El Chorro Smells Like Rosemary

I've been putting off writing a blog post because it means I'm back in the real world.

I don't wanna be in the real world.

Mostly because El Chorro is beautiful and has mountains and smells like rosemary. This is because there are wild rosemary bushes all over the hills. It's kind of amazing.

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Last week Ev, Jesse and I went to Spain. We flew in to Malaga (about as south as you can get without being in Africa), then took the train to El Chorro. For those who aren't in the know, El Chorro is famous for two things: the Caminito del Ray, and the rock climbing. We went for the climbing.

And it was awesome.

Looking through the climbing guidebook before leaving Rotterdam, we (well, mostly Ev) picked out a multi-pitch that looked pretty good and is a top 50 route for El Chorro (always a sure sign of a good time). Upon some additional research, it came to our attention that this 4 pitch, easy grade (4+ to 5) climb was extended another, oh, 130m and is now a 10 pitch climb with a 6a+ crux at pitch 10, followed by an 11th "pitch" that is, and I quote a review of the route, a "superb scramble to the summit, really worth while." To each their own, I guess.

Escalada Arabia: Rogilio is kind of in the middle of the wall between the two small peaks

So we had an objective: climb a 250m route with the hardest pitches at the very top (5, 5+, and 6a+. Fun times.). We ended up with a half day of beautiful weather and, more surprisingly, time on Wednesday when we arrived, so we checked out a crag near the place we were staying, a mere 10 minute walk away. To be clear, that's the dream.

The crag we ended up on is pretty new (as in the last couple years) and not in the guidebooks. So we did what Ev and I end up doing a lot of the time anyway: eyeball the bolt lines and pick out something that looks fun and doable.

After a couple hours of climbing, we scoped out the big objective, were told it was an hour hike away, got some dinner and sacked out.

The plan was to get an alpine-ish start and hike out to Rogilio at 7am. We were up and ready to go, but the weather wasn't being decisive about what it was doing. It was a) dark, and b) lightly raining when we woke up, so we crawled back under the covers and checked the weather every 15 minutes or so in the hope that it would stop it.

Around 8:30 we decided to risk it and headed out. The rain gods were with us, and the skies started clearing as we approached the wall.

250m is kind of intimidating when you're standing at the bottom looking up.

We drew straws (well, blades of grass) to decide who got the first lead, then proceeded to have Jesse link the first three pitches since they were super short and easy. Ev lead the next two, then it was my turn. After my lead we started leading one pitch at a time, since they got more technical moving up the wall. To my chagrin, there were several hanging belays. Fyi, hanging belays are not a great time for prolonged periods of time.

there are a shocking number of pictures of me in this hanging belay (I was sitting there for almost an hour). This is, amazingly, the most flattering by far.

I got the second to last pitch (5c-ish), which was a fun little corner. And then came the crux.

Climbs are graded based on the hardest move on the route, so theoretically a climb can be 4a 99.9% of the route, but the 6a move means it gets a 6a grade. In the case of pitch 10, the crux move was the first move off the belay. Jesse worked it for a bit but couldn't pull it, so Ev took a shot.

He made it look easy.

I kind of hate him sometimes.

But the view of the valley from the belay was beautiful.

There was a bit of an adventure hauling the backpacks up the pitch before I climbed it, since we had decided it was too hard to climb the pitch with a pack on. Apparently the boys had a pretty elaborate setup at the top, but they weren't able to document it. Something about having Jesse on belay.

I was pretty excited to pull the crux my second try and top out. I was almost as excited to go pee after spending 6 hours on the wall.

As is often the case when you're at the top of something tall, the view was worth it.

The walk off was pretty fun, too. We saw an ibex! Actually, we saw 3 ibex. They might have been a family of some sort.

The next day we checked out another crag that happened to be full of Brits. I love listening to British climbing slang. The best was "it's a right proper jug fest central*, mate!" The American equivalent is "it's a jug haul!"

We climbed a couple routes, but it was getting hot and the crag was crowded, so we decided to hike out towards the Caminito del Rey to get a closer look. Plus, our feet were not thrilled about being stuffed back into climbing shoes the day after a big climb.

So we hiked, and it was beautiful.

