Mountains at Last

After exactly 50 days in Europe, we finally got some mountains. This weekend we caught a cheap flight to Geneva, Switzerland, then took a train to Leysin. Leysin is a quaint little town in the foothills of the Swiss Alps with a bunch of hikes, single tracks for mountain biking, and what is probably an awesome ski slope in winter. In short, exactly the kind of place we needed to be.

Beautiful, beautiful mountains that I want to climb on so bad. 

It was fun going through the pictures when we got back to Rotterdam. We both look insanely happy in all of them. Well, except for the one where I look like someone farted.

When we reached the top of our hike it began clouding over (and the sun started going down), resulting in beautiful sunlight. Amazingly, it actually came out in the pictures. 

Leysin is a ways up the side of a small mountain and doubles as a ski resort in winter. Accordingly, they developed a really cool track on their trains in order to get them up the mountain. Being good little engineers, Ev and I admired the ingenuity for longer than was probably necessary. 

Of course, the trip started out with an almost-adventure. Having never flown out of Amsterdam (let alone on EasyJet- yes, that is a real airline, and yes, the tickets are super cheap) and with the internet yielding useful advice such as "make sure to allow yourself plenty of time at the airport," we figured better early then late and checked the train schedule from Rotterdam to Schipol. We opted for the early train that would give us a full 2 hours before out flight, which meant we needed to be at the train station by 5am. No problem, we'll get up at 4 and hop on the metro. 4am rolled around and I had a sudden realization: the metro stops running at 1:30am and I didn't know what time it started up again. A frantic burst of research confirmed that the metro was a no-go, and we quickly shoved our stuff into backpacks and hopped on the bikes. 

Amazingly, we arrived at Rotterdam Centraal with 15 minutes to spare.

Lessons of the Netherlands #4:

Trains at the buttcrack of dawn are ridden by two types of people: drunk young people heading home after the clubs close, and people who have early-morning flights out of Amsterdam. Just to be clear, incredibly drunk people at 5am are bloody awful. 

Which leads us to...

Lesson of the Netherlands #5: 

Don't show up to the airport 2 hours ahead of time when you're flying on a discount airline within the EU. The security checkpoint doesn't open until 6:30am and your actual gate isn't assigned until 30min before your flight. You will spend 30 minutes sitting outside the checkpoint, then another hour and a half hanging out in a super small terminal waiting for your plane. It takes 2 minutes to get through security (the line moves fast), and if you're not checking bags there is no reason to be at the airport an hour and a half before they even start thinking about your flight. Next time, an hour or so will suffice.

Anyway, back to Switzerland...

It came to our attention Sunday morning that nothing in Geneva is open on Sunday. This was devastating, as it meant out walk to what is supposed to be an amazing chocolate shop was for naught. We did however, discover this nifty little climbing wall in the river.

As we meandered around Geneva, we decided to check out a lighthouse at the end of a long dock. When we reached the dock, we saw a bunch of divers and people in yellow vests pulling trash out of the lake. When we came back a couple hours later, they had removed several truckloads of garbage. Ev and I thought it was really cool that there are organised events to cleanup the waterways in Geneva. It wouldn't surprise me if it was a nation-wide thing, actually. The Swiss seem to take very good care of their nature.

There is a pretty nifty fountain in Geneva that is probably one of the tallest in the world (I'm just guessing, but it's bloody huge). 

Of course, Ev had to take a picture of me taking a picture of the fountain. Because that's how we roll.

We already have tickets to Geneva again for the weekend of October 10th. We'll meet up with our buddy Ryan, who's doing a masters degree in Manchester, and hit up Chamonix for some climbing. On real rocks. It's going to be magical!

I should probably stop procrastinating and go back to studying. Which, I suppose counts as

Amy Approved Way #4 to Procrastinate Schoolwork:

Write blog posts about awesome weekend adventures.

Holy Schoolwork, Batman!

It probably surprises no one that the blog posts are starting to have an extra couple days between them. It turns out that grad school takes up a massive amount of time.

It also turns out that it is apparently fine to assign three reports in one class due a week from being assigned. Seriously. And, because we are graduate students, the reports should be good quality. Again, seriously?

They try to mitigate the "WTF" factor by making every assignment a group assignment.

As students (and professionals) past and present are aware, group work can only go two ways: 1) everyone communicates and pulls their own weight, making for less work and faster output, and thus more free time, or 2) people slack off because there are other people to pick up the work and one or two people end up doing everything. And the lazy bums get the same grade.

