ESN Trip to Volendam
Tags:amsterdam erasmus student network esn study abroad the netherlands travel volendamIt was a nice Saturday, warm with fleeting glimpses of the sun. A friend and I were hurrying — unnecessarily quickly — from our dormitory to Centraal Station to meet up with a group of two dozen members of the Erasmus Student Network. A few hours of waiting and a bus ride later, the big group of us arrived in a town of 20,000 people. It’s called Volendam (full dam) because they built a big dam and filled it with clay. Everyone who was born there stayed there, more or less, and became fishermen.
We immediately started on a tour with a guy (a real Volendammer, born and raised) dressed in the traditional fishing outfit. The town was really cute and had a tiny city center.
I tried raw herring from a fish stand (very Dutch) for the first time. It was surprisingly good! And salty.
Then we dressed up in traditional costumes for fishermen and their wives and took a group photo.
All in all it was a great day, perfect for recharging my batteries from nonstop thesis work.
Undressing from our costumes in Volendam:
Party bus of some sporty guys drove by:
I’m starting to like Amstelveen
Tags:amstelveen amsterdam study abroad videoHappy Easter! It is now Easter Monday (1ste & 2de paasdag in Dutch) so I’m writing my weekly blog. Next week I’ll write about how my bike was stolen and I had to get a new one — how Dutch — but this week I have a video celebrating the spring I want to show you.
After several months in living just where Amsterdam starts to be called Amstelveen, I thought Amstelveen was total crap, just some lame suburb with nothing to do, nothing to see, and no reason to be there. Maybe it’s just the spring time romantic in me, but now I’m starting to like Amstelveen. It’s a little watery city all on its own, nestled under Amsterdam. Amstelveen has its own commercial areas, including a real shopping mall & a large outdoor market (both at Amstelveen Binnehof). Who knew? There’s a modern art museum I plan to check out in the coming weeks. Amsterdam’s city center is only a few (dozen) tram stops away, plus you can take your bicycle on the metro.
People in my dorm don’t see enough of Amsterdam, let alone Amstelveen. I like the quiet serenity of this bicycling suburb, where het Amsterdamse Bos is never too far off. Plus I could send my kids to the Guus Kieft School, where I’ve been volunteering. I could see myself settling down and raising a little family… Definitely not right now, but it’s a nice thought :)
I’m not sure for how many years I could deal with the weather, though. Thirty minutes ago, tiny flakes of snow were floating up over my balcony and onto my window. It’s been snowing here for several days, and it comes down in these windy snowshowers that look like fog. I woke up this morning to the sun shining on ground covered in snow. Then it was hailing, and the ground was getting covered in little balls of ice. Now it’s sunny again.
Here’s a video of me biking in Amstelveen along the river Amstel:
Pirates of the Pond
Tags:amsterdam graduate school video blogSo this past weekend was the “Eastside Weekend” in the province of Drenthe in the east of the Netherlands. It was an amazing time and uhh blue team is the best but also team wasabi is lekker :). Anyway, I’ll write more about it late, but here’s a video recorded on site of the epic water fight during the “build a raft” activity: Nicolas, me, and Franzi vs. Diego and James. Who won? You decide.
On an unrelated note, I met with Hans Westerhoff today, a professor of systems biology at VU who also works at the University of Manchester. We talked about doctoral program options, etc., which is particularly my priority right now since my Marshall application is due in about a week and then traditional graduate school applications will be soon to follow. He made an interesting comment about professional interest (what he works on as a scientist) and intellectual interest (what interests him in general). I’m now at the juncture of having to choose my professional scientific interest(s) out of my broader intellectual scientific interests.
In other news, I have the exam for my first class, the Portal Course, on Thursday morning; I got to see my friend Meredith last night since she was visiting A’dam for a few days for her birthday; and I might be hosting my blog with the VU as well.
