Chocolate Cheesecake with Caramel Swirls

Bow down to my culinary skillz!



No but really.



Are you bowing down?




Groveling?

How about now?

I (with Rachael as a most valuable sous chef) managed to pull off chocolate cheesecake when cooking in a kitchen obviously stocked by a man (as much as I love Fritz, our caregiver). We didn't have enough cream cheese for one, so I subbed some milk. Then we didn't have enough heavy cream (because I'm dumbh and can't read) so I subbed some milk there too. Ended up using an egg less and putting in an extra 40g of chocolate :) (original recipe here) The taste is definitely more brownie than cheesecake, but the texture was amazing. And for an extra topping of awesomeness I made homemade caramel sauce (and burned myself in the process) to top it off. Honestly, it was almost the best part (especially with strawberries dipped in it).

It was Francillia's birthday and my last night here, so I figured we needed a sweet treat to commemorate the summer and all. And I'll probably never be able to replicate this awesomeness again- it was a wonderful fluke.

AstroLunch Presentation

Just gave my final presentation over my summer work! It went very well, thank you very much. Plus, there were three very intelligent questions asked of me and I could answer them all (with limited prompting from my adviser). Success!

So for all of you who are just DYING to see my presentation here it is in miniature. Please notice its awesome badassery. Oh, and my version of animations are two of the same slides one after the other.




P.s. James: I know you could have designed this MUCH better and in the future I will employ you to do so. Until then, appreciate my improved power point skills.

Mud Muscles

Who was the first sick-minded, masochistic bastard who thought of wadlopen?!

Here's the before photo:

The during (early stage before the novelty had worn off):


And there is no after because 1.) It was raining too hard to take out my camera 2.) My hands were covered in dried mud 3.) My bag was equally covered in mud and 4.) I was soaked.

But let me back up. We all met up at coast and found our guide. We set off around noon, noon-thirty ish. The first few steps were in extremely soft mud. I promptly got stuck and fell over. I learned how to walk- with your weight on the balls of your feet and quickly or you get suctioned in- which was great and all, until we hit the first gully. Got stuck again. Fell over. THE MUD WENT ON FOREVER AND EVER AND EVER AND EVER. We were in the very back of the group so everything was super churned up and impossible to move through. Rachael started having an asthma attack (not that I was doing much better) and so she, her adviser Ztolt and I turned back with another guide.

Supposedly 'easier,' the alternative route was still killer. We were finally out of the squeltching mud and on hard packed sand which made thing much easier, but our guide was a mud-Nazi and set a ridiculous pace. It was pretty though- when I wasn't cursing the weather or the guide or my poor aching hips. There were little mini rivers that we had to cross- one was up to my waist. That was pretty awesome. We didn't actually move back toward the coast initially, instead making our way parallel to land. As we went on the weather got worse and worse. I don't have a wind breaker here, so there was nothing I could do about the rain and my shawl didn't prevent much either. Siiigh.

Finally we started heading back toward the coast, having to travel through some mud again. Step by step we started walking over ground that was more land than sand and water. We climbed up on one of the huge dikes and walked along it. Another guide joined us and was as merry and chipper as if it was sunny and he wasn't drenched with cold rain. He showed me a plant that can be eaten along the dike. It was sweet! And green/dirt tasting- thus I loved it.

And then suddenly we were on land. It was so strange- on one side was mud and ocean and on the other green (GREEN) rolling hills and sheep. We climbed over several fences, herding the sheep before us, and made it down to the road. Right before our descent to the road I looked back at the ocean and realized that once I was at the bottom I'd actually be lower than the water. We all climbed in the station wagon the extra guide had brought to rescue us and headed back to the ferry.

Towards the end I was actually enjoying myself. And the very end bit on the land was breathtaking. Getting out of the car I realized I hurt in places I didn't know existed- who knew we had so many mud muscles? Rachael, Ztolt and I changed into dry clothes and then had some soup and coffee in the restaurant. A lovely ending to an ...interesting day. But to go wadlopen again? I'd have to do a lot of forgetting to volunteer for such torture.

