Hollandishness (Amsterdam & Utrecht)

Well!

To start with, I spent all of the Saturday before Rachel arrived cleaning, preparing her room, buying flowers, and food, so that everything would be ready for her when she got here. Halfway through the day, surprise! A new roommate moved in, completely unannounced. Now that's what I call reliable landlords. In any case, it turns out, the new roommate is an absolutely wonderful chap named Shaun, from London, and I am pleased as a peach he's living here now. I was just a bit miffed, because Shaun moved into the room I had been cleaning and making ready for Rachel. Alas! So I moved myself upstairs, and got the attic room ready instead.

Super cute, right?!

The next morning, I woke up bright and early - around 4:30 to be exact. Rachel's plane was due in at 7, and in order to get to the airport that early, I had to bike to the train station and get a red-eye, slow (for some reason, the slower trains are called "Sprinters" in Holland, whoever named them that is a crazy fool) train, that left around 5:45 AM, and got to the airport around 6:45 AM. So! I arrived at the airport, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, expectantly awaiting Rachel. I went and bought her a chocolate croissant and a coffee, because, you know what, that's what you need when you get off a trans-Atlantic flight.

And so, I went to the arrivals gate. And waited. The plane arrived - hooray! And I waited for the baggage to get on the belt. It got on the belt. Everyone started pouring out of the arrivals gate. I looked, and looked. No Rachel. I started to get that kind of sick, anxious feeling, when you feel that something might be wrong. The completely calm (AKA anxious-as-a-squirrel-when-someone-is-stealing-her-nuts) person that I am, I assured myself that she was just taking some time to get her baggage together or something. An hour passed. Around 8:15 or so, I started to panic a little bit. What if she didn't know where my house was? What if they were drilling her about why she was coming to Holland? What if she brought like, some bad thing, like wine or something, and they had her in a police chair, and were interrogating her?! Some people say I overreact. I like to think that I'm constantly honing my imagination, so that one day, I can write excellent novels.

Rachel showed up around 9. She had to take a later plane (for which she got paid $400 Continental, JEALOUS). She had sent me a message on Skype, but, alas. Here's how Skype works - you only get messages when you and the other person are both online at the same time. I logged off the night before, then she sent the message. I logged back in before I left in the morning, but by then, she had logged off, resulting in no message for poor Kee-ligh. Ah, well! I was so glad she was there, I almost started singing!

So, off we went. I took her back to Utrecht, and set her up in the attic room. We got ready, and went to find some pancakes! Rachel had a bit of a rough time getting used to the bikes - it does take a lot, to start and stop constantly in the city, with the cars all around. But we eventually managed to make it to Theehuis Rijnauwen (which is, as you know, my favorite place in all of Utrecht). We met Clement and Mary there, and had a lovely brunch/lunch type thing.

Rachel got a savory pancake, with red onions, red pepper, paprika, and cheese. Mmm.

Nom nom nom. I had a pancake called a "Tasty Tom" - it's got dates, nuts, and apples. I LOVE it.

After we had delicious noms, we went for a walk in the park around the pancake house. It was lovely! Lots of families, with kites. After our walk, we hopped back on our bikes, and headed back towards the city center. We went exploring around the city center - we found this church courtyard, it reminded us of Harry Potter. Naturally, we took glamorous drama shots in the arches.

So European, zee Rachel!

We went back home and I made us a delicious tamale chicken pie. It had a cornbread base, with shredded chicken, salsa, chili seasoning, and cheese over it. The cornbread alone was worth the recipe. It was incredibly good.

Here's what it would look like if I had a totally awesome camera and could take amazing food photography:

So, that was Sunday! Monday, we went to Amsterdam, and had a wonderful day sight-seeing. We started the day off with a walking tour - our tour guide was Australian. She had a tendency to say, "Awesome." We went through the red-light district, and we looked at the Oude Kerk (Old Church), which lies in the middle of the red-light district, so that sailors (in the olden days) could have their sins of the night before (or for the night to come) forgiven. Ha!

Getting Ready for our super-spiffy walking tour!

The Oude-Kerk

Some street art outside the Oude-Kerk - supposedly representing the red-light district - an anonymous man and an anonymous woman - the church was nooooot too pleased when they found this one morning embedded outside their church

The old headquarters of the Dutch East India Company. It must have smelled so good when they stored all their spices in this area!!

Old-fashioned medieval plaques, indicating services offered at different houses/roads

A secret courtyard in the middle of Amsterdam

Street art

Chocolates! We shared a pepper chocolate, a coffee chocolate, and a raspberry chocolate

With the "I am Amsterdam" sign in the museum district

After our walking tour, we wandered to the south of the city, to the big street market, on Albert Cuypstraat, where we bought a stroopwafel (mmm, tasty Dutch food), and looked at all the clothing - I bought a totally sweet jacket, which appears in the "I am Amsterdam" photo above. We meandered to the museum district after that, but unfortunately, got there just a bit too late to do the two things we wanted to - go to the Van Gogh museum, and do the "Jenever Experience" a guided tour of how the Dutch liquer, Jenever, is made, and the different flavors, etc. Alas! We had some tea, and went back to the Albert Cuypstraat area, where we had an incredible, and inexpensive, Mediterranean dinner at a restaurant called Bazaar.

Tuesday was a day of rest. We just stuck around Utrecht, went into the city for a bit. We ate some mid-afternoon snacks outside, by the canal, with some beers.

Tuesday night, we got onto a bus, at 10:00 PM, heading for London. The bus trip was a story unto itself, and I will leave that till the next post, methinks.

With that, I wish you all a pleasant evening! As usual, I started writing a post at around 8, and am finishing around 11. It's the ADHD, I tell you. It gets worse, the more I work with the kids who have it! I think everyone in my lab has the same complaint...

