From limbo land to Iceland!

 

Well my master's graduation from Utrecht University has come and gone. My father was able to fly over for a few days and experience his first time in mainland Europe! Of course I did put him on a bike and ride all around Utrecht, even in his nice suit. Graduation in the Netherlands is a bit different than America, for one thing there are no robes (only when you get your PhD) and you get to sign your own diploma right there!

 

I was able to obtain a visa to stay in the Netherlands for up to another year while I determined my next step. While waiting, I made a trip back to New Jersey as well as attend a good college friend's wedding in the Dominican Republic. This was a lot of fun as I was able to catch up with friends I had made in the Geology bachelor's program. It has be awhile since some of us had been together! You guys have to come to Iceland now :)

Once back in the Netherlands, I went back to considering my options, mainly whether to pursue academia or industry. With this in mind I applied to various positions at companies in Europe, Australia and North America and two PhD positions in Europe. In the meantime I went to visit some friends in Berlin and London and had the opportunity to go to Israel for a Dutch-organized water challenge program called Wetskills. This was a wonderful two week trip to do some sightseeing and work with other Israeli students on water issues. At the end of the program we presented our ideas at an official Dutch-Israeli conference, where we also got a chance to briefly meet the Dutch Prime Minister - nice guy! The participants I met were really great and can only hope that I am able to see some them again in the future!

I went home again to New Jersey for the winter holidays and to Queens, NYC for an impromptu party to celebrate the New Year at one of my best friend's, Liza, apartment. It was also a mini high school reunion with Josh in from California (thanks for all those movie dates!) and Jon up from South America - so nice to see them! The rooftop was a fantastic way to ring in the New Year, with a view of Manhattan, watching the various fireworks throughout the city, drinking champagne and dancing!

Of course I had some big news just in time for Christmas as I was interviewed for a PhD position at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik and was then accepted!! The position came fully funded by the EU for 3 years and is a part of a larger research network within Europe and all I had to do was submit all the visa paperwork and move. Well 3 months later, I was finally able to get on a plane with 4 pieces of luggage and 5 boxes sent via post. While waiting for this process, I was able to hang out with friends in Utrecht for awhile more and also go to the Canary Islands to meet the people in my Europe research network, CO2-React.

As I have already written a post about my meeting there, you can read it HERE. It was a nice (quite social) introduction and really got me motivated to start my new life!

So come mid-March, landed in Iceland for the first time; I seem to like to move to new countries without knowing much about them beforehand. Luckily I found a splendid apartment near downtown Reykjavik with roommates that turned out not to be creeps, plus the graduate students at the university are a very welcoming supportive crowd! Therefore it goes without saying, that the transition to Iceland was not very tough (of course some normal Icelandic paperwork hassle) and I was able to purchase a car, find a bike in addition to making some lovely friends! 

More to come about my PhD project, life in Iceland and anything else going on! TTFN, ta ta for now!

Weekends in the Netherlands

As the nice weather of the summer was coming to close, I had the opportunity to visit new various parts of the Netherlands!

Zeeland

This province is the south just north of Belgium, consisting of slivers of land in the middle of and around a large delta (Schelde), though I went to a portion that is between the river and Belgium's border.

Dutch summers typically involve heading to holiday homes or trailers along the North Sea or heading off to France and Spain in a caravan for a camping holiday. In Zeeland, there were literally fields of just caravans and trailers for the sole purpose of spending a week or weekends for a relaxing (inexpensive) vacation filled with bike rides, sports & recreation, reading, socializing, etc. 

So as many a weekend in the Netherlands goes, the weekend was rainy and cloudy, I did at least take a dip in the water, which was of reasonable temperature and take a long afternoon bike ride along the dunes. Unfortunately, decided to cut the weekend away short as the weather forecast for Sunday looked dismal, therefore headed back to Utrecht to enjoy a lazy (less rainy) Sunday there.

Here is an article that better explains the Dutch obsession of camping and caravans (featured in KLM's inflight magazine).

Texel Island, Noord Holland

The following weekend I decided to travel to the northern part of the Dutch coast and spend the day on the island of Texel located in the province of Noord-Holland. This is the largest island with a ferry from the mainland for bikers, walkers and cars. It is best known for bird-watching and vacationers from Germany, England and of coure the Netherlands. 

 

After a 3 hour journey (it went by fast with a good book on hand), I first stopped off in the "shopping" town of Den Burg, where I tried some cookies from the must-go-to bakery and perused the famous Texel sheep wool. Then I headed off to De Koog right next to the western side of the island to walk south along the sea in the Dunes of Texel National Park. Even though the summer was at an end, there were still plenty of families, older couples and teenagers taking walks or surfing (normal or wind). Anyways, I ended up walking roughly 5 km on the beach and took a nice swim in the rather warm (think Pacific Ocean warm) water. It was quite windy so not long after I got out, I had to wrap myself up with some clothes.

Being quite famished at this point, I stopped at a beachside cafe (they have at least one every 1 or 2 km near an beach entrance) and enjoyed a large pot of fresh mussels and an obligatory hot chocolate to warm up. Afterwards, I walked another 4-5 km through the dunes, a forest and some farmland to the nearest bus stop where I could hop on the next ferry and head back to Utrecht.

