My blog has moved..

I’ve decided to take the plunge and buy www.gerritniezen.com. Yes, I know own my own name on the web..   I've moved all my old blog posts at Blogger to the new site and in future all new blog posts will be available there too!

Holidays in South Africa, and a visit to Arnhem

After a sun-and-fun filled three weeks in South Africa I'm back in the Netherlands. I almost didn't make it back to South Africa before Christmas, due to my flight being cancelled after the heaviest snow the Netherlands has seen in years. Luckily I was able to get a flight on another airline two days later, and at least I got to spend some time with my family in Rotterdam in the snow.

Even more photos of the snow can be found here.

After spending a sunny and warm Christmas with my family, eating watermelon in the swimming pool, I enjoyed an entire week at the east coast with some friends over New Years. Time really flies when you're having fun, and a week later I had to return to the Netherlands.

It was quite strange to be in sunny SA the one day, and then driving around on my bicycle in the snow the next. This weekend I visited the Nederlandse Openluchtmuseum in Arnhem with a friend of mine, where we got to experience a typical Dutch winter.

Maastricht

Early on Saturday morning (ok, ok: we're only an hour away from Maastricht by train, so I had to wake up at 09h00 in order to meet the rest of the people in Maastricht by 11h00) we arrived at the train station in Eindhoven. The 10h02 train to Maastricht was so full that we weren't even able to get on, due to an earlier train not arriving, and seemingly the whole of the Netherlands wanting to go the christmas market in Maastricht on a Saturday morning. Amazingly they were able to arrange for another train to take people from Eindhoven to Maastricht and within 20 minutes we were off again.

It was a chilly day in Maastricht, but the Christmas feeling was all around, and fun was had by all. Originally the plan was to visit Drielandenpunt and Valkenburg as well, but that will have to wait as there was more than enough to do in Maastricht itself. We went up on the ferris wheel at the Christmas market, and as you can see from the image above it's quite a sight.

We walked south from the city centre to Helpoort and the city walls, which are really a sight to behold:

We also tried to visit caves to the south of Maastricht, but missed the guided and tour, and unfortunately you can't go into the caves by yourself. So we had a beer that was made (stored?) in caves instead.

For the rest of the photos, see the Facebook album.

A weekend in Budapest

We arrived in Budapest on Thursday afternoon, travelled by bus from the airport to the closest metro station, and then by metro to the city centre. As we exited Deák Ferenc tér metro station,  we were smack-bang in the middle of the Pest side of the capital of Hungary. To get to our hotel, we had to cross the famous Chain Bridge (pictured above) built over the Danube river (yes, the one in the most famous Johann Strauss waltz "The Blue Danube"). The Danube splits Budapest into Buda (the west side) and Pest (the east side).

 The evening we went to the annual Christmas market in Vörösmarty tér Square, where they sell (only) hand-crafted goods, and delicious treats like "Kürtőskalács”, a traditional hollow, cylinder-shaped pastry - in a sense similar to good old Afrikaans "stokbrood", but coated in sugary goodness and cocoa (or coconut, or other assorted flavours - take your pick!). Also on the menu was traditional sausages, mulled wine (yes, it's glühwein) and some sort of extreme garlic potato dish.

The next morning we visited the Hungarian Parliament building, the third largest parliament building in the world. It houses the Hungarian crown jewels, which were kept in Fort Knox in the US for safekeeping from the Soviet Union.



Most of the fun stuff in Budapest is on the top of Castle Hill, and includes the Royal Palace (with National Gallery), Turul bird, Fisherman's Bastion, Mary Magdalene Tower, Matthias Church, Vienna Gate and the Buda Hill Labyrinths. The video above shows one way of reaching the top, but we usually just followed one of the many footpaths criss-crossing the hill.

Some of the interesting places to eat in Budapest include Marxim, a post-communist pizza place with pizza like "Laika's Favourite" and "Pizza a la Kremlin", and Nagyi palacsintázója ("Granny's Pancakes"), where a pancake with delicious Nutella filling costs about €0.50.

When in Budapest, you have to try the thermal baths - we tried both the Széchenyi and Géllert baths. Széchenyi Spa is the largest thermal bath in Europe - and yes, the trip from the change rooms to the pool in your swimming trunks when the outside temperature is about 6 degrees C is probably not the most enjoyable experience, until you reach the 36 degrees thermal spring heated water.

The rest of the photos from our trip is in a photo album on Facebook.