The big bridge of the Caminito del Rey. Quite impressive. We actually looked into hiking it, since it reopened at the end of March after being closed for repairs for 5 years or so, but it's booked until July. JULY. That's a lot of planning ahead.

Objective of the hike: check out the big cave. We almost made it. There were bees. Lots of bees.

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Saturday we did another half day of climbing and took lots of pictures, since there weren't many taken during the multi-pitch. So, without more ado, have some climbing porn.

And now I present..... my favorite picture of the trip:

Ev does crazy eyes in a way that's, well, crazy.

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This Monday is King's Day (literally the monarch's birthday. Until recently, it was Queen's Day, and when they got a new King who's birthday is in winter it was decided to keep the date of the holiday the same since holidays with good weather are better. Or so I've been told. I didn't actually bother to do research on this), which means no school for me.

Of course, that's meaningless, since I already have lots of homework and not enough hours to do it.

Shocking, I know.

But we have a long weekend in Paris with Colin coming up, then my kid sister will be here for a few days, then Tae, and then we get to go back to Alaska for a month-ish.

YAY PEOPLE!

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* Jesse has corrected me. It was "jug central," not "jug fest." My bad.

Spring Time!

I think it's spring here. Flowers are blooming, stuff is green, and it keeps thinking about getting warm. Well, warm-ish.

Today I wrapped up my third round of finals. Only one more round to go before summer.

Tomorrow morning we head over Spain for some climbing in El Chorro before classes start again on Monday. I am excited.



To add some volume to this blog post (sorry, I'm not feeling the whole "remember what I've been doing besides study for exams" thing right now), here's another picture of Ev on stuff he probably shouldn't be. It really is a trend in his life.

Also, here's the only store you ever need if you're anniversary or birthday present shopping:

Maybe there will be a real update next week after returning for this most excellent vacation. Until then, happy spring. Or something.

Windy Cookies

The crazy is just getting started RE: exams, but I think I'm finally getting the hang of studying for them. Well, getting the hang of it again. I'm pretty sure I had it figured out during my undergrad. Maybe.

To make things better, my darling sisters decided to remedy a serious failing of Europe: lack of girl scout cookies.

Ev was so excited about the cookies that he replaced my head with them.

We were also amused to discover that Cool Ranch Doritos have a much more badass name in Europe: Cool American Flavor. Because 'Murica.

Thursday morning we picked Jesse up from the airport. Unsurprisingly, he was kind of wiped out from 20-something hours of traveling and managed to stay awake until around 6pm (Ev says there was a nap in there). I get way too much amusement from documenting jetlagged people sleeping on our couch.

 A couple odd sights were seen when we wandered around Amsterdam with Jesse. Like the birds making a nest out of cardboard in the back of a decrepit boat.

Or the street with a slightly questionable (albeit entertaining) name.

We pestered Jesse to pick out something to do during our day in Amsterdam. Eventually, we ended up at the Nemo Science Center. It looked pretty sweet, but I should probably confess that I glanced at the flier and didn't actually read it... for the record, "science center" does not equal science museum. "Science centers" are targeted at kids. Little kids.

We were definitely the oldest people there not hauling around little mini-me's. 

By, like, 20 years.

Seriously, it would have been freaking amazing for me if I was 5.

Granted, it was still pretty cool, and I'm all for teaching kids about science. Plus, there were gems like this one:

"Poop can be very smelly. That's because incomplete digestion of proteins results in rotting in the intestines.
Sometimes you will see a dog eat poo. The more proteins it contains the more the dog likes it!"

 We also forced Jesse to try his first ever coffee. He was... not impressed. Although it's kind of hard to tell, since that's the face he has in every picture ever.

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It's been pretty windy the last couple days, even for the Netherlands. You know, blowing a steady 30mph and gusting 60. It makes it hard to bike. Or walk. Or park your bike. Or scooter.

If these bikes weren't chained to things they would be long gone down the road.
The wind is merciless and cares not for your bike.

I just want to point out the construction workers in the background bracing against the wind. None of them are leaning on anything physical. The wind is just that strong. Sunday we watched a policewoman get knocked back by the wind into a section of ripped up sidewalk and fall down. She had a hard time getting up, what with it being impossible to actually move forward.