Tool Box

IT'S EVERYWHERE! I don't know how it's happened, but EVERY astronomer EVERYWHERE at some point will reference their 'astronomy tool box.' And yes, I believe I now have the credentials to make this statement, being a world traveling astronomer myself now.(And so modest too)

"I'll talk about the tools in our molecular line spectroscopy tool box." says my German adviser today in a talk. It was like a sucker punch to the stomach. I was helpless as I flashed back to Spectroscopy class and 'back of the envelope calculations', to 'chocolate' in Observations I, to memorizing all the important astronomy constants (h=6.626068x10^-34 m^2 kg s^-1, k=1.3806503x10^-23 m^2 kg s^-2 K^-1, sigma=5.67x10^-8 W m^-2 K^-4, G=6.67x10^-11 m^3 kg^-1 s^-2, etc etc) in Astrophysics 1 that every self respecting astronomer has in their freaking tool box.

It's a world-wide phenomena. And a conspiracy.

Groningen

Went to Groningen yesterday (pronounced ggggrow-nen-gen), the biggest city nearby. Total inhabitants: 185,000 with 20,000 of those students at the University of Groningen. We puposely went on a Saturday to take advantage of the weekly market that is held in the city center, Grote Markt. We picked up some soft swiss cheese from one of the bazillion venders and also some mangoes (both of which shall play a larger role in later paragraphs). It was misting on and off as we walked among the stalls, but finally it started raining too hard so we went and had coffee under the awning of a cafe. Francillia had made fried chicken before we left, and Rachael and I put together some veggie sandwiches, so we enjoyed some lattes and packed lunch on the streets of Groningen watching the rain come down. Eventually even the awning wasn't enough to protect us from the rain so we went inside and sat on some couches. I think we just sat there and chatted and chatted for a good while even past the worst of the rain storm.

We eventually decided to search out the tattoo & piercing parlors in the city that I had marked down on my map before we left. I wanted to get another piercing and Francillia was interested in getting a tattoo. So in our quest to not only FIND the shops (of which I was in charge- I did admirbly, thank you) and estimate costs and tatoo artists ability we got to see a fair portion of Groningen city center. It's a tightly packed metropolis- it only takes about 15min to walk from end to end of the ringed city center. Anyway, of the shops we found one was nice but expensive, one was rude and who cares how much the cost, one was just piercings and expensive, and the other couldn't fit Francillia in that day. So, Mom, you can stop thinking about nagging me, I don't have another piercing...yet.

Thankfully the rain had stopped completely, leaving only overcast skies and a big of humidity (read: a lot of humidity. My hair was crazy!) At a loss for what to do, piercing and tattooing having failed, Rachael and I convinced Francillia to go on a canal tour with us in canoes! BEST DECISION EVER. We found the canoe rental place, opperated by this tiny Indian man who seemed a bit sketch and headed out. The only thing the guy said to us was 'always turn left.' IT WAS AWESOME. (My shoulder are killing me this morning though! 2.3mi of canoeing!)

The photos from the day are HERE. But I'm gonna choose several of them to display for this post too :)






So after the canoe tour, which we finished around 7pm, we headed back to the train station. On the train ride back we ate the rest of the fried chicken, had some cheese, and exclaimed over the wonders of the day. We got to Beilen (a nearby town with a train station. It's something like 9km away from ASTRON) and started the bike ride home. It's such beautiful country here. As we started to get back into the forest we stopped at a picnic bench and devoured the mangoes. Oh. My. God. There were so good. I was covered in mango juice, but it was so worth it.

We finished the ride home, through some rain, and then went to bed. And now today Rachael, John and myself are going to Hoogeveen to see Inception. I'm living up the last two weeks here- what a ride.