Julian and Derek’s totally rad JOINT video blog
Tags:amsterdam video blogThis one is in an epic 5 parts!!~ Probably the coolest thing we’ve done is seeing Debussy’s La Mer and Beethoven’s 6th Symphony performed by the amazing Concertgebouw orchestra with a guest conductor. Completely incredible. The Van Gogh Museum was amazing, too… actually, we’ve been having a fantastic time and pretty much everything we’ve done has been awesome. Check it out!
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
Part 4:
Part 5:
There’s a summary after the jump:
Read more
1st ESN Borrel/Laundry Day
Tags:amsterdam video blogHey everybody, it’s been too long since I rock & rolled across your computer screens.
Part 1:
Part 2:
BTW, I forgot to mention there’s some random people (I guess from this building) playing cricket outside. I’ll be posting some more pictures soon, so stay tuned in to derekawesomeTV.
My first classes in Amsterdam… :)
Tags:amsterdam video blogDear blog,
Sincerely,
Derek
SATURDAYYYYYYYYYYYYY 1/9/07!!!
Tags:amsterdam politics video blogOk, the audio-video sync on this one is terrible. Although my laptop itself is quite fast and has 1GB of RAM, I like how Vista uses so many resources when nothing is open but my webcam that it desyncs my webcam. Really cool, and by that, I mean putting a new start menu on an old operating system, adding ghetto ipv6 support, and doubling the resource consumption is definitely NOT an upgrade. So, without further nerd rage:
Summary: Thurs I went shopping, bought gluten free bread, had fun with some friends; Fri made grilled cheeses with turkey, packages from home arrived, organized room and unpacked clothes; Sat went to Waterloopsplein and Albert Cuypstraat markets, bought vegetables and nuts, ate rotisserie chicken for cheap, came home and ate salad.
On the political scene, two Republican senators are retiring: long-time senator from Virginia John Warner (no relation to Mark Warner) is not going to seek re-election, and Senator Larry E. Craig of Idaho is stepping down Sept. 30th over being gay in public. On the Virginia front, at least, this offers an opportunity for both senators from Virginia to be democrats come 2008. Jim Webb, the junior senator from VA, and Tim Kaine, the governor of VA, are both democrats, and Mark Warner, a democrat and our previous governor, would have a very strong chance of election to the senate in my opinion. While I can’t foresee a huge democratic majority in the senate (i.e. at least 60 democratic senators, which would mean they could invoke cloture themselves and thereby basically control the senate), I think there’s definitely a strong possibility of a democrats retaining control of the senate and winning the White House.
Of course, if Hillary gets the nomination, who knows what hell will break loose come the 2008 election… Republicans hate her. As Jon Stewart said recently on his show: “Everyone talks about Hillary’s experience in Washington… are they counting her time as first lady? I mean, does being the wife of the President count as political experience?” She’s only been a Senator since 2001.
My Second Week in Amsterdam
Tags:amsterdam video blogSo I’ve been here for over a week now. Check out what I’ve been doing:
I’ll post more photographs and also put them on a map (so it’s like you can go around Amsterdam via Google Maps but see my pictures) at some point.
Video Blog: ESN/VUniverse ISI Days
Tags:amsterdam video blogThe “International Student Introduction Days” are an event that the ESN group puts on every year, and it was really fun and better than I was expecting. I met tons of people, and everyone was really cool, especially the Dutch people. Check it out:
In the video I forget to mention we went to a brewery after the historical museum (I had red wine, ha), and I also forgot to mention that I went to a mall last Wednesday and picked up a Dutch mobile phoen.
BTW my internet started working again, but I haven’t had a chance to upload pictures. I took some cool ones today in the woods, though, so those should be nice.
Virtual Tour of My Dorm Room in Amsterdam
Tags:My dorm’s actually just south of the city on the tramline at the start of the southern suburb of Amstelveen. Even though this building is old and in need of some maintenance (enough that the DUWO housing materials actually say they plan to demolish it in a few years), it’s nice. Compared to let’s say Rhodes hall, I like it. Shared bathrooms/kitchens, but whatever works. BTW, rent here with everything included (with cable tv and internet) and fully furnished is €265/month. Cheap, huh?
It’ll be cozier when I get a few more things by mail that I couldn’t fit into my luggage.