Out of hibernation. Chapter 1

So it's been a long cold winter here this year, and I now completely understand why bears go into a cave for months at a time. As the temperature begins to rise though, you can finally free yourself from the frozen tomb. So what does one do when they are finally released from the frigid prison, well if you are us you hit up 4 countries and 11 cities in 3 weeks. For those of you keeping score, that's over a country a week and an average of about 3 cities per week. We didn't actually go at that rate but it was close.

In the first installment of this series I'll go over the first week when my family arrived for their first time in the NL.

My family arrived on a Saturday morning to chilly weather and a slightly gray sky. It wasn't exactly the welcome mat from mother nature's point of view but it was typical Dutch. We had planned out our entire trip for them, and were going to slowly work them into the Dutchfold. We couldn't of course start them off with too much and overwhelm them but we couldn't sit around and miss anything.

On the first day we introduced them to our life. After gathering everyone home, Two by car and Two by train, and unpacking we continued our transportation introduction with a ride on the Metro to the Blaak market.

There they got to see the European open market in all its glory with vendors lined up shouting and selling their goods. We then continued to work off the jetlag with a stroll around the center of Rotterdam and they became familiar with a chocolate covered Belgian waffle, yum! Apparently the waffle did some of the girls in, so while they napped the rest of the weary travelers traversed with us to Albert Heijn to experience a Dutch Grocery store. We finished the night with an uncompleted game of Scrabble.

On the next day we decided to expand their horizons even more. We went to meet Alyssa's Mom and Stepdad for Panenkoeken in Den Haag then walked the boardwalk of Schevenigen.

They then got a big look at little Holland at Madurodam. We then continued to walk around Den Haag until we came to the Escher museum, (which I found awesome!). With another city down we came back to our apartment thinking we might cook everyone dinner but since our Frites stand next door was open we grabbed ourselves a bucket and some fritesaus and dug in.

The following day we went really touristy and traveled to Amsterdam. We rode the train together which does take quite a lot of coordination especially when trying to sit together. Once in Amsterdam, we headed toward the center of town and Madame Tussaud's wax museum.

There we proceeded to get the bejeezes scared out of us and experience some great family bonding (as we clung to each other). Laughter was had by all though. After the wax museum we went to the Anne Frank Museum to experience the book we had all read as children. We then ate at the Open Restaurant overlooking the water, which was very good. Upon finishing our meal we trammed it to see Boom Chicago, which was an American made Improv show. After the show we traversed the Red light district. It was raining the whole day so the only people wandering the area were the desperate customers, and us.

Our next day we trained to Den Haag to pick up our rental car for the rest of the trip. We had planned to go to the Peace Palace and tour the building but showed up 3 minutes too late for our tour and missed it. (This was extremely annoying because the Dutch say they value people being on time. But they never are and usually everything is about 5 or 10 min late, except this. We did drive by a bunch of the embassies around the building which was interesting in itself.

We then went to Delft and let everyone experience the greatness that is Turkish food and Shoarma. I was then shuttled back to school while everyone else got to tour the park near us. We did end the day on a great note with a rousing game of Cranium where we learned there are only 4 trees, one of which is a Christmas tree, and that matadors are still hard to draw.

Since we had just rented the car the previous day we decided to put in some miles. Wednesday was a big day and one of the most fun. We started off by driving from Rotterdam to Antwerp. We walked around and saw the main square, main shopping district, train station, diamond quarter and picked up some chocolate and lace while in town.

We then continued our travels to the southern tip of the Netherlands and Maastricht. Since we had already been to Maastricht we knew all the good places to go right off the bat, like the ancient Roman wall, so we gave a tour of the sites and went to the Natural History Museum.

With the light fading we then drove across the border to the German town of Aachen and had a traditional German meal and experienced some German made beer, including a delicious banana beer.

With our belly's full and having whipped across Central Europe we drove on home.

