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!

My IKEA Cabinet

My Cabinet, originally uploaded by gniezen.

The cabinet is finally done! For work-in-progress photos you should check out my Flickr photostream. My parents are coming to visit me tomorrow! They arrived with Emirates in Dusseldorf (Germany) today and travelled by rental car to Valkenburg, a small town near Maastricht in the Netherlands. Tomorrow night they're staying over in a hotel in Eindhoven, and they will be travelling through the Netherlands the whole of next week. I hope to join up with them next weekend in Amsterdam!

The new academic year starts on Monday, so this will be the first time that I'll be on campus with all the students there. My supervisor and promoter have also returned from their holidays, so I'll probably have a few meetings with them during the week to discuss my progress and on how I need to proceed from here.

I've signed up for Dutch for Beginners classes at the university, starting on 7 September. The schedule is quite intensive - two hours every Monday evening and two hours every Wednesday evening! It runs for the entire semester, so I hope to be a lot more comfortable with speaking Dutch by the end of the year. So far it's been getting easier to understand and read, but it's really quite difficult to try and speak it properly if you have Afrikaans grammar and constructs running around in your head.

Canoe trip

Canoe trip, originally uploaded by gniezen.

A group of South Africans in the Netherlands that I met through Facebook had a canoe trip close to Eindhoven today. I wanted to join them and left my flat at early this morning to take a very relaxed 13km bike ride to the starting point for the canoe trip in Valkenswaard.

From there they took us by bus 14km south to a drop-off point in Belgium, We got in our canoes (I shared a three-seater with two nice girls from Amsterdam) and paddled back lazily to Valkenswaard. We stopped halfway for lunch in Borkel, a very small town barely on the Dutch side of the Netherlands-Belgium border.

Unfortunately I left my camera/phone at the starting point (as there was the possibility of our canoe tipping over) so I wasn't able to take any photos of the canoe trip itself. It was great to just unwind a bit in nature, and to see & hear people speak in Afrikaans for the first time in two months! ;)

Oppikoppi & Rotterdam

Oppikoppi Brochure circa 2008, originally uploaded by gniezen.

With almost everyone I know being at Oppikoppi this weekend, I thought I should make this 2008 Oppikoppi brochure I found in one of my books my title picture (as a tribute :).

I spent most of the weekend in Rotterdam, leaving on Friday evening at 18h00 (and realizing as I got on the train that the weekend return ticket I bought was only valid from 19h00, luckily my ticket wasn't checked) and returning tonight (Sunday) at 19h00. On Saturday evening I had dinner with some of my family - my aunt Danielle makes a killer bobotie (from a recipe she got from a South African guest house). I also received a new bicycle bag from my uncle Marcel, which will make it a lot easier to do grocery shopping on my bicycle (and without having to perform a crazy balancing act as is currently the case).

Most of my weekend was spent reading a new book by Neil Strauss called "Emergency - One Man's Story of a Dangerous World and How To Stay Alive in It. It chronicles his quest for second citizenship and learning survival skills "Just in Case". It makes for very engaging reading, and also made me realize how extremely lucky I am to have been able to obtain second citizenship so easily (almost the entire first half of the book is dedicated to his struggles in getting it). The book makes you think about how much you would need to know and be able to do to become completely self-sufficient and survive on your own.

Bier Professor & Park Hilaria

I had ambitious plans for this weekend - I was going to travel to the largest national park in the Netherlands, Hoge Veluwe, bike around all day and visit the art museum there. Unfortunately my plans got a bit sidetracked as it was one of my fellow PhD student's birthday party on Friday night - we went for dinner at the Trafalgar Pub and for drinks at the Bier Professor afterwards. The Bier Professor is a small little bar, but with a large selection of more than 130 (mostly Belgian) beers. I ended up enjoying the conversation so much that I went home a little bit late and decided to sleep in on Saturday morning.

It ended up not being such a bad decision, as I was able to get some washing done and make a delicious brunch. I figured out how my new convection oven works (it's a combo-microwave, but up to now I have only used the microwave function). Why doesn't all ovens switch off automatically when you set the timer? ;)

Last night I went to the Park Hilaria, a "kermis" (carnival/festival) in Eindhoven. I wasn't expecting it to be quite so huge (it stretches out for more than a kilometre in one of the main streets that was closed up) or so busy (thousands of people). There were hundreds of stalls and amusement rides - I will probably go there again on Thursday with some of the other international students when it's not so busy and crowded.

Getting close to nature

Karpendonksche plas, originally uploaded by gniezen.

This morning it was raining, so I went to see the new Harry Potter movie at the cinema, as the movie prices are a bit more respectable during the morning (€5) as during the rest of the day (€9+). I booked the ticket online, and realised the Netherlands have a very cool paying system called iDEAL, where when you want to buy something online, you can click on the iDEAL logo and it will take you to the bank's website, where you can authorize the transaction using your bank's internet banking system. No credit card required, but it obviously only works with Dutch e-commerce websites.

When the rain finally cleared, I got on my bicycle and explored the area a bit more. There is a lake close to the university and my flat, with jogging routes, lots of trees and wide open grass fields (as you can see in the photo above).

Further to the south of Eindhoven is the city park, called Stadswandelpark Looiakkers, with about 30 statues and small ponds between the trees. Check out my Flickr set for more photos. I also tested out the GPS tracking facility on my phone, so you can view the route I've taken from the university to the city park on Nokia Sportstracker website.

Settling in...

My bike, originally uploaded by gniezen.

So I'm slowly but surely settling in in Eindhoven. I received my bank card from the post office today, so now I finally have access to money I transferred while still in SA! I also received my BSN (Burger Service Nummer) number, a type of Social Security number, which is required for everything from bank accounts to being able to receive a salary. Along with the BSN number came a "stadspas" (city pass) which may be used at the city library, city swimming pool as well as city ice skating rink. In total I already have about 6 access cards: one for my apartment, one for the university, one for the sports centre, one for the metro, one for opening the garbage disposal and the city pass. And at least 4 are RFID-enabled.

The bank card is quite interesting, as it also contains a smart card that is used as a so-called chipknip. Credit cards are used very rarely here, and some shops don't want to pay the debit card banking fees involved for very small transactions. You can load small amounts of money onto your chipknip and use it to pay for small transactions without having to enter a PIN. As the chipknip is a smart card, the amount is stored on the card itself and payments are deducted directly from the card, so a network connection to the bank is not required.

I got an bicycle as a present from my grandparents on Sunday - it's a little old and doesn't have any break or gear levers, but it's a bike none the less! Lots of people ride very similar bicycles here, as more expensive ones will just get stolen and they're more comfortable than mountain bikes (and more practical when it rains). And if you were wondering, braking is performed by back-pedalling ;)

My latest purchase is a Philips Senseo coffee machine. It really is the coolest coffee machine in the world! There is a similar one in South Africa called the Russell Hobbs Uno Uno, but the coffee doesn't taste as good as this.. You put a coffee pad in the top, press the button and a few seconds later you have creamy, foamy coffee :) See my Flickr set for a photo.