Jun 2008

On Tuesday, I went to Brussels for the day. It's a couple hours away on the high speed train, which didn't seem to be going more than 100 kph at its fastest, so not very high speed, really, but not too long a trip anyway. After arriving and spending 20 minutes trying to find the tourist info center, I got a map and went and had lunch in the Grand Place, which is, I think, the old center of the city (and probably about the current center). It's a large square fronted by many old and elaborately designed buildings. It's paved with cobblestones and there's no vehicle access, and there were a few market stands in the center: a place selling plants and another selling art. The restaurants around the edges of the squares had large patios, so I chose a place that looked reasonably priced and had lunch. Not a great meal, but not horrible, and good service, and the people were willing to speak to me in French despite my horrible English accent, which I've never lost.

After lunch, I walked around the square, took many pictures, then headed up to some parks that were on my map. Unfortunately, 2 of them were closed off for some reason, so I decided to take a tour bus ride. It was a good idea - the guy gave me a deal and I got to see so much more than I would have on foot. It was a hop-on/hop-off tour, but since I didn't really have any idea where I was most of the time, I just stayed on. It let me see places I'd like to go back to, like the royal gardens (a park) and the palace (these are right across the street from each other). The tour was commentated, thankfully, so I learned that the palace is open to the public in the summer when the king and queen of Belgium are away on holidays.

We also went past the massive headquarters for the EU (Brussels in the EU capital). There's more than one building, of course, it's a huge collection of buildings, and it was pretty impressive. Not only that they were so big, but that an old city like Brussels was able to find so much room downtown to build these enormous complexes. It was also just neat to see the heart of the EU, since nothing like this exists anywhere else in the world. I think Canada should join the EU - nevermind that it's not actually a European country. Then we could all get EU passports, which would make me happy.

Brussels is just as flat at the Hague, but lacks any of the canals and has much nicer architecture for some reason. There is more stuff that stands out there, but maybe Amsterdam is like that, too, I just can't remember. Almost any available space in Brussels seems to be turned into green space; almost all the meridians on the road were covered with grass and had trees growing in them. So, so much nicer than NJ where everything is just concrete.

We went through a park where a world's fair or expo was held in 1954. Belgium built this huge statue of the internal structure of an atom with 9 protons (?) representing the then 9 provinces of Belgium (now there are 10). They are connected with tubes housing wires, etc, and some of the protons (?) you can actually go into. Really, look at the pictures when I get them up because it's impossible to describe in words. The only other thing left from the fair is the American theatre, which isn't used as a theatre anymore (but I forget what they said it was used for).

After the bus tour, I wandered around another nearby park in the central area of the city. It was small, but nice, with a lot of flower beds, fountains, and trees. Although there was still a lot I could do, I decided to call it quits after that, because it was amazingly hot that day and I didn't have a hat, so I was beginning to feel the effects. I hoped the train back to the Hague, and got back in time for dinner, which was nice.

The next day, Eowyn and I took Maddie to Kinderdike (literally: the child's dike) to see the windmills. There are 19 old style windmills here; most of them are converted into houses, but one is still a tourist attraction and is operational. Apparently, on Saturdays from 2-5 pm in July and August, all 19 run at once, so I'd like to go see that! We didn't have much time there, because Maddie had a party to go to that afternoon, but we were able to eat a picnic outside the windmill and I went inside to explore. It certainly isn't somewhere I'd want to live, because there are so many stairs (more like ladders) and it is old and creaky. Normally old and creaky doesn't bother me but I'm afraid of heights and I felt like I was not quite on solid ground on the upper floors. While I was inside, the wind had died down, so the blades stopped turning, so it was quiet but when I got up to the upper floor, where the blades connect to the inside, the wind picked up again. This makes the whole building shake (or it seems like it anyway!) so I had to go back down, because I was already shaky enough as it was.

All along the dike there are bike/walking paths, so Eowyn and I discussed coming back in the summer with the three kids and Dave and renting bikes, which we can do there. That way, each of us could take a kid on the baby seat of the bike and ride along and see more of the windmills. In the Netherlands, almost everyone bikes, and bikes have the right of way. Most people carry their kids on kid seats on the bikes. Or on the handlebars. Or on the back. Without helmets. I'm not kidding. It's terrifying, but everyone is so used to it here, and the cars know how to deal with it. Everyone in this family wears helmets, and you can usually pick out the North Americans that way. Some Dutch people put helmets on their kids, but don't wear them themselves, which seems silly to me. If you have an accident and your kid lives because of a helmet, but you don't, how is that helpful? But almost no one has accidents here, either, which amazes me, because it all seems like a huge accident waiting to happen. In NJ, it certainly would be, because drivers there have no idea what to do with bikes, and usually just honk (which seems to be the typical NJ driver response to anything anyway). I wish more places were bike accessible like they are here, it's just so easy to get around here on the bike, and it's so much more convenient than driving and trying to find parking.

