A once in a lifetime opportunity!

This will be an out of the ordinary post and I know I still need to post about my trips to Istanbul, Germany and London...but that will have to wait since I am so excited about my masters' research!!!

Pretty much a bunch of us here at Utrecht University were freaking out about what to do for our masters' thesis or research next year in general.  We had heard rumours of a list that was suppose to be emailed out of a research opportunities with various professors.  Luckily my friend, Matthew, found it online and slowly this list trickled out to the rest of us (finally being emailed out last Friday after we told a professor).  As I was scanning this list I noticed the following project:

The UNBC Quesnel River Research Centre is located on the Quesnel River in the foothills of the Cariboo Mountains. It is surrounded by lakes, rivers, and streams that act as linkages to the various landscapes in the area. This project will use remote sediment sampling traps to collect samples of suspended sediment from several tributaries in the Quesnel watershed with different land use activities. Samples will also be collected from reference sites and from the main stem of the Quesnel River. Samples of channel bed sediment will also be collected from these sites. The aim is to determine the effect of land use activities on sediment geochemistry in the Quesnel watershed. 

Prof. Marcel van der Perk with two Utrecht University students

The name of this project is "effect of land-used activities on sediment-associated geochemistry in the Quesnel catchment."  Basically this would combine my background in Geology with my current focus on Hydrology.  I am taking two Geochemistry courses the next quarter so that should help and since I am interested anyways in the effect of anthropogenic activities, all in all it sounded like a good project.  Plus, I had been potentially interested in doing a project or a job up in Canada.

So...I met with the professor in charge, Prof. Marcel van der Perk, this past Monday to talk about the project and everything involved.  He has connections with the University of Northern British Columbia, who run a centre called the Quesnel River Research Centre, and it would be the third time students from Utrecht University would be going out to do research in the area (it started about 5 years ago).   I would be working on this project with a fellow student from the Netherlands who is also a Hydrology Masters student.  Together we would collect the samples from various locations in the Quesnel River catchment, often in remote locations.  Then prepare them and send them off to be analysed, which would take about 4 weeks or so.  The data collection would be done over a period of 8 weeks more or less during late summer/early fall. And afterwards we would return to Utrecht to write our master thesis based on the data collected.

Quesnel River Research Centre

There are actually a lot of things that need to be done in preparation for the trip out there.  We need to apply for funding as currently there is nothing set aside for this, though potentially UNBC might have some available.  I am kind of nervous about that as I have never applied for something like this before, but the professor in charge is willing to write us support letters and recommendations and he gave us a couple suggestions to work off of. The last two students who went were able to get most expenses covered so fingers crossed that we will be just as successful.

The research centre we are staying at is located in a village called Likely, British Columbia - a remnant settlement of the gold rush period - that is on the deepest fjord lake in the world to the west of the Cariboo Mountains.  The nearest large town is Williams Lake, a 1-2 hour drive away.  Vancouver is a 9 hour drive and both Calgary and Edmonton in Alberta are 13 hour drives away since you have to pass through the Canadian Rockies.  Up there roads are not straight, but meander along the topography, or even just end and never go further.  Growing up mostly in America, it can be quite strange as one gets quite used to having multiple options of reaching a particular destination, but the farther north and more rural you get in Canada, there really is one road or you have to take a small plane.

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Likely, British Columbia

The village has one general store some kms away from the centre so we will need a car up there, also in case we want to drive into Williams Lake for other stores.  The last two students bought a car for two months...and I am hoping that would be our last option.  I talked to my father and he is going to ask my family in Vancouver and Alberta if they have an extra car or know of any good options, but if anything I do have my good reliable 2001 Saturn sedan in New Jersey!  So what does this mean?!? Potential road trip, which would be totally awesome!  It would probably take a good 4-5 days to reach Likely, but I would most likely need to work in a couple days extra in case something happens or if I want to take an afternoon off.  I still of course do not know the details yet, but at least I know I definitely have a car available to get around.  Yeah it would put a lot of miles on my car, but it is over 10 years old and hasn't reached 100,000 miles yet so maybe it is time for it to reach that milestone :P

 Grizzly Bear print

Other things we need to do are to get First Aid certification (I would think preferably Wilderness/Remote as opposed to just normal) and training in how to react to grizzly bears as there are definitely some in the area...I mean this is the middle of nowhere we are talking about.  Also we will need to be flexible in terms of the locations of our samples as we probably will not know of it until we get there.