When Alyssa and I were planning this trip we wanted to end it all with a bang and what better bang then the Tulip explosion that is the Keukenhof on the first day it's open. Unfortunately, the only explosion we saw was the remains of a wintery blast that had left all the plants stunted in growth. In other words, if you love dirt, this was your place. You could see how beautiful it was all going to be once the flowers and trees bloomed, but that wasn't when we went.

We eventually made it to the zip line, the one glimmer of hope I knew could make the trip, only to find it stuck. I refused to let this last obstacle get in my way, and with much swinging and banging of parts, the zip line was freed and ready to be zipped upon.

Everyone enjoyed the 40 ft zing and then we went to the hedge maze. Alyssa and I had never been inside the hedge maze and since we were all in pairs we decided to race to the other end, which was a great time. We walked around for a little more then headed back to the car and went back to Amsterdam. There we took a boat tour around the city and then afterwards the guys went to the Heineken experience and the ladies went shopping.

To end the day we went back to Rotterdam to eat at a very nice restaurant near our apartment that we never knew about. Upon completion of dinner we spent the night at Alyssa's mom's house before heading off to the airport in the morning for the next part in the series.

I like Cologne

So far I am a big fan of Cologne. When I say big fan, I would say it is my favorite city in Europe so far. Granted what I saw was specifically geared towards tourists but it did get me thinking. Since I've begun this program I have become enthralled with urban planning. After almost a decade on Legos, I have come to realize maybe building cities is something I can really do. It brings together so many traits I've picked up from my past: an obsession with studying maps, the want to fix issues in a manner I deem appropriate, a desire for efficiency and creating minute details to leave my mark. Some day I hope to apply all of these in a career in urban planning but till then I go about my travels constantly soaking in as much knowledge and ideas as I can.

On our trip to Cologne, I almost immediately had a respect for the city's design. We drove about 2 and a half hours to get to there and found plenty of parking available and plenty of garages. Something very nice about these garages was that they had a digital countdown telling how many spots were available before you decided to choose that garage, which made it really easy to find a good spot. The next thing to impress me was once we left the garage and walked towards the center we went up some steps to a raised area. I didn't think anything of this at first since we were just walking over the street below. I quickly realized once we reached the top that there was almost a completely new level to the city that was above all the automobile traffic below. I LOVE this idea. It really makes getting around the city center convenient and opens up the city much more. They managed to even keep a lot of their historical landmarks preserved. Our next impressive moment was the Dom Cathedral which is huge but right across from it is the Cologne train station. Soooo cool. It was the great iron lattice structure I adore with neogothic stone work on parts of the exterior. There was even the ingenious idea to attach a modern mall directly to the train station with a very smooth transistion. The Christmas markets I thought were really nice but I've heard the ones in Berlin are better. We did find a Lego store along the way which had little buckets of blocks for you to make your own creations. I'm pretty sure had I been in that store at the age of 9 I would never leave. I was able to restrain myself since I was with Alyssa's family and because I was all padded down with warm clothing and gloves. I think I would like to go back to study the city more intensely... and maybe back to the lego store...

Now onto the city tour guide you've all been waiting for. I gave a tour guide to our friend Brandi because she was taking her dad there and its not too shabby so I decided to just reapply it here. This one is really cut and dry, not a lot of filler this go round.



We drove to Cologne in Alyssas Mom's car and ended up parking in a garage that is right under the Philharmonic Orchestra. That garage is right next to the Dom cathedral and an information center with FREE BATHROOMS. There is plenty of parking around the city center so if you drive its not much trouble to find something. I would suggest trying to get there about 12:30 or so if you drive because parking is still pretty open and it'll give you some daylight to walk around in. It's a 2 and half 3 hr drive by car and really not bad.

If you take a train, make sure to take it to the Koln Hauptbahnhof (central station). The station puts you in a real good location to start the tour right next to the Dom cathedral.

The Dom market has a lot of goodies, food, trinkets, candles, arts and crafts. It's really nice to walk around and peek in all the stalls to see what they've got.
Specific to this market: Bbq stand. Get yourself a warm alcoholic drink. They have them in all the markets and Gluhwein is the most common. Gluhwein is ok, kind of like hot sangria. There are other flavors they serve that look like they were a little more tasty. They also have candy and chocolate dipped fruit, yum!