In the meantime, we've learned a couple things. First, one of the window flexes when there's a big gust of wind. Quite a bit, actually. It's a little disturbing. Second, our building sways, and it can be a bit nauseating.

The rain is currently falling (with the occasional bout of hail) between a 20 and 45-degree angle to the ground.

Oh, nevermind. It's not raining anymore. It got sunny and is now blinding us through the window.

The weather here changes insanely fast.

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I'll leave you with TU Delft's lovely gift to students for next quarter. It's actually quite clever. Evil, but clever.

Birds and (non)Eclipses

Yeaaaaaah.... it's officially the "chronically tardy blog update" part of the quarter.

That's right, it's exams time again!

I am sooooooo not ready for this.

Again.

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Lessons of the Netherlands #13:
Don't come here if you're freaked out by Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. Or watch it here. Or have ornithophobia.

Seriously.

There are regularly massive swarms of birds that literally darken the sky. And that's just outside our apartment window. I've been trying to document this insanity for a couple days but never manage to be home during daylight hours. Sorry about that. I finally managed to get a picture of this (only in Den Haag, for some reason).

Hitchcock's version

Netherlands version (newly uploaded!)

To make it up to you, allow me to introduce you to some of the ridiculously urbanized birds in the Netherlands. Seriously, they do not give a crap about people. At all.

This heron was standing in line for a stroopwaffle with 15 people. No craps were given by the bird. The tourists (you can recognize the tourists. They get excited about the birds), however, were pretty psyched.

The row of sleeping geese ('wild'). 100ft from Den Haag Centraal Station.

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Lesson of the Netherlands #14:

You know how sometimes you go to your car and someone stuck fliers on the windshield? Kind of annoying, mildly inconvenient. That's not a thing in the Netherlands. Instead, people will go to the bike racks (and believe me, there are a lot of bike racks. And they're always full) and staple fliers around the handlebars. Or, if you're Google Glass, put seat covers on every bike on campus.

Every. Bike.

Google (probably) paid someone to walk around TU Delft with an insane amount of bike seat covers and put them on thousands of bikes. Thousands. And that's a conservative estimate.

This was taken around 6:30pm, so the racks were pretty empty. 

I don't even know, man. This is something that would only happen in the Netherlands.

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There was a big solar eclipse on Friday (20 March) and Ev and I were pretty excited to see it. Unfortunately, the weather refused to cooperate and instead we were fogged in with heavy cloud cover all morning during the eclipse. That afternoon, the skies cleared for the first time all week and we had a beautiful sunset.

Not an eclipse, but pretty nonetheless. 

Anyways, I'm just going to go ahead and predict that the updates for the next couple weeks will be chronically tardy (and possibly skipped), since Jesse-kins comes in tomorrow morning and I have exams. Again. Seriously, the quarter system is evil.

FEM, Pi Day, and Weekends

Lesson of the Netherlands #12:
The Dutch have the best name for American football. In pretty much everywhere but the US, "football" is soccer, and that game we play is something weird with a nonsense name. So the Dutch call it "hand egg." Afterall, you use your hands and the ball looks kind of like an egg.

Hand egg.

Bloody amazing.

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Last week was a haze of long days and late nights doing school so I didn't have to do any on the weekend. And, for the first time since middle school, I turned in an assignment late. Granted, I got permission from the prof, but still... well, at least it gave me the chance to get distracted by an unequal vertical deflection in the column I was modeling using the finite element method (FEM). It bothered me, so Ev helped me compare it to another FEM program to see if my program was screwed up or if it was a real thing. I must say, it's really nice having a boyfriend who's good with SAP.

My Fortran95 model.
Note the deflection on the top element

The SAP2000 model.
Hey, the deflection is still there!

Apparently this uneven vertical deflection is known as St. Venant's Principle and is a result of the quadratic shape functions used to define the elements in the mesh. (Under pure vertical loading the top element should vertically deflect uniformly, since equal load is being applied at all the nodes). This results in a concentration of horizontal stresses at the node directly below the top center one, and the uneven deflection dampens itself out moving away from the top. It's a numerical inconsistency and not representative of reality, but can be mitigated by using a smaller mesh size.

And that's your FEM lesson for the week. Cuz it's cool and I learned stuff.