In short, group assignments are a terrifying crapshoot when you don't know your group mates.

By what can only be described as sheer luck, my lab group has a pretty high output quality and the unusual tendency to do work before the deadline we set ourselves to for review. As a result, after a few long days and annoyingly late nights, the massive amount of stuff due Monday is done and the weekend is mine. Although I really should do some reading for my tunneling class...

Amy Approved Way #1 to Procrastinate Schoolwork:
Baking delicious foodstuffs. So far I've made two batches of cookies (I don't have measuring cups so I've been doing things based on proportions. The second round of cookies was significantly better.) and a peach cobbler. Peach cobbler is delicious. And really easy to make. I'm not sure if Ev had more than one helping, since I ate it for breakfast twice and lunch once. I may have a problem.

While we're on the topic of food, during one of our leisurely strolls around Rotterdam we found a little coffee and bagel shop. Wistfully thinking of our long-running Sunday Morning Lulu's (local bagel shop of the tasty variety) tradition from home, we stopped for a bagel. And chocolate truffle tart. Which may have warranted a return trip to the bagel shop.

Amy Approved Way #2 to Procrastinate Schoolwork:

Phone contracts. Having finally gotten a bank account and the University finally transferring my money into it, we decided that we really needed to get off the pre-paid phone card and on to something that is a) cheaper, and b) gets us new phones. So Saturday, although I intended to settle down and catch up on the copious amount of reading for my classes, we went into town and got phone contracts. 

I kind of assumed that phone contracts worked the same everywhere, so I was planning to open an account and then add Ev to the plan. Turns out, there is no such thing as a "family plan" in the Netherlands (and maybe Europe). So basically, for a family of 5 people, there are 5 separate phone contracts. Because Ev doesn't have a residence permit yet, this made things complicated. Somehow, although it should not have been possible, I managed to open two accounts on the same day. Cell phones acquired, half the day of perspective studying passed.

Amy Approved Way #3 to Procrastinate Schoolwork:
Impulsive climbing. We've gone bouldering in Delft a couple times with another American and invited her out to Rotterdam to climb at our gym. After Saturday's cell phone adventures, I settled down to do that damn reading on Sunday. 30 minutes in, Davaja asked if we wanted to hit up the gym in a couple hours. Being good little climbers, we said heck yes and proceeded to have a grand time closing down the climbing wall.

In case it wasn't obvious, there is a 95% chance I will say yes to spontaneous activities that involve rocks or running.


Or, in the case of this weekend, Switzerland. I'm jonesing for some mountains!

Welcome to Grad School

As everyone who has attended (or attends) UAF knows, you basically attend classes in windowless bunkers. Don't get me wrong, UAF is a good school, but for three months or so in winter you literally don't see the sun. You go to your 8am class in the dark, stay in Duckering doing classes and/or homework all day, and by the time you leave at 5pm it's dark again. As many, many of my friends can attest to, it can get really, really demoralizing. Also, most of the desks in the windowless pits they call classrooms are too tiny to put a binder on, let alone a water bottle, too.

Well, I am happy to report that TU Delft has classrooms with WINDOWS! Lots and lots of windows, with sunlight and trees and they even open! And the desks. Oh, the desks! They're huge. It's awesome.

That's right. I'm putting a picture of desks on my blog.

Grad School Realization #1:
I am so out of practice. Seriously. I got used to the world of working and design, where you leave the office and are done for the day. With school, you're never really done. You spend 8 hours a day (or more) in lectures/doing research, then go home and do reading in an attempt to stay abreast (or ahead) of the lectures in each class.

This seriously cuts in to my play time.

WHAT WAS I THINKING?!?!

Interesting Fact of the Netherlands #3 (it turns out Lessons and Hilarious Tidbits were what had a bunch of numbers):
The spiders are bloody massive. Think twice the size of your thumb nail.

I am not a fan.


Interesting Tidbit:
If you get your pizza to go (or get a doggie bag), you get a sweet pizza box bag to carry it in. Freaking brilliant.

I'm hoping we can run away for the weekend and find somewhere with mountains. Or at least big hills. I think the flatness here is making the homesickness worse. Maybe France... we'll see where the cheapest train tickets will take us.

On another, totally awesome note, Ev interviewed with a research group called TNO. TNO is the biggest research group in the Netherlands and is kind of a big deal. They're looking to expand/create a seismic division and develop a seismic code for the Netherlands. Apparently the oil extraction in the northern part of the country is done by fracking, which is causing small magnitude earthquakes that may or may not be damaging surrounding houses (they're not so big on real foundations around here). 