Funny Story

Leaving for the gym yesterday, I ran into Charles who was leaving work for the day. He and his wife are both post-docs at ASTRON and have been here for over three years. Walking to the bike shed in my gym clothes Charles remarks:

Charles: You footballing? (Weekly football games are held Tuesday nights.)
Me: Nope. Gym-ing.
Charles: You actually joined the gym in Dwingeloo?!
Me: Yup! What else am I gonna do in the middle of the forest?
Charles: Good point. We procreated.
Me: Oh!
Charles: Twice.
Me: OH!

HAHA. Gotta love the various form of entertainment available here in BFHolland.

Bad Ass-ery

So just thought I'd share this gem with y'all:
I am an official co-author on my project this summer! Stefanie just gave a talk at a conference in Oxford and used some of my results and thus I am listed as collaborator!!!!!! Helz to the yeah!

Proof:

Amazing Amsterdam

Amsteram=awesomeness. And that is the truth.

The gang (Me, Rachael, John, Dimitry, Francillia, and Chen) left ASTRON at 5:00pm, got into Amsterdam at around 8:00pm. Waited an hour trying to figure out how to get into our apartment and then decided to walk around and find dinner. We ended up getting Chinese take out from down the street. Our aparment that I found (airbnb.com rocks) was fairly residential and a ways outside of the city center. So after grabbing dinner we caught the train to Dam square, the central square in Amsterdam. It was a Friday night, so the streets were busy, despite the hour. Here's a picture of the guys after finishing their Chinese.

From left to right: Dimitry, John, Chen

We then decided to get up and walk around a bit. You can't help but 'accidentally' wander into the red light district from Dam square, it's literally maybe two blocks away. The streets there were even more crowded and lined with scantily clad women framed in black-light-lit windows and sex shops. It seemed normal even. This could have been any street in Amsterdam, selling any product- here is just happens to be sex. Anyway, we finished our tour and headed back home to play some King's Cup.

The next morning we parted ways, and the girls, (Me, Rachael, & Francillia) headed to the Jordaan to do some shopping. The Jordaan is the more 'village'-like neighborhood of Amsterdam, with tons of little boutiques, open air markets, canals full of houseboats and the like. It's the region just to the left of the U-shaped center of the city in the map below.

Anyway, we stopped and got some coffee at a cafe. Here's Francillia and myself :)
We started in the Noordmarkt, which is a organic farmer's market every Saturday. There were several cheese stalls, and tons of flower stalls, mixed in with fish venders and bakeries. Towards the end there were also stalls for 2nd hand goods and handmade jewelry and such. I picked up some good souvenirs there.

We continued walking up and down the street, stopping in to boutiques and enjoying the beautiful weather.

Typical canal

Typical street in the Jordaan. This one has some antiques for sale and a kitty :)

Then we made our way to the more commercial area in central Amsterdam (not my preferred flavor of shopping) where Rachael and I enjoyed an ice cream. Have I mentioned how GOOD the soft serve is here? Oh, I have? Well, that 'cause it's GOOD.

The main street was busy, packed with people. But here's a cute little church at the end of a small alleyway just off the main street.
Finally, us girl met up with the boys and decided to get some dinner. We found an Indonesian place that was just great! We got six different plates and shared them all. Sooooo gooooood.


After dinner we went to Vondel Park, a huge area with ponds and lawns and an amphitheater. We went to see a Cabaret, but the show we ended up seeing was of some random Dutch chick who sang funny songs (or at least I think they were funny. She sang in Dutch and quit often the crowd would laugh) I have a video I'll try and post later.

It's was dark by the time we started heading back to the apartment. And not only is Amsterdam beautiful during the day, but also at night when the canals light up with business lights.


We got home and I taught the gang the wonderful drinking game of Asshole. Much hilarity ensued.