After discussing with the other student about potential dates we would do fieldwork, it is looking to be around August 6 to October 6.  We decided to try and plan for 9 weeks so we could take a little break in the middle and do some sightseeing or even visit my family (which I really hope happens at some point)!!  Unfortunately this will cut into my time with family and friends in America, but this is honestly an opportunity I cannot pass up.  Plus I might be able to take on a week or two after the fieldwork to be in America before heading back to the Netherlands.

Qusenel Lake with Cariboo Mountains

The centre itself should be comfortable as up to 14 people can stay there in bedrooms for 1 or 2 people and there is a living room/common area.  Supposedly there will be times where it will be filled with people on field trips or have barely anyone and be quite quiet.  I think it will be a good opportunity to meet new people, especially since I expect to meet other students from the University of Northern British Columbia as it is based in Prince George about 3.5 hours drive north of Likely.

To be quite honest, this is a mini-dream come true for me because I have always been interested in living in a rural location and now I have the chance to see if I like it at all.  It will be a nice change of scenery for me having lived in Washington, DC for five years and the Netherlands the past year.  I do like it here, but I really do miss the various types of geography you find in America and Canada, so that should definitely quell some of that homesickness! And it would be nice to potentially contribute to the country I am technically a citizen of, especially since I currently have not been able to be there much.

Anyways, if anyone is interested in a potential road trip in early August from eastern America up to western Canada or in early October back from Canada to New Jersey, let me know! It would definitely help to have another driver or two, plus if you have never see much of the America...honestly you need to, it such a huge country and has so many different sides to it, it is hard to really sometimes define what it is.  Plus, road trips are always fun!

And how can one resist this type of scenery?!?!

Photos courtesy of Quesnel River Research Centre.

Paris: The City of Light

A week after I arrived back in Europe after a 2 week vacation in the United States, I hopped on a few trains down to Paris for the weekend.  A friend I met during my freshman year of university was studying in London and then spending a week in Paris with her extended family and invited me to come along! This would be my second time in Paris as two years earlier I went on a trip to Berlin and Paris, which unfortunately ended with both members of the party getting sick then stuck in Paris due to small amount of snow and eventually leading to buying a whole new plane ticket home.  I was hoping that this time around would be a different experience and it definitely was!!

On my first visit out, I was able to see the Louvre, the Orangerie, part of Champs-Elysses, Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, and eat at various restaurants.  This time around I did not really have too many preferences of what I saw, I was happy that I was not sick this time around!  I had decided that I would only take the fast international train from the Netherlands to Paris (Thalys) only on the return journey for two reasons: (1) 34 Euro seat reservation despite having a Eurail Pass (for comparison the most I have ever paid for a seat reservation was 2 Euros for the Deutsche Bahn) (2) There were no more seats available that are set aside for those with a Eurail pass so I had no choice.

Saturday morning I decided to start my 6 hour journey taking local trains starting at 9 am.  As luck would have it, NS (the Netherlands train system) was have problems due to some signal problems and I had to first travel north to Schiphol before traveling south towards Antwerp.  On my journey day I did have to make one seat reservation for the train from Lille to Paris and by traveling to Schiphol, I would get in an hour later….so tried to make a new reservation at Schiphol for a train leaving Lille an hour later and the lady at the service desk was so unhelpful, sheesh. I decided to try my luck at Antwerp.

 When I arrived at Antwerp, I discovered I was at track 22 and needed to get to track 1 for my next train leaving 50 minutes later, except….I couldn’t find it at first and then I looked up. In this city they decided to stack all the railroad tracks in three/four levels instead of spreading them out on one level.  One had to climb these long stairs or escalators.  It was actually an impressive sight to see and once you reached the main level you could see remnants of the older train station.  I located where track 1 was and then went to the service desk to have a second attempt at making a seat reservation for the last train to Paris…and success! The man at the desk was really nice said that it was no problem at all!  I have no idea why Schiphol they said nothing was available…perhaps since it was the day of, I had a Eurail pass and she didn’t fill like checking?