East of Eindhoven, Noord Brabant

In early September, I was invited for a weekend to the house of my Canadian fieldwork partner, Marjolein in one of the southern provinces (south of river). She grew up in a wonderful old farm house (completely renovated by her father) in the middle of the countryside. Their place included large sheds (almost small houses) for cars and a workshop, a large vegetable garden, grapes and a plume tree, dogs, cats, swimming pool in the summer, bar/outside dining area and an old playhouse on a little island in the tiny pond (with a small bridge too!). It goes without saying...that this seemed like an awesome place to grow up!

I had a lovely weekend meeting her siblings and parents, listening to mostly Dutch conversation (which I could sort of follow along, yay!), eating good food and having some lovely conversations. Saturday also went on a 32 km bike ride around the entire area and through a local reserve called Grote Peel (basically marshlands where there is lots of peat). Needless to say, I had a relaxing time and enjoyed spending the weekend at a house where I could feel at home at.

All things Dutch

As I announced I am done with my masters!! Well...to be technical, I just finished the thesis and report I was required to submit, still have to work until the end of my internship contract at Deltares. I am now on summer vacation and arrived in Encinitas late the other day. Still jetlagged and waking up at 6 am, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. ^_^ In any event now I have time to sit and write about what I have been up too. This will be the first of two blogposts.

First to the activities/excursions in the Netherlands...

 Kinderdijk

In April managed to visit the UNESCO World Heritage Site, Kinderdijk, which is a village in Molenwaard (Molen meaning windmill) outside of Rotterdam. In order to drain a polder (low-lying tract of land enclosed by dikes, often land reclaimed from the sea or river) a system of 19 windmills was built around 1740 and also happens to be the largest concentration of old windmills in the Netherlands.

Liberation Day Festival (Bevrijdingsdags)

Just like last year I went to Waginingen on May 5 to celebrate the day WWII ended in the Netherlands. This year was a bit sunnier, but there the headlining bands in the main city square were not as good. Instead we milled around to the various music stands, got scammed to pay extra for meat in our Döners and enjoyed one of the only nice spring days.

Pinkpop

This was the longest running music festival in the world (since 1970) usually held over Pentacost weekend (Pinksteren in Dutch). We arrived on a Friday, set up our tent in the sea of other tents and got the grounds in time to see The Script and The Killers. Saturday we had a lazy start to the day, walked the supposed "500 m" to a grocery which turned into 1.5 km, made a BBQ lunch/dinner and went off to see Elle Goulding and Phoenix. Sunday was a big in terms of bands my friends and I wanted to see, so we packed up all our stuff and went to see Kensington, Tom Odell, Bastille, Lianne La Havas, Ben Howard and Alt-J. My favourites of the weekend ended up being the Killers (duh!), Ben Howard (pretty good concert for chill music), Elle Goulding (yay girls!) and Bastille (so awesome, loved the drums!). All in all it was nice weekend for music, camping and relaxing but not for our wallets since everything was so expensive therefore I decided to spend the money on food and not on lots of beer.

Irish Dancing

As many of you know I went back to Irish Dancing and joined a small school based in the Hague. They hold both children and adult classes in Dutch or English, which is perfect. I have come to really enjoy it again and like the fact that there is not as intense or pressure to compete. We do get to take part in various performances in the Hague throughout the year, like an International Festival last December, St. Patrick's Day in March and a local neighbourhood party turned music event (Zeeheldenfestival) this past July with a live band! This past Saturday they also put together an all-day workshop headed by a Welsh girl who studied Irish Dance and Music in Limerick, Ireland. It was a really great day learning (or re-learning) jumps and trick, but really realize that my hard shoe rhythm sucks haha, need to work on the basics again :P At least my soft shoe skills hadn't regressed as much in the 10+ years that I took a break, whew!

Koninginnedag in Amsterdam!

Free orange blow-up crowns!

Last year I spent my Queen's Day (Koninginnedag) in Den Haag and Utrecht, so this year I switched it up to act like a tourist and go to Amsterdam for the day. And I have to say, it was a lot of fun!

History lesson time for those who don't know, Queen's Day began originally as Princess Day on August 31, 1885 to celebrate the birthday of Princess Wilhemina, heiress to the Dutch throne. This tradition continued when she became queen, changing to Queen's Day and changing to April 30 when her daughter, Juliana, eventually became queen. Queen Beatrix was the granddaughter of Wilhemina and kept Queen's Day the same day as her actual birthday is in January and the weather is not as nice. This past April 30 was the last Queen's Day for awhile because her son, Willem-Alexander, became King and next year it will be King's Day on his birthday, April 27. 

Also the one major requirement for Queen's Day is to wear orange!! And also go outside and enjoy yourself!

The very anti-climatic train ride to A'dam

My friend, Andrea, and I were told by many a person that Amsterdam would be overcrowded and really hard to get into, so we decided to take an earlier train in and see if these rumors were true. As luck would have it, our train was epically empty! The city itself wasn't overly crowded either so we were able to enjoy a quite relaxing day (and very tame to Utrecht's celebrations on Queen's Night).