From the edge of the Dom market you can follow the stream of people heading east to the Alter Markt. This market is designed like a old German town with lots of Christmas trees everywhere.
Specific to this market: Ice skating, ferris wheel, much more hand crafted things than the other markets

Where the South end of the Alter Markt is you can head west through Schildergasse. This is a big shopping street that isnt really a Christmas market but does have lots of other things to look at. It also leads to another market.

At the end of the Schildergasse is the Neumarkt. This is the largest one and made out like an old village as well.
Specific to this market: Bratwurst on a long bun with onions, crepes, stores with really nice Christmas decorations.

From there we headed back to the Dom, which is lit up real nice at night, then went home. So we spent about 5 hours walking around to these three markets. I think three was enough for us although there are seven available to go to. There is a little tram-like train that can take you to all the markets without having to walk so look for the green and yellow toy train if you would like a ride.


I did find out from Brandi that there is a medieval market further west of the Neumarkt which is supposed to have really good entertainment. I'd say it was a good experience with lots of yummy food. I would've liked for the merchandise to be a little less pricey but maybe when I have money to burn I'll return.

Getting DIS'ed

This past Saturday I went to an event known as The Day of International Students (DIS) in The Hague. It was hosted by NUFFIC who so gratiously decided to not fund me going into my program for this year and this year alone, they'll have financial aid there next year.

I was a little reluctant to go to this event because I wanted to sleep in and it was a grey, slightly drizzly day and I had to bike to the center of town just to catch a bus to get there. I also wasn't sure how many of the friends I've made were going to be traveling to it as well. I bundled myself up and even added on some rain gear just in case, and biked my way hastily to the center. I managed to make it to the bus on time, which I was happy about. I was not too thrilled about the temperature that my body was now running at though. Despite the cold of the Netherlands, I was a little sweaty. This was only the beginning of my funk growth...

A few minutes later our bus (a double decker) drove off to the Hague, while I sat on the top deck trying to cool down. Once to the Hague, there was the option to go to Madurodam, which I've been to once, or the coast, which I've also been to but has more room to explore. So I decided on the coast, most of the other people in the program opted for Madurodam. About noon the bus came back around to pick up both groups and we ventured off to the World Forum where DIS was to be held. As we approached the forum, we quickly began to realize where it was by the sea of humanity heading towards it. People from all over the world were massed into waves of coats and jackets all cresting to the World Forum. Once I got off the bus, I realized some more of my friends had actually made the trip which instantly brightened my spirits. Inside the fourm, we claimed some of our freebies: t-shirt, sack, sack lunch. We enjoyed fun worldly conversation around our table and then headed towards the main auditorium for the start of the program. On the way we we began to hear the loud sound of snare drums behind us. The hallway then became a miniature Carnival complete with enthusiastic percussion and, to the delight of the men, dancers dressed in Carnival attire. Inside the auditorium we were given a speech by the Mayor of The Hague, The Secretary of State for the Netherlands, the head of NUFFIC and a comedian, just to lighten the mood. After that we were allowed to go to a series of small workshops ranging from resume building and who you are to painting clogs and zumba dancing. We went to the resume building and zumba dancing workshops. I engaged in the zumba dancing, which is African to Latin American to Islander styles rolled into one. Thus continued my funk...

After dancing, I cooled down and then we went to the auditorium again for a speech on networking. The speaker was good and it was all normal until he decided to have us see if we could network the entire auditorium. This sounds fine and dandy, except there is over 2000 people at this little summit. For us to exchange numbers and email was going to be quite challenging. He opted to go with the more tangible method of throwing a ball of yarn to one person in the audience. Then that person threw it to another student, connecting the three of them. Then suddenly yarn was flying throughout the auditorium. Sneakily, helpers with sacks of yarn had been placed throughout the auditorium. We all began throwing yarn, catching yarn and getting beaned by yarn. Once the knitting subsided we realized we had just made a huge mess... but connected the whole auditorium. It was an amazing sight, like looking at the internet in real life. In order to get out of being so in touch with everyone we lifted the string over our heads and threw it to the stage and into a big yarny pile. Once free of our woolen bonds, we headed downstairs for dinner, drinks and dancing. It was a great way to end the celebration even if it did make me a little more sweaty. And the funk goes on...