So two trains later (Antwerp to Lille and Lille to Paris Nord) I arrived an hour later than anticipated but in time to meet up with my firend, Pisei, who took the train from London, and her family.  Pisei’s parents, aunts and uncles were originally from Cambodia but most, if not all, had left and immigrated to Australia, France or Maryland, USA.  This was the first time in a long time that she had been back in France to see her family there so it was really nice of them to let me stay for two days with them as well. 

As Pisei’s aunt (and her family), who we were staying with, lives in a suburb outside of Paris, they had driven in to pick us up.  They decided to drive around Paris for a bit so we could see some of the sites, like drive around the Arc de Triumph (gosh that is a nightmare of a circle…and in America people freak out when they see all the circles in Washington, DC….hehe) and drive past the Eiffel Tower.  It was then decided we should take pictures by the Eiffel Tower.  This was nice because I had only seen it during the daytime and at this point it was evening and one could see the twinkling lights they had installed on the tower, which go on every once in awhile for 5 minutes or so.  Pisei’s aunt took lots of pictures of all of us, which was really kind of her to do, felt like I was at a mini photo shoot.

As Pisei and I were quite hungry, we decided it was a good idea to go for dinner somewhere. Pisei’s aunt and uncle dropped Pisei, her cousin and I off near a restaurant where we met up with her other cousin as well as one of the cousin’s boyfriends.  We found a nice place to eat and all had French Onion Soup, then Crème Bulee and a bread & cheese platter.  I was extremely stuffed by the end of that meal, but we all had a good time talking with my non-existent French, Pisei’s rusty French and the cousins’ pretty good understanding of English.  The boyfriend then drove us all back to the aunt’s house, where I promptly fell asleep.

Sunday, Pisei, her younger cousin and I explored parts of Paris all day.  We were dropped off by Montmatre, where we climbed up the hill and enjoyed a glorious view of the city.  As it was January, Paris was not super crowded with tourists, which is really nice, except the sun looks so deceivingly warm, you are almost surprised at how chilly it can be outside.  We explored the surrounding neighborhood for a bit and stopped for lunch at a Creperie, yum is all I can say!! 

Thinking about all this food makes me so hungry as I am typing this up two months later on 6 hour train ride to Berlin and I have not eaten since 6 am and it is 11 am….maybe I should have my apple now…only 2.5 hours to go!

Anyways, after the Creperie we traveled to the Cite Island, where I had wanted to see the famous stained glass windows of Sainte Chapelle.  In January 2009 they had been under construction and surprise surprise, they were still under construction! If I remember correctly though, within the next year or so they should be finished and then I can finally see them! (already decided I will be going to Paris a few more times at least).   Since that was a failure, we moved on to Champ-Elysses and walked to the Arc de Triumph and back.  Along the way we went to Ladure, which had a really short line, yay!  This is the famous patisserie and there are 4 locations within Paris.  Of course we went in to buy some of the famous macaroons.  I picked out four types – vanilla, blackberry, I forget, and rose – my favourite flavour ever!!

We then ended the evening by going to the Discovery Musuem, which turned out ok.  A lot of the exhibits are fairly outdated, but the one of light I thought fairly interesting.  They also had a temporary exhibit about hair so got to see my hair underneath the microscope and confirm that it was indeed straight with no hint of curliness. 

That evening, we enjoyed a fantastic dinner at Pisei’s aunt’s house.  Again I was so stuffed at the end of the night.  I tried foie gras for the first time and it was actually really good!  We also enjoyed some raclette, which is a type of cheese that is first melted (there are various ways of melting this) and in our case eaten with small potatoes. 

Monday morning we took the train into Paris, the younger cousin went to school while Pisei, her aunt and I went to another museum – this time the Grand Gallery of Evolution (part of the Museum of Natural History).  I really enjoyed this one and a nice plus was that it looked like it was recently updated.  


The exhibits were roughly divided by climates/region and had tons of old-fashioned taxidermy.  There was also an exhibit on endangered and extinct animals, so got to see what the Dodo bird looked liked.