So tomorrow is the departure day for Africa. I'm just about ready, other than last minute packing and scanning my passports. I hope the next 6-7 weeks go by quickly and are productive.

On Tuesday, Eowyn and I went into Delft. For those of you who can't place the name, if you're familiar with the blue-and-white painted Dutch porcelain, Delft is where it comes from. It's a small town, but it's extremely beautiful, so many canals, many more than the Hague has. And most of them are linked by brides, not underground culverts (as in the Hague). First, we visited the original Delft blue workshop and museum, although we didn't go into the museum, because Eowyn thought it was free, but it was, in face 6.50 Euros. The gift shop is extensive, though, with a lot of great representations of Delftware, most of it extremely expensive (I mean in the hundreds of Euros). There are three levels of Delftware: fully handpainted, half-stamped/half-painted, and fully stamped. The fully handpainted stuff is the most expensive, the half and half is middle range and the fully stamped stuff is cheap and made in China (the other two are made in Delft). I was able to purchase one fully handpainted piece, because it was a factory second, meaning there was a mistake on it. It's a tile with a cottage on it, and there's a small blue smudge along the bottom edge which is almost completely covered by the frame I got for it. The other pieces I bought - a vase and a mug, are half-stamped, half-painted. It was nice to be able to buy something for myself, something I can bring back and use!

After the workshop, we went into the town center and had lunch. As fate would have it, we ended up sitting at a table next to a woman from Calgary who was traveling with her husband for a conference! Since he was working, she was touring around for the day. We had a great talk with her - it's great to run into other Canadians abroad, so when you say "I'm from Alberta" they know where it is, and even know the city in which you lived.

We followed up lunch with a canal boat tour, which would have been better but for the extremely loud teenagers on board with us. Nonetheless, it was great - Delft is the home to the painter who painted Girl with a pearl earring; I wish I remembered his name, but I don't and I'm too lazy to google it. The oldest house there is from the 1500s, to give you an idea of how old the town is, and how amazing and varied the architecture can be.

After the boat cruise, we wandered around, had tea and I took many pictures of the canals and the old buildings. Delft is just so unlike anything we have in North America, even in the east, where most of the buildings seem new because of urban sprawl, or in the west, where most of the buildings are new period. I am thinking more and more that western Europe is where I'd like to end up when I'm finished the PhD (shh, don't say "finished"!). I think I'd prefer the UK or Germany to the Netherlands, but it's all so close together and easily accessible that it almost wouldn't matter!

I will try and post pictures from Delft without using up all my monthly space, although those of you who are friends on facebook can look at all of my photos there. Tuesday I am going to Belgium, to Brussels, by myself for the day, just to look around. I have no particular plans for what I want to see there (other than everything), so we'll see what comes of it!

This post is coming late because I have been without my computer for a few days now. I dropped it and it had to go in for repair - the hard disk was cracked, which required a replacement to be ordered and installed. This followed right on the heels of me dropping my camera and having to take it in to get repaired. Both items are fine now - over 300 Euros later. The upside of this is that I essentially got a brand new computer for 244 Euros. I have a new hard disk, which means more RAM and a faster processor, the newest version of OS X (Leopard), and upgrades on almost all of my programs, including the complete Adobe Photoshop suite. I used to have Photoshop Elements (Photoshop Lite, essentially) but the techs gave me the full version, and the latest version of Appleworks, plus some other stuff.

Yesterday was the day I got everything back, and also received a long-awaited package from the US. I would have been able to purchase the soil moisture meter I needed in the US if one of the collaborators on the project had returned my email earlier than 6 weeks after I initially emailed him. I had the moisture meter sent to be by Priority International post. Now, English is my first language, and my understanding of priority is that it means "most important", however, USPS seems to think it means "we'll put it on a plane whenever we remember to do so". When I called to find out where the package was (oh, they also don't provide tracking information for priority packages -wtf?) I was told it could take up to 14 business days. That's regular mail, not priority mail. It's not as if there isn't enough mail going to western Europe for it to make it here in 3 business days.

I've had to purchase a few more things for my project, which is also frustrating, given that I've been waiting to find out what I needed since the beginning of April and didn't find out until I got here, and some things which I was assured would be provided aren't. Thankfully, I got additional funding from my department. I find it frustrating to negotiate the preparations some times, especially when others aren't organized or punctual in their responses. I've never been there, but I get spoken to as if I should know everything already. The reason I'm a student is that I don't know this stuff - if I knew everything I needed to know, I wouldn't be a student anymore, would I? Hopefully everything will come together out there. The upside of having to buy things here is that it's saved me an excess baggage charge from the US to Europe, and since most of my stuff is staying in Africa in the field school storage, I only pay excess charges from Europe to Kenya. I might even be able to get everything extra into a small enough container to bring it on the plane with me. I can only hope.

Next entry will be about Delft, but I thought I'd post the unhappy post by itself.