Amsterdam.  They carry various food products from all over the world.  I had wanted to go there for awhile and see if I could find some of my favorite cereal and food products for Thanksgiving.  I bought things like Cheerios, Eggnog, Cake Mix and Frosting, Breadcrumbs and Stuffing.  Everything was expensive, so I will definitely have to limit the times that I go there to every few months, but it is nice to know that such a place is nearby.

So this is what Occupy Utrecht looks like...a handful of tents and that is about it. I am interested to go to New York City and Washington DC over the winter break and see what they have there...though perhaps there will be no longer Occupy Wall Street by the time I get there?