Prinsengracht - the canal with lots of party boats with many having their own DJ

We started off our day in Amstel (south of Amsterdam's centre), sat at a cafe and looked at all the old junk people were selling (Queen's Day is the only day that people are allowed to hold a garage sale). Then we met up with my friend, Iris, and her boyfriend to start off the day's festivities with some drinks! In the afternoon Andrea and I walked into the city to see everyone celebrating on boats in the canals, on the streets and the fact that it was the last day of Queen Beatrix and the first of King Willem. We ended up on the Museumplein (where the Rijksmusuem, Van Gogh Museum and the "I amsterdam" sign is) where there was a large concert going on with many Dutch singers/performers. 

 

Party time at Java-eiland and dancing to Armin van Buuren!

Dutch royal family after saying hello!

At this point I met up with Iris again and in the evening we went to a concert Java-eiland (east of the Amsterdam Centraal train station) featuring the royal orchestra and Armin van Buuren, very famous Dutch DJ. Around the same time of the concert was the Koningsvaart, where the new King and his family sailed around a canal in Amsterdam to greet everyone. At the end of his boat tour he made a stop at Java-eiland and the whole family got out to say hello to us, which was really cool! The concert itself was fun too, if really short.

The 3 princesses greeting the huge crowd, the king and queen are behind the orange crown on the left foreground.

Flyover with Dutch flag colors trailing behind

Just after the sunset (around 9 pm now) and on our way back to the main train station, we were able to see quite the display from airplaines flying over and water spouting from lots of fire ships! It was quite a nice touch to the end of the day, but I was very glad to be lying in bed that night.

Really cool sight to see with all the fire boats after the sun set

Chillin' in Chili

I have been living in my new room since Feburary now in the neighborhood Lombok, which is also the Indonesian word for chili, and it is about time I show what it is like! When I originally arrived back in the Netherlands last November, I had moved into a temporary room right in the Binnenstad (city centre) of Utrecht. While the location was phenomenal and fully furnished, what I really missed were flatmates. This was the second time I temporarily lived in a studio and goodness, I do not understand how people do it. Really hard to value alone time when you are by yourself all the time unless you invite people over.

Come January I found another room (actually...a second new room as the first one had fallen through for unknown reasons). Lombok is an area immediately to the west of Utrecht's main train station and built between 1880s and 1920s as a working class neighborhood.  It is now multicultural mixed with immigrants, students, young families, etc. On the main street, Kanalstraat, there are a number of Turkish/other ethnic greengrocers, shops, bakeries, and butchers, which is a nice inexpensive, local option instead of the main grocery store of Albert Heijn. A mosque is also being built and a number of times I have heard the call to prayer, which I quite enjoy actually. (One can also hear the church bells tolling out the various hours, people practicing instruments like the saxophone and the trains arriving and departing the main station...so lots happening)

My flat is on one of the side streets of Kanalstraat on the 1st and 2nd floors (2nd and 3rd in America). I live with 4 other Dutch people who are either studying or working. Have still yet to really practice my minimal Dutch other than using simple phrases, but we get the Dutch newspaper so I will read that from time to time. It is about a 10 min walk/3 min bike ride from the main train station, super convenient, and a 30 min bike ride (5.5 km/3.4 mi) from De Uithof, the science campus of Utrecht University.

I have two rooms - a 8 m2 bedroom and a 4 m2 study room. On the 1st floor is my study room, the living room converted into 2 bedrooms, kitchen, toilet, and piano (so cool!). My bedroom and two others are upstairs on the 2nd floor along with the shower after going up some mighty steep steps As I had to furnish the rooms, in mid-February I went to IKEA to pick out everything and then have them deliver it. And it turned out quite nice if I do say so myself.

The cosy bedroom, where surprisingly managed to fit all my clothes and have a small couch with the seat cushion pulling out into a mattress for visiting friends. Nice thing is that the sun shines in this room in the morning while waking up, which is my preferred method of an alarm clock. Still trying to figure out how to decorate the wall space...maybe print out some nice landscape photos or purchase some artwork of Utrecht.

Was so happy that the couch fit perfectly in that niche!

Miffy postcards on the wall; Utrecht is the home of Miffy, aka Nijntje, the predecessor to Hello Kitty

Wardrobe barely fit with the low ceiling, couldn't put the legs on, still need to make wooden block legs.

Bed wouldn't be complete without stuffed animals like Totoro and a dreamcatcher.

Sink awkwardly in the corner, but this is the only thing I don't like of the whole place.

View outside the bedroom window, those "skyscrapers" are next to the main train station.

The studyroom where I am spending many hours working on my thesis (or taking a break to write this blogpost because I am tired of my ongoing date with Excel). As this faces the opposite side compared to my bedroom, the sun shines here in the afternoon. Perfect!

Desk with trestles, which I can move in order to fit 6 people and play board games :P

Paintings/drawings of various cities/countries I visited.

Collage of flyers, maps, postcards, tickets, etc. And of course books and games on the shelves.

Scratch-off world map, not many additions in the past year but did get to add Turkey and Jamaica!