At the end of the night we hopped back on the bus and arrived back at the center of Rotterdam. I then grabbed my bike and pedaled home. I arrived at the house, took off some of my layers and realized I smelt awful and it was time for a shower. Then the funk was no more...

The End

TomTom you are so wrongwrong

This past Saturday, Alyssa and me took a day trip to the very most southern end of the Netherlands, a quaint little town called Maastricht. Maastricht is one of the oldest cities in the Netherlands dating back to the time of the Romans. It is home to a few universities and is a predominately Catholic area as opposed to the northern Protestants. It takes about 2 hours to get to Maastricht from Rotterdam via train or car. On this excursion we went by Alyssa's mom's toyota corolla. To assist with getting around a foreign country Alyssa's mother bought a TomTom navigation system which has an English accent and has been nicknamed "Fred". With this our story begins.ili

Around 10:30 in the morning we hopped into the car and programmed Maastricht into Fred and were comfortable with him just leading us on our merry trip. For about an hour Fred is giving us excellent directions. Then we enter Eindhoven. We've been to Eindhoven before. On our Oktoberfest trip we stopped there to pick up some more people on the bus, including the Farmers of infamous drinking ability. We've also watched a football (soccer) match between the Eindhoven club, nicknamed the Boerers (farmers), and a Romanian club. Needless to say we were familiar with the town. There apparently is a difference between knowing "a" town and knowing "the" town. Fred did not know "the" town.

As we're driving towards Eindhoven there is a lot of construction going on. This doesn't seem like too much of a challenge since we are just going around the town and not through it. Fred is confused though. We take an exit towards the city where we are supposed to take a left then take another left and go back in the direction we just came. With the construction going on we can only take one left but can take a left later on down the road. This continues to confound Fred. He continues to change his route as we veer off the path he's taking us. We eventually make it back to the highway we were on and head south but just about as soon as we get to highway speed Fred has become so twisted and turned around that he tells us to take a road which according to his map is on the far right lane, when in fact it is the left lane. Now we are heading towards town and Fred adjusts his route once more. By now we are fed up with Fred and decide that we'll just use the map on the iPhone to get us where we need to go. So Fred gets put to sleep and I become lead navigator. About an hour later we have reached our destination of Maastricht. We park the car and walk into town.

We start off on the north end of the historic part of the city and eat lunch at a chinese cafe in the Markt square. In the square is the Stadhuis and a cool statue of a man (can't remember the name) holding an eternal flame.

We then crossed a bridge, looked around then crossed the oldest bridge in the Netherlands.

Once across we were in the main shopping district of Maastricht with lots of people and plenty of shops. From there we went to the Vrijtof square which is supposed to be the main touristy area probably because of its two churches:

Sint-Janskerk

Sint-Servaasbasiliek

From the Vrijtof we headed towards the old Roman quarter which is actually a lot smaller than you would think. Once we got there we headed south to the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwbasiliek (Basilica of Our Lovely Lady) square. After that we headed west towards Maastricht University. After all this walking though finding a restroom became a bit of a priority. Usually in Europe you can't use a restroom in a restaurant unless you pay, so that was out of the question. Luckily we were near the Natural History Musuem but it was only open for another 25 min. So we rushed over there taking a few pictures along the way.

 We eventually made it to the museum only to find the doors to it closed and locked. We attempted to push and pull them to see if they were stuck but to no luck. Then just as soon as we were about to turn around a lady opened the door. So we asked if we could use the restroom and she said it was fine. A good way to tell how good a museum is where they put their exhibits. If there are exhibits EVERYWHERE then its probably a good museum. This one had exhibits in the entry hall, in the floor, on the way to the bathroom; knowledge anywhere you looked. Sadly we had to leave though since the museum was closing. We will be back though to check it out.