Amsterdam, London, Wales, and Being on the BBC

So!

If you've wondered why I haven't posted in a while, there is a very good reason, dear readers. Since the last post, work has been fairly normal - I spend most days doing interviews, making files on the kids I've scanned, and preparing myself to learn how to process my MRI data. All of my work in the lab is going very well, I'm happy to say, and I am confident that the work which remains (most importantly, the analysis of my MRI data) can be completed in the U.S. It will not be easy, it will take work, but I will be able to finish it when I get back home. And hopefully, with the results, publish a paper. All of the above are helping to make me into the ideal PhD candidate. I just hope the schools I start applying to can see that as well!

So, that's work. However, I am writing to you now, sleep-deprived, slightly dizzy, and extremely happy, after taking a week and a half holiday (yes, I am so European - I call my vacations holidays) with my best friend Rachel, to visit Amsterdam (properly, you know) and London. Rachel left from Heathrow on Friday, after which I went to Cardiff, Wales, and got the chance to go to the Doctor Who Convention! The first ever! It was very exciting. I have many, many pictures, and I can't wait to share them all with you!

I decided to break up the posts about the holiday into three-ish parts - one about Rachel and my adventures in Holland, one about our adventures in London, and then one about the convention, and my last day in London. I am excited to share them with you over the following days! For now, a brief taste of what I did the past two weeks:

At the "I am Amsterdam" sign, in the museum district of Amsterdam

European Backpacker FTW!

Eating Cuban tapas in the Cambden Markets in London

Platform 9 and 3/4 at King's Cross Station in London

Going on a Pub Crawl in London

Next to the iconic British phone booth, outside the British Museum

Doctor Who Convention welcome sign

Next to one of the Tardis models they had around

Walking at Sophia Gardens, in Cardiff - that's the Cardiff Castle in the background

A traditional British Afternoon Tea

Visiting a School on an Island, Biking Up and Down (!) in Holland

So! It's been an interesting last few weeks. I apologize for the delay in posts - I am finding myself extremely busy, with scanning, interviewing later in the day, going to the gym for a least an hour four times a week...

But, I have some lovely new photos, etc., to share with all of you.

The first come from a school visit I made to a wonderful little village called Ijmuiden. The school itself was houses in these stone buildings that looked really old, very classic and pre-Victorian era. I loved it. The students were lovely, and their teacher, Dalal, was very kind. They even gave me this beautiful bunch of tulips (appropriately white and pink as the school visit was on Valentine's Day).

 In the last class, I had two very interesting things happen - one was that a very sweet kid asked me if I would be his Valentine, which I sadly had to decline, seeing as I am a happily partnered woman, and already have a Valentine, and the second was that when the class found out I could sing, they immediately started begging me to sing. Now, mind you, this is after hours of talking. So, I sang a really short intro to a song from Phantom of the Opera, after which, to my delight, as well as the teacher's, another student asked if she could sing too.

After the school visit (which was on an island-type thing), I took a unique mode of transportation to get home:

This is the "Fast Flying Ferry," appropriately named, because it does go quite fast across the water. I took it from Ijmuiden back to Amsterdam.

Between that school visit and now, I have really just been working - nothing too exciting, but then, yesterday, I did something really, really cool. I went with the ING (International Student Group) to a Dutch National Park. Now, in and of itself, going to a park may seem, I don't know, blah. But a National park is a different story. This National Park was called the Veluwezoom, and it was very big, and very, very beautiful. It looked just like Southeast Ohio. I LOVED IT. I mean, I miss many things here, but really high on the list is hiking, and exploring the woods, kayaking, etc. This was such a jolt of awesome-goodness for that feeling. I took a bike tour, along with a new friend, Hannah, who is from London (she's lovely), and 17 other ING folks. It. Was. Crazy. Up and down hills, winding, looping, huge vistas, close, dense forests, dunes, trees, and fresh, fresh air everywhere. Now, you have to realize, most of the Netherlands is completely flat. Going somewhere where there were hills - well, it was very exciting. The whole day was thrilling. Like being reminded of how alive you are, how good it feels to be active.

Here are some pictures of the day, and some videos, too!

A graveyard for Dutch soldiers in WWII (there was a huge battle near the park we were going to)

Dis muh fwend.

A snuggle/story-reading circle. This is genius.

The sheep field.

All the baby lambs!!!

I am so proud that I biked to the top of this hill!

This is the area where people can bring their dogs to run about freely - all the tan ground is sand! This place used to be under glaciers, which left huge sand deposits when they left. Crazy!

Aforementioned doggeh.

A forest-fire viewing tower

Two roads diverged in a wood..

Great Scott! What's that?!

Close.

Closer

Even closer...

Yep. Really close to this cow (it's a Scottish cow) on muh bike. His name was William. Hello there, chap. Nice horns.

Warning: Wild rooster. I have no idea what this actually is. Wild rooster? Are they so fierce?

 So, that was my very exciting Saturday. Today was a scan day, which basically means I spent all day in the lab (yes, on a Sunday), doing practice scans, and sitting in on real scans, back and forth, etc, etc. Tomorrow I'll look at the data. Hopefully it's good! It's always hard to sit there and watch the scans happening for hours and know that even if you scan all day, if the kids don't lie still, your data will be mostly useless...

Now, on to next week! I am taking off Wednesday to have a nice vacation day, where I can cook and laze about, paint my fingernails, maybe give myself a haircut...

I wish all of you the best! I miss everyone, as usual. Looking forward to seeing my good friend Rachel in a few weeks here - when we will be taking a totally awesome, exciting trip to London! And Wales! Doctor Who! VERY cool. Till then, my lovely family and friends.