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.

Blauwe Meer

It's Friday afternoon, miserably hot, and the office has mostly cleared out because the Holland Brazil game is about to start. I'm the only one still at my computer and Rachael's adviser, Zsolt (or something like that- pronounced Schultz) stops in to say bye. He asks if we've heard of Blauwe Meer and I'm like huh? At first I thought he was talking about a pub in Dwingeloo where everyone was going to watch the game. It turns out that Blauwe Meer (meaning blue lake) is an artificial lake outside of Dwingeloo that all the locals go to on summer days. I'd been sitting in my own sweat all day in my UNAIRCONDITIONED OFFICE and just the sound of a cool lake to swim in made my mouth water.

So Saturday morning Rachael and I set off to find Blauwe Meer. It was a bit more difficult than we expected...
Please note the 4 mile detour we took at the begging of the trip. Oops.

Anywho, we finally got there and it wasn't a moment too soon. Not only was I HOT (mitigated only by the self created wind of biking), but my butt was seriously sore. We park our bikes in the bike parking lot (yes, you read right) and grabbed our packed lunches and hit the beach. It was so amazing. Obviously artificial sand piled high on the shore of a blue, blue lake edged by green forest and reflecting clear blue skies. It was still fairly early, about noon or so, so it wasn't too crowded. I laid out my blanket and stripped off my shorts (swimming suit already in place) and headed to the water to cool down.

It was COLD. And marvelous. I sat down at the edge, water up to my waist and reclined back on my palms, digging fingers into wet sand. Along the water's edge people played hacky sack with a soccer ball, tossed a volleyball, little kids splashed. It was a typical beach scene (with fewer obese people) but at a remote lake in the middle of BFHolland. What more could you ask for, especially on a hot day?

Finally almost cold, Rachael and I went back to our towel that we'd laid out on the sand. I slathered some on some sun screen and let the sun bake me while I napped. As I slept the beach became crowded with people. When I woke up at 3 there layers of towels three deep laid out along the shore. Rachael and I got in the water again and then after drying out once more, packed up and headed home. I could tell I'd gotten a bit of a burn. I'd take a picture to show you the damage (I'm almost, but not quit lobster red) but I figured I didn't need a picture of my chest floating around on the intertoobs.

Ominous clouds had rolled in and we didn't want to get caught out in a down pour. We made it to the market in Dwingeloo in time for the rain and watched it drizzle on the green leaves from the gazebo in the town center. Finally, we were on the road home after picking up some veggie burgers from the store. The smell of ceder scented the air, heavy with the new rain.

UPDATE 5, JULY @ 15:45
I forgot to mention that while in the water, we happened to run into Rachael's adviser. He was wearing a speedo. And that's all I have to say about that.

Go4It!

The only thing I like less than exercising is wasting money. So I figure one sure fire way to force myself to actually maintain at least a showing of fitness is to buy a gym membership. There's no way I'd buy it, and then let it lie unused- I hate spending money too much. So Tuesday I bit the bullet and joined the gym in Dwingeloo. They didn't have an employee who spoke English well enough to show me around immediately so instead I set up an appointment for Thursday and caught a Zumba class.

There were maybe six or seven women in the class who all knew each other and didn't speak much English themselves. They chatted away in Dutch as every one was getting ready to start the class. Once the music started I followed along as best I could and started to get the hang of the moves fairly quickly. At one point the instructor was showing me the moves for the next song and a couple of the women remarked that I was good. "I've danced before I said." "We can see that." they said with a smile. Call me vain, but I do love a nice compliment.

Then Thursday after work I went for my introduction appointment. Granted, I've never really spent much time in gyms, but this one seemed a bit different than what I expected. They use an electronic fitness training program and so to enter the system I hoped on the bike for my diagnostic test. The results? I'm not in the lowest fitness level. Yay? Anywho, I messed around for another hour one the cross trainer and figuring out the equipment and weights and stuff then biked home.

All things told, it really won't be that expensive if I go twice a week- which is what I was planning. So say hello to your new, frugal, gym member.