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This weekend was magical on two fronts. First, it was Pi Day. The best Pi Day of our lives (but not in Europe because they use the day/month/year syntax, rather than the much superior month/day/year that all the cool kids use. Europe is really missing out on this)!

3/14/15 9:26:53

That's pi to 10 digits, ya'll. 

Naturally, we had a Pi Day brunch to celebrate this momentous occasion. And it was delicious.

Note the date stamp that refused to be awesome with us.

Awesome thing #2 was that it was Ev and my "official" 5 year anniversary. I say "official" because about 3 years ago we decided to just pick an anniversary date we could remember around the time we started dating. We're both nerds, and 3/14 was the obvious choice. 

It turns out that neither of us really wanted anything (or could afford anything) for our anniversary this year. I put in a butt-load of hours on school/work during the week and Ev's "present" (I seem to be using quotes a lot this blog post) was a whole weekend of Amy with no school or work. 

I got delicious chocolates and champagne. And Ev, of course.

I love this guy.

All in all, it was an excellent weekend. The box of chocolates was massive (close to the size of Ev's head, as you can probably see), and it took us three nights to get through them. 

They were delicious.

Chocolate is good.

We also went for a run. And it was magical.

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Sunday we went climbing. Our gym is clearing out 25 years of stuff from their back rooms and storage area and is selling a ton of really nifty, albeit dangerously outdated, stuff for really, really cheap.

Like the ancient semi-technical ice axe for $10.

Or the bowls of carabiners. That included this one.

I want it known that there is no scale trickery with this picture. That beaner is touching my cheek. 

For $2.50, hell yes I bought it. It's the size of my face! 

I have absolutely no idea what we're going to do with this massive, heavy piece of equipment (that I'm pretty sure isn't even rated for climbing), but I'm going to push Nick to take it on his next major mountain attempt to leave at the summit. I get a kick out of imagining the faces of other climbers who see it. "What the... dude, this thing is insane! I wonder how long it's been up here?" "Dude, I can't believe someone carried that thing up here!" ....... 

I'm easily entertained.

Spring Ramblings... kinda

Lesson of the Netherlands #11:
Drivers here look for and yield to cyclists. As a cyclist, you start taking for granted that most of the cars see you and are aware of how big (well, more like small) they are and start becoming accustomed to cars passing you very closely. Like, 6 inches between the mirror and your handlebars.

The busses are really bad about this.

There's a section of my commute to school that passes through a little town called de Zweth that is basically a 1 lane road with two speed bumps and a reaaaaaaaaally narrow bridge. One of the main bus routes between Rotterdam and Delft drives along the road every day, and, somehow, I manage to meet it almost every day.

One of the bus drivers recognizes me and nods as he passes, imprisoning me between bus and retaining wall with pretty much no space on either side.

If I really nail the timing, I get a bus going in both directions (you can't have two cars in there at once, so there's lots of yielding. It's actually way faster to bike through de Zweth during rush hours)!

But anyway, it's surprising how quickly you adjust to cars passing in extremely close proximity when you're biking.




I'm so going to get hit by a car when we move back to the States.


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There are signs of possible movement towards the mythical season known as "spring." Alaska doesn't do "spring" so much as "break up," when the ice and snow melts and the roads turn into slushy, rutted messes of potholes and awfulness. Spring in Alaska is when you're grateful for your 4 wheel drive.

So, like our first experience with fall as a season not a week, it's novel seeing things that are stereotypically "spring" outside of a kids book or the internet.

Like daffodils. And crocus (which I keep not getting off my bike to photograph). And little lambs cavorting around fields and tripping on themselves. And ducklings (with slightly grouchy, protective parents).

Despite the fact that I haven't taken a day off of school/work since this quarter started, yesterday was so very nice that I called it after 5 hours and went for a meandering bike ride with Ev. It was really nice to stop schooling for a few hours and experience this "outside of school" I hear so much about.

Note the 2 functional bikes! A huge step up from last week.

Plus, I'm pretty sure Ev was thrilled to have some real interaction with me.




In the next couple weeks the parade of people who love us will begin. Also exams. Jesse arrives mid-March, then Colin mid-May, then Tae, then exams, then we go to Kalymnos, then home and get to see the guys and families (yes, Chris and Aud, you count as family) and puppys....

Yeah, can it be summer yet? I'm ready for a long dose of free time.