Sunday morning we woke up fairly late, but eventually made it to the Van Gogh museum. We had to wait 45min to get in, and it cost too much (14euro) but it was really neat. I hadn't realized that Gogh just up and decided to be an artist one day and started taking lessons. It was also really cool that a lot of his contemporaries also had art displayed along with Gogh's.

Here's a picture of me outside in front of the museum.
And here's a picture of the Rijksmuseum (pronounced rye-ks-museum), which is just down the street from the Van Gogh museum. We didn't actually go in, but it was a pretty building, so I took a photo.
Only Rachel, John and myself went to the museum, so we three got some Greek food for a late lunch and then met up with the rest of the gang. Please note the glass of soda at the left of the following picture. It's called Cassis, or black current soda. It's sooo good. I'm really going to miss it.
Everyone was pretty tired so we got some Thai take out (which turned out to be AMAZING) and went home. We'd found some black currant liquor so we opened that up and played a bit of Asshole. I feel asleep early (lame, I know).

Monday morning we got up early, hit a local bakery for breakfast and made our train to take us back to ASTRON.

I give Amsterdam an A+, probably my favorite city of the ones I've seen this summer.

UPDATE:
So HERE are the rest of my Amsterdam photos
and HERE are my Berlin photos
Enjoy!

In Berlin

As promised, here is my recapping of my trip to Berlin.

Had no problem with the trains to Berlin, made all my connections just fine and got there on time. Only trouble? Evan though I didn't get in until Sunday (not Saturday) so he wasn't there to meet me. Yup, that was fun. Got a nice long tour of the main train station though. It's very nice. Eventually I got a hold of Evan and made my way by metro to his place. He lives in SW Berlin, in a nicely residential area right next to the Botanical Gardens. His the house he's sharing is awesome- very European cute. For example, here's the kitchen:
Anyway, we had a chill evening on Saturday. We BBQ'd brats 'n chicken 'n stuff and drank beer and eventually went to bed. Apparently, I snore.

Sunday morning Nicole arrived from France. We got our lazy asses in action and went into Berlin (about 20-30min by metro from Evan's place) and went to see the Berlin Wall. The West side is covered in murals and the East is absolutely blank.

West

East

At the end of the wall, tucked in along the river, is an African bar called Yaam. I'm not sure if 'bar' is the right term for it though. It's more like a small African/Jamaican village with little huts with kitchens, bars, a stage, sand volleyball, and soccer.


We had some Jamaican food there and played some sand volleyball- reliving our days at Collage Place in Tucson from last summer.

We got back on the metro and went to see some more sights. I'm still not exactly sure what this one is, but it's visible across Berlin. A old soviet TV tower maybe?

What's cool though, is that on a different side of the city near the main museums, it lines up just perfectly with the old church here.

And here's Nicole posing in from of another museum on the lawn.

We walked and walked and walked and came across the hotel where Michael Jackson dangled his baby out the window....

Which happens to be right next to the American Embassy...
So at this point it's getting toward evening (even though the sun is still high in the sky. European summer days last FOREVER) We decided to go to a beer garden near Evans place. Along the way we found these awesome chairs at one of the metro stops:

Are they not fabulous? I mean seriously!

The weather was perfect and we had a lovely snack outside in the beer garden's patio. I had a Berliner Weisse Grund (half beer half green soda). It was actually really good!

After that we went back to Evan's place and made a big, awesome dinner. One of Evan's friends, Sabine, came over and played cards and drank a LOT of wine with us. Overall, a delightful evening.

The next day, Nicole, Sabine, and myself went into Berlin and went shopping. Very girly, I know. But lots of fun. Plus I found a great dress for clubbing that night :) So around 11pm, after making another great dinner at Evan's, we headed back into Berlin to experience some German night life. I looked way hot (pictures on Nicole's camera only, sadly) and danced my feet raw. I've also learned that strobe lights are not good for my vertigo...but that's beside the point. 3:30am rolled around and we left. I had to go pick up my bags from Evans and then head to the train station to catch my 5:30am train. I didn't quite make that one, so I ended up taking the 6:30 train out. This is me after a night of dancing and zero hours of sleep:

Coffee=gooooood.

