The Delta Congress

Inside the grote zaal. Sadly my only picture of the day!

In The Netherlands, water-management is synonymous with national security. 30% of the country lies below sea level and another 30% is at risk of flooding from rivers. That is, after all, what I'm here to study. And once a year there's a national convention to discuss such things: The Deltacongres!

I was mercifully given the day off on the condition that I attend this two-day event in Almere, 2.5 hours from Middelburg. The first day was for excursions to interesting places nearby the host-city, and in retrospect I really should have joined that. This is a show put on by the national government, and they have the keys to cool stuff! Alas, I enjoyed my free day from studies. 

Map of Flevoland: Almere is at the lower left in this map, Amsterdam is 25 miles further west. The entire province was reclaimed from the sea in the 1960s to provide more agricultural land and relieve overcrowded cities in the Randstad. A totally unique situation!

On Thursday morning, I got up early and drove with my good friend Barbora through 50 miles of Randstad traffic to be there on time. (The Randstad is the rough triangle formed by Amsterdam, Utrecht, and Rotterdam/Den Haag, the where over 8 million people live) We were promised a long day of lectures, workshops, and networking on top of our long drive. Mandatory fun.

De Kunstlinie, an impressive concert hall which hosted the congress. 

The professors neglected to say that this whole enterprise would be in Dutch. Luckily I've been hard at work learning this intolerable language, so I could follow well enough. They had a nice ceremony with music, speeches by government officials, and lots of applause.

The feds spare no expense when it comes to catering! The coffee flowed freely, plates upon plates of treats, lots of fruit juice, fancy water, etc. Lunch was predictably sandwiches and soup. I've never seen anything else (interesting food is forbidden here) at such conferences, and I attend about one per month. When will they learn... 

I heard from a panel on "Decision-Making for Freshwater Strategy", which sounds dull but was very relevant to my study. Representatives from all corners of Dutch life were there: local mayors, king's commissioners, a dude from Dow Chemical, and a farmer. Curiously, nobody asked the last two any questions... is this some subtle messaging against the agro-chemical complex? 

This graphic explains the freshwater/saltwater situation in Holland. (OK, complicated if you're not studying water-management here, I'll admit) The sea is on the left, inland to the right. The black line is the very exaggerated elevation. Zoet=Fresh, Brak=Brackish, Zout=Salt. Easy language!

Ideally I would have spent a lot more time talking with these water-management professionals; but there were about 30 students there out of 1200 total attendees. I reckon 80% were government employees and over age 55. So it's not exactly easy to interrupt their conversations on some new canal-dredging project and introduce myself in fragmented Dutch. 

We were sent home after a nice borrel (required drinks to close any meeting here) and had a long time to reflect on this outing. Barbora and several other classmates speak no Dutch at all, so this was an especially long day for them. As we filed out of the building, we each received a thick book showcasing every dike-reinforcement, nature restoration project, channel-deepening and polder-improvement in the country. Say what you will about it, that was one heck of a congress. 

Despite popular belief, Europe is not all trains and winding roads. 

On An Excursion

At the HZ we students are forced requested to join many field trips throughout the year. I've been on at least 10 of them so far; but never for more than a few hours. But last week brought a new challenge... A week-long monster of a trip to the far northern reaches of this country!

You can (probably) still see the program for this trip here , in a cool map made by one of my professors. 

I got up at 6:00 AM on Monday morning to drive three hours to Groningen, a city on the opposite side of the country. That's how small things are here! I had been expecting a worse experience from such a long trip in a van with all my classmates and professors but it wasn't bad at all! I overheard communications in Dutch from the front seats: "Yeah, the students are all under control, we won't be needing the straightjackets today." (I had to ask the Dutchies about the word for straightjackets... dwangbuis! Lit. "forced tube") 

The old city hall in the center of Groningen. 

We stayed in hostels; though in private rooms and not dorms. I was paired with Hidde, a fellow spatial planner and great roommate. This place (Simplon Hostel Groningen if you're curious) isn't fancy by any means, but they do have an excellent hotel breakfast. 

Groningen is a famous student city, and there are nearly 50,000 of them in total. Everywhere you look; there's a lowly pupil biking, studying, shopping, etc. There must have been a thousand bikes outside the library, and in a non-exam week too! 

Like Hogwarts! (or "eh, exactly like every building in Prague", according to the Czech classmates) 

This is an underground bike garage beneath a supermarket; it's free, warm, and has 24/7 security. 

The city skyline is dominated by The Forum, a giant twisting wedge of modern architecture next to the grote markt. It's got everything under one roof: movie theaters, exhibition halls, restaurants, a huge library, cozy study spots. And a plethora of escalators! We went to the top deck one morning to get an overview of the city, though it wasn't much to see with all the fog. 

Looking down from the top floor.

"View" from the top... This was taken at about 9:30 AM, for a sense of how dark this region is in winter.

Foolishly, I didn't take any pictures of the exterior!

