Catch Up

It seems I haven't been very good about writing this week, so here's a condensed version of my going-ons. I don't know how it happens, it's not like I'm really all that busy, but some how the day ends before I've gotten anything done.

Saturday:

Rachael, Vishal and I went for a bike ride. We packed a lunch and brought our rain jackets (the weather wasn't the most trustworthy) and chose a direction. Along the way we found a tea house (Thee huiz in Dutch) in the middle of the forest. I'm not joking. We came around a corner of bike path and there it was. No paved roads or anything- just a random tea house with a play ground in the middle of the freaking nowhere. A little bit farther on we stopped and ate lunch even though we really weren't that far from the guesthouse and finished our ride. It started to get cold and misty so I was glad to be back home in warm covers.

Sunday:

Laziness ensued.

Monday:

The weather was gorgeous!! Like wow, amazing. After work we all (Rachael, Vishal, Chen (who's first name is actually Ruwong, but you try saying that quickly) Renee, Dimitri, and myself) decided to hop on our bikes and see where we ended up. Dimitri's a bit more familiar with the area (he was a summer student 2 summers ago) so we followed him to a small town north east of Dwingeloo. There's a canal running through it with house boats and everything.

This is my favorite picture recently though:
For obvious reasons I think.

Tuesday:

Well I tried to do the same route that Vishal, Rachael, and I took on Saturday but backwards (starting out across the heath first and then heading back through the forest) but that didn't turn out so well. I ended up missing a turn somewhere and finding myself all the way in Dwingeloo. But as a consequence I found the pancake restaurant that's nearby. So that's good. All told: 18km. My butt was real sore (Becca, you may make a lewd comment now.)

Wednesday: Bridge Night

I guess it's been a tradition for over 20 years now, but every Wednesday folk from the institute get together to play bridge and have some drinks. So six of the eight of us students got on our bikes and 7:30pm and rode the 7ish km to Pesse, a nearby town. We played bridge until around 10:30pm until it was finally too dark to see well enough. The booze came outside on a tray and a fire pit was started. Somehow we managed to all talk for another 2 hours, well into darkness. The host and hostess were amazing nice, and friendly, and great conversationalists.

We finally decided to head back home, and so turned on our bike lights (powered by peddle) for the magical ride home. A gibbous moon was well above the horizon, illuminating the low clouds. We stopped to take in the amazing scene in the middle of the heath*, about 3km from home. Fog was like icing across the plain, making the clustered trees appear to float. I cannot tell you how absolutely surreal the scene was. The entire night had been wonderful, the bike ride home one of the best parts. I've decided I don't like bridge, but I'll continue to go every week just for the experience.

Thursday:

So today we got the grand tour of the institute, which turned out not to be the snooze-fest I thought it would. We got to see the electronics area of the building, where they design and test all the correlators for the majority of the European radio telescopes. They have a sound proof room with foam spikes and everything! There's also an optical/infrared instrumentation group centered here as well. They're working on the polarizer for an instrument called 'Sphere' which will go on one of the massive telescopes in Chile to directly detect exo-planets. I'll believe when it happens, but it's still pretty cool.

* This is a picture of of a little bit of heath, looking to forest. It's not a very impressive picture, I'll try and take another one soon.

And this is just a random flower picture. These are right outside my front door in a little glade. The little path to the left goes to the telescope. You don't have to hide your jealousy, I understand.