After the museum we walked a little bit west and found the old city walls. Here you could actually walk along the top of the wall just as people did centuries ago.

We then walked east to cross the 3rd bridge of the day. On the other side we grabbed some food at a gastropub called El Python, which was a very good name for the place since our bellies were stretched like we just swallowed an animal. We save just enough room to swing by a gelatto place and pick up a tasty single-scooped dessert. With the daylight fading we headed back to the car and drove our way back to Rotterdam. We tried to use Fred again but he apparently was so frustrated with us that he wouldn't pick up signal, so we just put him to sleep again. It must've helped because we made it home without any problems in Eindhoven.

It's a small world after all!

Now that I have my first "self-study" day of the school year, I can update with what my masters program is like.

I'm not in Texas anymore. Hell I'm hardly in the Netherlands. My program brings people from 29 different countries from 6 different continental areas. I'm pretty sure I've stated this already but it's still impressive. Even the lecturers and teachers come from very varied walks of life. One professor is Dutch and has worked in Africa and Southeast Asia. Another has worked throughout Europe. One is from Venezuela and studied in Germany. It's a little crazy to wrap your head around, especially when you've only really seen the Southern half of the United States and lived in Texas your whole life.

Before I came here, I enjoyed meeting people from all over the U.S. I have friends from the Southeast, some real good friends from Kansas, some people from the rust belt, I know a few Californians and Rocky Mountain types. There was still alot of ground I had to cover in the U.S. though to really get a sense of all the places people are from. Now I've put that on steroids. Now people speak English which is EXTREMELY helpful, but they also speak Mandarin Chinese, Indonesian, Spanish, Italian, Persian and so many African dialects its hard to wrap your head around where they're all from. Instead of having to listen to a Louisiana dialect, Minnesota dialect, Chicago dialect, New York Dialect or So Cal dialect; I now have to jumble through all these different tongues to understand what they are saying in English. I'm going to have really good ears after this. With enough interaction I should be able to really get an amazing understanding of what other countries are like from the very people that live there.

The classes so far seem pretty straightforward. We've already had one debate which was a blast, but that's been the only debate so far which is a bummer. I really enjoyed working in a group with a collection of students. We're all in the same classroom right now for the basic courses and the subjects aren't really the most thrilling so it can kind of bog you down. I have this sinking feeling that I will be the death of many a tree this year. Even with the invention of computers and email, I suspect there will be multiple slides to be printed, papers to be written and books to be read. Today I'll get to catch up on a little reading and other things around the house, which will be nice. Tomorrow Alyssa and me celebrate our 1.5 years of dating. Maybe some Indonesian food will be in order... Who knows?

The puzzle is finished

Now that I have more time, I can write the blog I had intended to write yesterday.

I've never committed to a puzzle quite like the Escher puzzle. It wasn't even just the level of difficulty associated with the task that kept my interest. There were themes about the puzzle that intrigued me. There was the deadline to finish it. Finishing what I started with had to be the most driving force behind the whole thing. It was actualy quite marvelous to watch it all come together. There were times that I felt like it would take months to finish, but after I reached a certain point it all came together quite quickly.

The puzzle is 1000 pieces. It is named "Line Infiniti" and is a picture done by M.C. Escher. It is done in black and white and shades of grey. It is a picture of two men looking at each other except their heads are made in the shape of ribbons. The two ribbons connect at the top and bottom, while also intersecting near the forehead. The two heads are surrounded by a multitude of orbs in all sizes. The picture is shaded to where it appears there is a light in the top right corner of the image. So that is the facts about the picture now to go on to the themes.