Tostis, Bikes, and Homework

Lesson of the Netherlands #10:
The Dutch appreciate the awesomeness of a grilled cheese sandwich. Or as everyone here calls them, tostis. Pretty much wherever you go you can get a tosti, be it a cafe, coffee house, or restaurant. And none of that "crappy piece of unknown but slightly plastic-y cheese between two pieces of bread" stuff you get in the States. A tosti (1.50 to 2.50 euro) comes with oude kaas (aged cheese, usually gouda) and ham. Often you can add something to it, but generally it's not necessary.


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This has been a bad week for bikes. Someone kicked Ev's bike (my preferred mode of transportation, since it's a modified, super old-school race bike) hard enough to break the front derailer. This was discovered at 7:45am when I was trying to head to school. Not ok. So I went for the mountain bike. Someone had let the air out of both tires. I wish I could say that was uncommon, but apparently people like to steal bike lights off bikes (don't leave them on the bike, they will walk away) and let air out of the tires just for kicks. Luckily, we have a hand pump, so I dashed upstairs and pumped the tires up.

Monday motivated me to finally change out the tube on my road bike (another super old race bike with levers on the frame you use to shift). Unfortunately, my shiny new tube has a slow(ish) leak, as I discovered Tuesday morning. Actually, I assumed that some asshole had let the air out of my tires again (obviously this is not the first time this has happened). Another dash upstairs for the bike pump and I was underway. Imagine my joy to discover that upon trying to leave school that evening my tire was 90% void of air. Lovely. Pump it up. Bike home. It's flat again in the morning.

I took the mountain bike in the rest of the week. The mountain bike is heavy and slow and not particularly pleasant for a long commute.

Now Ev's bike is kind of up and running. He took it into a shop in the hope that they could replace the derailer, but no such luck. Something about it being really freaking old and the parts being hard to find. But they took the broken derailer off, so as long as you don't try to shift the front gears it rides just fine.

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I'm having throwbacks to my bachelors degree. I actually have homework this quarter. Lots of homework. Weekly assignments, massive programming assignments with professional quality reports (we get multiple weeks to work on assignments for a couple classes. What that actually means is they're freaking huge and take up a lot of time).

As I said, undergrad-level homework.

To cap it off, we finally got data for one of the projects I'm working as a research assistant for, which means I actually have lots of stuff to do on that front. Which is really cool, since we get to verify the model (which appears to be pretty accurate, which is kind of impressive). And kind of a pain, since wading through data and figuring out what's actually useful and what to do with the massive gaps in measurements adds some complexity to the task.

There are not enough hours in a week. This is cutting into my exercise time, which is not ok.

Ripples

It is interesting to see the results, the fallout, if you will, of events that you hear about in the States but don't necessarily appreciate in magnitude.

For example, the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris. Immediately there was a massive increase in the number of uniformed police everywhere in the Netherlands. Especially around the airports and train stations, but even wandering around you see group of 4-6 police officers. Even more telling, there was the occasional armed policeman (most cops here don't carry firearms. Some do, but not all.)

It was a bit shocking to see police with AKs.

Another example: when we were working on getting Ev's residence permit, we were told that the big reason the Netherlands immigration department has a self-set deadline is because of the influx of refugees that has historically resulted in multi-year processing times. The Netherlands is pretty open to refugees (although not to the same extent as Sweden), but the number of applications that results from foreign crisis overwhelms the system.

This is part of the reason it took so long to process Ev's residence permit (definitely not the whole reason. Them being slow was definitely a thing): when we applied, the civil war in Syria was flaring up again and there were lots of people fleeing.


Lesson of Europe #2:
The time between "far off" events and witnessing some of their impacts firsthand is short.


Another example: an increase in Missing Person signs posted on lamp posts. Primarily young (18-30) people, often from what appear to be Muslim communities (Rotterdam has a thriving Middle-Eastern, especially Turkish, community. They make really fantastic bread, btw), often with a note on the sign along the lines of "may have run away to (Syria, Iran, whatever)."

Maybe people are worried that their youth are leaving to go fight for a rebel group or, god forbid, IS.