Anyway, made it back to BFHolland by 1pm, finished the work day and then slept the fuck out of my bed. I call the weekend a success.

Falling Behind

So I got back from Berlin Tuesday afternoon exhausted. (I'll tell that story later) I finished off the work day and then slept for 13 hrs. Somehow it's already Thursday afternoon and I'm frantically trying to plan my trip to Amsterdam this weekend. So here's the deal: I'm not going to try and recap Berlin now, I'll do it and Amsterdam when I get back early next week. Promise!

You're Paying Me to Do What? Part II

So we got to Rotterdam. Success. We didn't know exactly where the venue for concert was, but we finally figured that out. The North Sea Jazz fest is the largest indoor jazz festival in the world- it was crammed with people. The first show we watched was Katie Melua- she reminded me a lot of Nora Jones and I will definitely be downloading the rest of her music. Then Buddy Guy came on. He was phenomenal, absolute dynamite. No, but really. He was so bluesy and such a showman. Probably the best show I've ever seen. Ever.

Then Joss Stone came on, followed by Ben Harper. The venue was packed at this point. The main concert hall easily held 10,000 people standing shoulder to shoulder, cheek to jowl. We watched the Dutch lose in overtime in the World Cup (very disappointing) and then STEVIE WONDER CAME ON STAGE. We were sitting in the far back crammed in with so many thousands of people. (I tried not to think about that too much, otherwise I started to panic a bit.) It was miserably hot, but so amazing. I'd said to Rachael earlier that day that if Stevie played Overjoyed, my fav song, the whole concert would be worth it. HE PLAYED IT! I nearly lost it when he started to play the opening rift.

We caught one of the last metros to the train station and finally collapsed into bed back in Delft at 3:30am. Phew.

You're Paying Me to Do What? Part I

There are some awesome perks to my summer job: being in Holland the main one.

So last Saturday morning at 8:00am Dmitry, Rachael and I left the guesthouse and biked the 10 miles to the train station in Hoogeveen. Made our trains just fine, and arrived in Den Haag around 11:30am. We set off with Dimitry's two year old memories of the city and my guidebook. First stop? Food. We went to Bagels & Beans, a small Dutch chain of bagel/coffee places (think Einsteins but soooo much better.) I got the Tuscany- whole wheat (amazing) bagel with pain cream cheese and minced black olives in olive oil with sun dried tomatoes, pine nuts, and basil. Also got an iced coffee. It was sweet and milky and soo good. Needless to say, lunch was fan-freaking-tastic. As evidenced below.


Then we walked by the Binnenhof, which is the parliament.
It was pretty and all, but the best part of the day was the Escher museum. It's housed in an old palace of the Dutch royalty. Queen Such-and-such wintered there until her death in 19XX. It was a sweet building and the grounds were gorgeous.

And let me tell you, M.C. Escher = genius. We spent 3+ hours there.

Then we went to the beach. The trams were ridiculously crowded, so we ended up not paying for the ride there...oops. There was no convienient place to change into our swim suits so we just walked along the wet sand and enjoyed the cool water. Plus we only had 2 hours before we had to be back in Den Haag.
Here's my traditional jumping photo:

And here's the North Sea!
This is at the more northern expanse of beach- there were a lot less people. It also turns out that this side is a lot more nudist... Yeah, it's striking to look up from the sand and realize there are naked old men walking around. Why is it that the unattractive people are the ones to strip down to their birthday suit? Anyway, up at this end of the beach there are also some old WWII bunkers: Plus, we walked up off the sand and strolled along the cobble stone path that curled among the dunes.
The tide was low when we walked back. Little pools were left behind and this path was revealed: Too perfect, right?