Throughout the museum there were benches with information tablets in English, French, German and Spanish where you could get more information about certain species or topics, like bats, the development of wings and climate change.  On the topmost level were exhibits on man and technology and what to do for the future of animals.

 

For lunch we stopped off a what appeared to a popular bakery for some sandwiches.  I tried to pay for Pisei’s aunt’s meal as a thank you for her wonderful hospitality, but miserably failed….honestly their family was really nice and even invited me to come back and stay with them, which they definitely did not have to do at all!  Around 2 pm I  went to the Gare du Nord for the Thalys train back to the Netherlands.  This time around there were no problems and it took half the time.  The only thing I was confused about was the amount of empty seats as when I had made the reservation, the service desk in Utrecht told me that this was the first available train back on that Monday…I guess they really offer a limited amount of seats for Eurail passes, oh well, good thing to remember for next time!

I hoping to go back to Paris at some point in May/June either with friends or to meet up with friends from home.  This city has so much to offer and I really would like to explore it some more.  Now having been twice in the winter, I do look forward to seeing Paris in the warmer months and go to Disneyland Paris and Versailles!

Barcelona

My two cousins, Erika and Aleandra, and I traveled to Barcelona the first weekend in December. We were fortunate to stay with a friend of mine, Taylor, who I worked with when in Washington, DC. She had been in Barcelona studying Spanish all fall.

We all arrived Friday evening and met my friend in the center of Barcelona.  From there we dropped off our stuff and went to Las Ramblas.  Wandering through the streets of Barri Gotic, we stumbled upon a tapas restaurant and enjoyed a late dinner of multiple tapas and sangria at 11/12 at night.

Saturday morning all of us slept in awhile and then went to Parc Güell. I had been to Barcelona in Fall 2008, but Park Guell was one of the places I was not able to visit the previous time.  I really enjoyed this park as Gaudi is one of my favorite creative people.  This park was originally suppose to be a plan for a new sustainable community, which had fallen through, but plans for the park survived and is now a lovely peace of land overlooking parts of Barcelona.

Taylor and some of her new-found friends met up with my cousins and I and we all went up to Tibidabo with the help of a cogwheel train.  This mountain overlooks the city and has an amusement park and 2 churches, one on top of another.  The view is absolutely fantastic as you can see the sea stretch out in front of you.   I had also been there back in 2008 so it was nice to enjoy it again.

We then decided to go the famous market off of Las Ramblas. I love all the fruits, vegetables, meats and candy.  Taylor recommended that we try some of the fresh juices, which were amazing...could go from some right now (will just have to make do with some store-bought pineapple-guava juice).  We also passed by a bakery that sold some churros so we enjoyed a fully of bag of that...so good! ^_^

Barcelona also has their own version of the Christmas market, which mostly consists of candy stands (these include mouth-watering ropes of sugar...have no idea what they are called) and supplies for nativity stands.  I really enjoyed looking at the nativity stands or what one can buy for it - everything has so much detail.  One tradition they have is to have at least one figurine popping a squat somewhere in your scene...it is quite funny actually.  Another common craft I saw was a log with 2 sticks for front legs and then a face on one side so it looks like a weird-form of a horse or something...no idea what the story behind that is. But they had a large built for the children so that they could take photos with it.

 Photo on left is the interior from November 2008 and on the right from December 2011

Sunday morning, Erika, Aleandra and I went to Sagrada Familia - the famous church Gaudi designed and is still being built.  I love this church, absolutely my favorite.  It was really cool to see the differences they have made in the 3 years since I had been there.  Previously the inside was still being finished up and now it is completely done and amazing. It feels like you are walking in a forest with the sunlight peeking through the leaves.

Currently they are working on all the towers - there will be 18 in all - 12 apostles, 4 evangelists, one for Virgin Mary and one for Jesus. The tentative date for completion is somewhere between 2020 and 2040...and I will definitely come back to view this church in all its glory. 

Barcelona is a wonderful city to visit and has so much to offer for all types of people, whether you want to party, try some good food, go shopping, see the sights, go to beach...the list goes on!  ^_^