Anyway, in order to be hired at TNO you have to go through 3 intensive interviews. Ev had his first interview last Thursday. They told him they would get back to him within a week to let him know if he had a second interview. Around 6:30pm Thursday night, TNO called Ev to tell him they wanted to give him a second interview. Apparently Ev is so awesome they only needed an hour or so to decide to move him closer to a job.

(/end girlfriend bragging)

And one more thing... I've already started using baking as a distraction from studying. Whoops.

Whoa. School...

TU Delft is on a quarter system. I honestly have (had?) no idea what to expect, beyond assuming that the classes would be a bit more intensive in order to fit a semester worth of material into 8 weeks.

Man, was I right.

Here's my schedule for this quarter:

It turns out that all the classes are at least 2 hours long. In the case of the Site Characterization class, I have 12 hours of class a week. I also need to get my hands on the text books. Whoops.

Holy school, batman.


On a less traumatic note, the boxes of stuff that we couldn't fit in to our bags arrived. My parents are wonderful and sent over our knives, baking soda, baking powder, Ev's sleeping bag, and my teddy bear. Don't judge me.

Mike (remember him? Awesome guy who took us in on Sunday) gave me some chocolate chips, which means COOKIES! I'm pretty sure he bought the chocolate chips in the States... You can't find chocolate chips, baking soda, nutmeg, ginger, molasses, or pretty much anything else used to make delicious baked goods here. I think it's because for some unknown reason, NOBODY IN THE NETHERLANDS BAKES. Given the fact that everyone in my entire family loves baking, this has been quite upsetting to me. Plus, baking is a stress reliever/coping mechanism for me (and Ev loves it. Actually, the climbing boys love it, too). 

On that note, it's time to go do some marathon training before putting cookie dough in the oven. Assuming, of course, that I can refrain from eating all the dough between now and then. The dough is the best part.

And Away We Go

So last week was the second week of orientation. Amazingly, I managed to make friends. My orientation group happened to get along really well (a good mesh of personalities or something like that. Or maybe it's just that we all think Your Mom jokes are hilarious...). Here's a picture of us being awesome. On a sculpture called The Salami. I couldn't make this stuff up.

Interesting Fact of the Netherlands # something (I lost count):

People here don't bake. Or do a whole lot of cooking. Accordingly, I have been unable to find baking soda anywhere. It's kind of impossible to bake without crucial ingredients. Luckily, Ryan, one of the guys in my orientation group, got excited at the prospect of cookies and managed to find some. Actually, I think he said his girlfriend found some. Regardless, I have baking soda! Cookies ahoy!

As the semester begins, it's been fun meeting the other Geo-Engineering students. Being good engineers, we grabbed a beer on Friday (and Monday, but who's counting). Have I mentioned that each department has multiple coffee corners and a pub? They must know that engineers like to bond over beer. Who'd have thought.

I'm having a fun time learning "proper" English. I'm going to come home talking like a bloody Brit. I do love that everyone says "bloody" here- it's one of those words that I've used for a long time but nobody else does. Switching to the SI system is going to be... challenging. I have years of schooling and working as a design engineer using imperial units. For the record, I have no problem telling you exactly what 120 lb/cubic inch density soil is, but 40 kg/cubic meter soil? Not intuitive at all. And don't even get me started on stress units. WTF is a MPa? 

On another note, we found an adorable black dog to replace the Dillingham dogs.

Don't judge us. We're animal deprived.


Interesting Fact of the Netherlands #7(?):
The escalators at the metro (and several other places) have sensors and switch directions based on whoever's using it. Nifty stuff.

(I love that I have so many pictures of Ev. He hasn't taken any pictures, which means he has to be my model for everything. Mwahahaha).



On Sunday we spent the afternoon with the son of my Grandma's good friend Mitzi. Mike and his family have been living in the Netherlands for about 12 years and currently live in a gorgeous converted farmhouse in a small town near the German boarder. It was so nice to talk to Mike and his wife and meet his kids. They are all very interesting people (the oldest son, David, is a tour guide and is heading over to Tibet soon - so jealous!) and we really appreciated being taken in and fed.

On the train home, Ev and I discussed how much karma we have to pay back eventually. Over the past few years we have had so many people open their homes to us and take us in for a day or two. Both Ev's and my parents have always been very open and welcoming to others and I think that we have been reaping the benefits of their awesomeness. It's nice to know that there are people like that everywhere.


Oh yeah, classes started today. More on that later.