Anyway, we then rode the even more crowded trams back to the city center and met up with Tatiana. She's a masters student at JIVE but lives in Delft, which is just a 10 min train ride from Den Haag. We got dinner in one of the main squares and then went back to Delft. Go figure we got caught in a rain storm, but that didn't stop us from going to a local tavern for some drinks.

So many of you know that I'm not much of a beer drinker back home. I like to try it, but I still don't enjoy it fully. Well let me tell you, this does not apply to Belgian beers. Oh. My. God. This stuff was so freaking amazing! My two favorites were Casteel- a 12% dark beer that tasted like chocolate made by monks and Karmetliet, a flowery light beer made by nuns. We're talking nectar of the gods here people. And the scene was just too picturesque. Sitting in a dark tavern, empty whiskey bottles with stick candles dripping wax on the scarred wooden tables. The old church belfry is the view from the window- I watched it light up as evening turned into night. We met a (drunk) Irish albino. He had white hair and eyebrows and the most heavenly accent.

Finally we walked back home to Tati's flat. It's tiny, and ridiculously expensive, but so perfect. We slept on some extra foam mattresses and woke up to the sound of church bells. Tati took us to the main square in Delft. It has a church at both ends- one where the royal family is married and the other where it's buried. Delft is actually the only city in the Netherlands where prostitution is not legal- it's the royal city. We had a tradition Dutch breakfast in the shadow of the old church in the main square. The poffetjes- small pancakes dripping with butter and powdered sugar- were a-mazing. I had mine with real whipped cream and cherries. Really, it should be called morning desert.Finally, we walked to the train station and headed for Rotterdam for our concert. Tati left for Amsterdam where she was meeting up with some friends to watch the World Cup Final. Along the way, there was too perfect a picture opportunity:

You'll notice the old church is actually significantly titled to the left.

6 Weeks and a Pretty Picture

So I've reached the half-way mark of my internship. And what do I have to show for it research wise?

This:
You may oohhhh and aaahhhhhh now.

So the science comes from taking the ratio of the line strength at each position where there is signal in both frequencies. With these line ratios we can deduce the temperature and density of the star forming gas clouds, leading to a better understand of galaxy evolution, especially in starburst galaxies, with respect to chemical composition, stellar birth rates, and distribution of molecular clouds.

Independence Day

So pancakes are a big thing here. All flavors, savory and sweet. Weird, I know. There's a fairly famous pancake house, pannenkoekenbakkerij, called Bospub (use google translator if you're interested) not even 1km away from the guesthouse. Today they had a live Irish band playing so Dimitri, Rachael and I went to enjoy the music and have a pancake. I got a spek pannenkoeken (bacon pancake) complimented by syrup from a ceramic jar and powdered sugar (=amazing). Dimitri got his with tomato and Rachel hers with bananana. Strangely, there's a mini golf course hidden in the grounds. We could see the first hole from where we sat on the patio. Also interesting, there's an ancient (at least ancient looking) amphitheater on the grounds as well:

Peek-a-boo!

Rachael giving a star performance.

Dimitri playing the light-keeper.

Following authentic Dutch pancakes and in the Amurikan spirit Rachael and I organized an authentic (as possible) BBQ (minus the BBQ). We made macaroni salad, tomato cucumber salad, deviled eggs, home fries and hamburgers. It was delicious. Everyone got a plate and we all sat outside in the shade of the forest and radio telescope. The party consisted of myself, Rachael, Francillia, Renee, John, Chen, Dimitri, Monica and her boyfriend visiting from Italia, and Trevor (another intern) and his brother (name unknown. He's visiting after a 'hasty exit from Kazakhstan' (??!))

The hot streak has finally broken, so today was much more moderate. We all sat and chatted- debating the definition of sci-fi, praising BSG/Firefly/other sci-fi/fantasy movies/tv shows, sharing stories about other less geeky things- until the mosquitoes were too insistent. The best part? I didn't have to do the dishes.