Obviously, I am hypothesizing. I don't know the particular circumstances, dynamics, details, or anything that could lead to something other than my anecdotal interpretation. But it seems that people are becoming more aware of how they may be perceived. The number of people in our neighborhood (we live adjacent to a big Turkish community) wearing traditional clothes (beyond a headscarf, which is really common here) is increasing. Everyone is traveling in groups.


The Netherlands is incredibly tolerant and accepting. I haven't seen or heard anything that makes me think there is mistrust or resentment towards the Muslim community. But there are signs that the conflicts in Syria, Libya, and Iraq are affecting people here.

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Not much of a life update this week. Lots of classes, lots of homework, lots of work for my research assistantship. Ev is going to start hating me for doing school or work every day.

A weekend excursion to mountains is probably in order soon.

Not Just Coffee

Signs I've Been Living in Europe #1:
I have developed moderately strong opinions about coffee. These include:
- Drinking coffee out of a paper cup is not great.
- Getting coffee to go is seriously not great.
- Even crappy, free coffee is best enjoyed over a leisurely conversation.
- The best way to drink coffee is out of a real cup, unhurried (or at least not caring if you're going to be late), and sitting down. Even if you're by yourself.


It's actually kind of amazing how long it takes to drink a small cappuccino when you're locked in conversation or people watching. In fact, it's probably best to allocate at least 45 minutes to enjoy your coffee.

Coffee culture is a thing, and people will get surprisingly passionate about it. Apparently, Italy and Greece know what's up as far as coffee drinking, but I heard that from an Italian guy and a couple Greeks, so there's some bias to be considered. As best I can tell, coffee culture is all about social atmosphere. And if you talk to people over here about it, apparently the American tendency to take our coffee to go or work (rather than socialize) in coffee shops is an abomination that totally misses the point.

Although, as Ev has pointed out, that doesn't mean it's not coffee culture. It's just a different coffee culture. That, admittedly, is not quite as enjoyable.


Lessons of the Netherlands # 9:
The Dutch have the highest per-capita coffee consumption in the world, around 2.5 cups per person per day (sorry, America, but we don't even break the top 10 list with a per capita coffee consumption of only 0.91 cups per day. The rest of the top 10 is filled out by Scandinavia and northern Europe). If you think about it for very long, you realize that that is a LOT of coffee, especially when you consider that the whole "per capita" thing includes all the kids (to be clear, I am only talking about per capita consumption. If we're talking volume, the U.S. is king).


Although there is a solid chance that most people here don't actually drink that much coffee and most of the coffee consumption is by engineering professors and grad students with free coffee cards.

As a matter of fact, that's probably true everywhere.

Regardless, my caffeine tolerance is getting pretty high again, but I choose to believe that I can quit any time I want.

I'm probably lying to myself again.





On another note, my kid sister decided she wanted to run a half marathon. Because I wholeheartedly support encouraging everyone around me run, I agreed to run it with her. Well, also I kind of tricked Rach into running a half a couple years ago and figure it's only fair to run one with each sister. Cuz I'm cool like that.

Anyways, the end result is that we're signed up for the Rocky Mountains Half Marathon in Estes Park, Colorado.

I'm slightly concerned about the elevation. The race starts at 7,500ft and goes up to 8,000ft. The Netherlands is around -3ft -3m.

Elevation sickness isn't real, right?

I figure the best way to not die during the race is to get back into full marathon shape. Probably won't stop me from feeling like absolute crap, but at least it increases the chances of a half-way decent time.

Maybe.



Oh yes, and Valentines Day. That's a thing. That I kind of spaced and spent doing homework. Luckily, we had some super fancy French chocolates from Lyon and a really nice bottle of champagne on hand (apparently we remembered Valentines Day when we were in France and prepared accordingly), so we spent the evening eating the best chocolates I have ever had (not kidding. They. Were. Amazing. The champagne was pretty good, too), and alternating between enjoying them and being kind of shocked that we're in freaking Europe.

And here's a picture that pretty much sums up our relationship.

Also a random picture of Ev near Rotterdam City Hall. Because seriously, he has to climb on everything.

Like, literally everything. We got yelled at in Machu Picchu for climbing on the ruins. In fact, here are a few photos of Ev climbing on stuff that's not actually supposed to be climbed.

Chamonix

Machu Picchu

Yes, that IS an avalanche chute.