The name of this puzzle alone is something interesting to me. I believe that the two men are a father and a son based on their similarity to one another. Which is also why it is line infiniti, because a line also refers to a family tree from one generation to the next. There is also the infinite part where the line never ends because the two objects are tied together on the same ribbon. This is a common trait amogst M.C. Escher drawings and paintings, who also happens to be one of my favorite artists. He commonly rejects the normal direction of painting in reality, while instead he toys within the infinite realms of art where there is no gravity, no structure. His ability to abuse perspective to its utmost is what I really enjoy. He also happens to be of Dutch origin which happens to be where I am living and I have walked by his musuem. The tie between father and son also enticed me. This can easily be explained because I am the son of a father and I will be carrying his line on for future generations.

Carrying on with this puzzle was not such an task. From the get-go I realized this was not going to be an easy task. In common puzzle etiquette, a person starts by finding all the borders and framing the image. So I layed out all the pieces and placed them face up to get a look at them, then I combed through searching for any flat edged pieces and corners. I was fortunately able to find all of them but saw a disturbing pattern arising. While the top and bottom edge were pieces with a thin line of white for the border and then black with maybe a piece of ball on it, the left and right edges where white. There was no color to them, no image to give away where they went, just a white shape. I attempted to finish the left and right edge but quickly realized that was going to take forever so I just pushed it to the side and moved on. I could complete the border because the next piece in on both sides had a visible distinction of a border and gave me my frame.

With the frame done I moved on to finding pieces that were part of very distinctive features of the picture, things such as: eyes, mouth, nose, hair, anything that was obviously different. Not as easy as it sounds. In a fiendish move, the designes of the puzzle managed to take anything that could be readily identified and then split it into two, three and most commonly four pieces. I was able to get most of the eyes done quickly but then all I had was these pupils staring creepily back at me. Eventually the face began to make a little sense. Then the heads began to take shape, all be it with a lot of holes. There was a point maybe a week or two ago where I thought it would take months to finish. I just couldn't believe I could connect anything that fast. The shades of grey made it extremely difficult. Everything looked the same. There wasn't any reds in this corner, blues on the bottom or greens up top. It was all the same piece, over and over again. I often would put a piece that I thought worked in a place where it fit, only to find out later it was the opposite side of the puzzle.

Throughout all of this turmoil, the core of the puzzle came into place and I could see the picture on the box. There was but one thing left in my way: the darkness. In a stroke of maniacal genius, the creators of the puzzle made sure to leave around twenty pieces as simply black. There was nothing else to them but their shape. They were just images of an infinite void. Luckily I saved them for towards the end so I cavemanly put pieces into the holes until they fit. With one final piece, I finished the puzzle around 10 pm last night. I felt great and was finally happy to see the puzzle done.

Then a strange feeling came over. With many puzzles, the picture is so neat or so challenging you want to frame it. I should frame the puzzle because it was quite an accomplishment to finish. Not even Alyssa's mom who does puzzles ALL the time could finish it. And she is a higher up at Shell. I don't think I want to frame the puzzle though. I don't want to hold on to it and try keep it forever. I think I would much rather break it back down to its original state and have someone else get the satisfaction of finishing it. Alyssa thinks no one will ever want to do that puzzle because of how hard it is. Possibly destroying got me thinking. Here in Europe it is common for there to be very old buildings in cities. These are centuries old and a window to the past. Often times they are being refurbished or restored so they can last forever. That is not the nature of things though. In life things are created, they live and they die. All things must end, they just can't be forgotten. That way future generations can see them and remember what came before them and possibly even restore the past with their own twist. Hopefully after I've shown my accomplishment to Alyssa's mom and I destroy that puzzle someone else will take up the challenge and try to finish the hardest puzzle I've ever done.

The preview to "The puzzle is finished"

It is currently 10 till midnight over here now and I am going to need to go to bed soon or I will be very tired tomorrow. I have finished the puzzle today though which means for a month I hunched over our dining room table struggling to turn an amoeba of thin cardboard into a rectangle. The picture is done though so now this lies on the table:

Tomorrow I will try and blog this epic experience of mine. I've had a lot of time to think many thoughts while completing this project and luckily I finished just before school really began.

Until later