Dutch Design Week

It's cold in the Netherlands.. not freezing cold, but cold enough to warrant wearing a beanie, scarf and gloves when cycling. And it's rainy.. not crazy rainy, and when it rains it's a little bit warmer due to the cloud cover. This weekend we changed over to Daylight Savings Time, which means there's now an hour difference between the Netherlands and South Africa. It also means that there's light when I wake up, but that it's already dark when I leave the university in the afternoon.

This past week was Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven. We kicked it off on Friday 16 October with the opening of the ID'09 Exhibition, which showed off our department's Bachelors and Masters projects. One of the projects that I found really interesting was "Jukebugs", which are smart music players, sensitive to light and motion. You can influence a Jukebug’s music choice by exposing it to different lighting situations, or by moving/shaking it.



During the week we attended exhibitions at the Philips Klokgebouw (pictured above) and at the High Tech Campus (pictured below). The exhibitions at the Klokgebouw more closely resembled the conventional(?) idea that most people have of industrial design as designing form and function (e.g. expensive chairs/tables/kettles/vacuum cleaners).



The High Tech Campus is were Philips Research is situated. A few years ago, while still busy with my undergraduate degree, I had hoped to one day being able to work there. It was therefore quite strange to now being able to visit the place and see what it's really like. One of the exhibitions we attended there was the Philips ExperienceLab. This includes the HomeLab (which consists of a kitchen, living room and bedroom where they try out new ideas and devices), ShopLab (which consists of a mock-up clothing store, with innovative lighting techniques) and HotelLab (which consists of a hotel lobby and two hotel rooms, with a number of interesting ideas and devices that they haven't even showed to possible clients yet). All in all an interesting experience!

Turtle-sized chocolate croissants

First off: I've decided to post my photos to Facebook rather than Flickr, as there's a 200 picture limit on Flickr, and I would like to have the online version as a type of backup in case something happens to my computer. You can still access the latest album even if you're not on Facebook, by going here.


This lovely culinary specimen is a turtle-sized chocolate croissant, sold by the wonderful Fournos Bakery at OR Tambo International Airport. This is me consuming said turtle-sized chocolate croissant:

And yes, it was deliciiooussss... :P

So, I'm back from my trip to South Africa and Kenya, which, as you can see from the pictures,
was awesome. A week of hard work at the IEEE AFRICON 2009 conference in Nairobi, and a week of partying and relaxing in good ol' SA with friends and family.

Last night the Parlotones played in Amsterdam. It was great fun - you'll be amazed at the number of South Africans in the Netherlands willing to support SA music! Note to self: Don't depend on the night train to get you back to Eindhoven from Amsterdam in future - you will be spending a lot of time (2 hours) waiting to change over in Utrecht.

If you look very carefully you might just be able to make out Kahn from the Parlotones singing Lisa se Klavier in the photo below :P

And apparently you lose the ability to identify fashionable accessories when you don't get enough sleep:

Amsterdam, Utrecht, Dusseldorf

Wow, I've been so busy this week there wasn't even enough time to write about my Amsterdam experience last weekend. OK, so here goes. Last weekend I went to Amsterdam to visit my parents on their Netherlands-Scotland trip. After getting out of the metro, on my way to the apartment where we would be staying the weekend, I came across this amazing sight:



The next morning we went to the Rijksmuseum, of which the most awesome part was seeing Rembrandt's Night Watch - it really is a magnificent painting that you should see at once during your lifetime. After that it was time for the Heineken Experience - a new (revamped in 2008) tour through the Heineken factory, with the coolest exhibitions and things to see on everything beer-related! Check out this cool multitouch table in the Heineken Experience bar:



The beers themselves are served from a frozen tap, keeping them at a refreshing zero degrees:



We also had dinner at the Hard Rock Café in Amsterdam the following evening - a must-see if you're a fan of any kind of rock music - there's rock memorabilia covering the walls, from Jimi Hendrix to Slash and even Blink-182!



The next day, on my way back to Eindhoven, I met up with Gretchén (a fellow South African :) who showed me all around Utrecht, including the Dom Tower and monastery gardens.



This weekend, after spending Friday evening in Leiden with some fellow South Africans, I met up with my parents for the last time before the end of their tour in Dusseldorf, Germany. Dusseldorf is located on the Rhine, probably the most important river in Western Europe:



Apparently there are so many pubs and bars in the Altstadt (Old Town) of Dusseldorf that they call it the "longest bar in the world". Well, here in Eindhoven we have more that 50 pubs and bars in one street, which looks a lot more impressive! For more photos, check out my Flickr photostream!