Some things just don't translate...

On Wednesday we went to the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, which is part archive, part museum.  We were given a tour of the very unique building after hearing a lecture about some of the latest projects undertaken there: according to our guide, the design for the archives themselves was inspired by ( Read more... )

Food was a surprisingly large part of life in the Netherlands, as this email indicates.

Hello everyone!

So I was totally going to fill everyone in on the goings-on of the last week and a half a few days ago, but then I was like, "well, I've only got a few days left anyway... I'll just write when I'm back in Amsterdam".  So, even though I do have two ( Read more... )

Dutch history + Boats!  W00t!

Since I'd been pretty busy the last few days, I figured Sunday would be a good day to take it easy, so I found an English-speaking church nearby and went to their morning service.  It's called Scots International Church, and it serves non-natives in the Netherlands.  The congregation was small enough that I was ( Read more... )

The only time I bicycled in the Netherlands... *is a bum*

The next morning, rather than heading back to Rotterdam, we made a visit to the Hoge Veluwe, a national park that has heath, woodland, sand drifts, and fields, and also serves as a nature preserve.  A good majority of the park is closed to vehicle traffic for the sake of the wildlife, so they ( Read more... )

Bosch, Football, and Beer

Friday was quite the day, because a bunch of us headed to 's Hertogenbosch, where we would be spending the night after we returned from the football game we had bought tickets for.  Sarah and I traveled together, and ended up wandering the town a bit  (unfortunately, since it was rather hot and we were still carrying our ( Read more... )

In which I am a bum who likes clean clothes more than creepy windmills...

On Thursday we heard a guest lecture on internet communities research, and after another cafeteria lunch, everyone else went to see a big field of old fashioned windmills.  I personally very urgently needed to do laundry, and the prospect of taking multiple ferries and a bus ( Read more... )

In which Dutch people are stylish, and have cool taste in art...

A mild cold is also running through our crowd, though I've not caught it yet...  I'm trying to be extra careful, but my prospects don't look good.  *crosses fingers*  Classes and lectures are long enough as it is.  Though the guest speaker we heard on Wednesday was pretty awesome.  He ( Read more... )

We follow Trent, we get lost... We don't follow Trent, we get lost... We just had to accept the reality of being lost half the time.

Tuesday definitely started out a little nuts, because we were going to take a tour of Erasmus University's library and hear some guest lectures.  Rachel, Katherine Root and I were under the impression that Erasmus ( Read more... )

One of the best parts of the Netherlands was the fact that there were so many places you could go and not feel like a stranger and a foreigner...

Hallo!
So, to continue the longest diatribe ever created by man....  Tuesday.  Oh wait,  no.  Monday: forgot about impromptu dinner at the Eethuis van Delfshaven, which a few of us found after discovering ( Read more... )

Filled with lots of not-Netherlands ramblings, but whatever, they're emails to my family.

Monday morning we heard a lecture by Trent and Katherine, extended another hour because we have so many guest speakers there weren't enough classes to get through the curriculum.  We survived, but only because Katherine had us do cool activities, and the ( Read more... )