A lot of the educational aspect of this trip was spent meeting and talking with representatives from the province and various municipalities; to see what they do related to water. In Delfzijl, a port on the North Sea, we met the municipal PR officer to hear about all the ways people can complain about dikes and seawalls. It's all in the compensation: for example, if the dike is raised so that your apartment no longer has a view of the sea, then you're entitled by Dutch law to a lot of money. 

An example of how large a typical dike is here. 

The Delfzijl waterfront and beach... it's not a very sandy one, since there are so many mudflats nearby!

Vast landscapes and strong winds.

Later in the trip we visited Van Hall Larenstien University in Leeuwarden, another large student city. Here we got a free lunch, toured their Water Management department, and went for a walk on the mudflats outside of town. I might be biased, but I think the campus is way cooler than ours. Cozier building, but I'm sure their students would say the same about the HZ buildings. 

The sandwiches they fed us were exactly like the ones I know from the HZ canteen.

Cold, muddy, sulfurous smell. How lovely!

The hardest part is not getting stuck. This is dense, sucking mud, so if you stand still for too long you'll be trapped. This happened right away to a few of us...

My rubber boots paid for themselves in just a couple of hours. I can't tell you how nice it is to have warm and dry feet, while the others wore tennis shoes or sandals. 

On our final night of the trip we spent a night in prison. Our various crimes as Water Managers caught up with us; so we all had to check into the Alibi Hostel in Leeuwarden. The place was in use until about 20 years ago, and the prison vibe is alive and well. To combat this, the facilities are super modern and everything is clean. I would've been interested in a more authentic experience, but oh well. 

Showers too warm, beds too comfortable, breakfast too nutritious. Some prison.

Hidde and I were cellmates once again. I think they covered up a few centuries worth of graffiti to make these rooms a bit more inviting. No evidence of escape tunnels, contraband, or rats. 

While in the north of this country I also just had to try a Groningse eierbol, "Groningen egg-ball", a local kind of giant croquette with a whole egg inside. Technically I didn't try it in the epynomyous city, but I've never had cheesecake in New York either. If there's any improvement to be had via geography, I don't need it. With fried stuff not much can go wrong. 

Served with lots of mustard and a flimsy wooden fork. 

The last stop was the Afsluitdijk, a gargantuan dam-building project which closed off an entire sea when completed in 1930. The resulting lake, the Ijsselmeer, serves as a sort of fresh-water reserve for the entire country. We investigated new locks being built for ships and a fish doorway in the dike. This way our piscine friends can migrate inland to spawn and back out to sea, for the first time in 90 years. 

The Afsluitdijk: 18 miles long and 300 feet thick!

Prof. Lukas Papenborg becomes trapped in an interlocking concrete block as my medestudent Omri calls for help. Pictures don't do this pile of rubble and grass justice!

Four days went by in a heartbeat, and I was glad to be back in my lovely warm room in Middelburg late Thursday. With this excursion out of the way, it's just 30 days until I return to Minnesota for the winter holidays. (skipping out on the last week of classes is a tradition among international students!) 

Thanks for reading! As always, if you feel generous, you can support my adventures via Buy Me A Coffee. Hartelijke dank to everyone who has donated. I wholeheartedly invite you to share this blog with anyone who might be interested; I love to share about my life here. Until next time, this has been the academic misadventures of Aaron. 

Albert Heijn

The local AH, with a few innocent bystanders. Yes, I went around the store taking pictures of bread and cheese like a weirdo for this post. At least I'm dedicated!

 I've mentioned this mysterious figure often in my posts, so you're probably wondering: who is he? There are in fact several Albert Heijns (i.e. Dutch businessmen) who founded the national supermarket chain, of which there are hundreds of locations. The OG Albert bought a grocery store in 1887, and it's been all downhill since then. His grandson and nephew were also called Albert Heijn, as if Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote the story. Now there is hardly a town in the country without the classic blue and white logo in a mini mall... almost as ubiquitous as the windmill!

I live hardly 8 minutes walk from a large Albert Heijn, affectionately referred to as "appie" or "a-ha" by the Dutchies. At the beginning of this year, I told myself that I'd diversify my shopping a little, and visit more than one store. That lasted about a week! Lesson is, you can't beat convenience. (and saving 20 cents on cheese isn't worth the extra distance to Aldi... yet) 

My fruit and vegetables all come from the city market, every Thursday and Saturday. This is much cheaper than buying produce in-store, and more fun! Specialty products, like fish sauce, spices, and rice-paper wrappings come from Bahaar Markt, the locally-owned Turkish grocery. (which demands its own post someday!) Aside from these, everything else comes from Albert. 

They say that the country is governed from Den Haag but day-to-day life is run from the AH headquarters in Zaandam. You can buy it all, from potatoes to plates to rat traps. With a market share of 35% it's the largest chain in the country- I think most Dutch never go a week without setting foot in one. 

Appie has a reputation as the fanciest and most expensive of all the Dutch supermarkets; and while it is pricier than Jumbo or Plus, it's not bad at all by American standards. I find that the quality is much higher than the others; and they're not paying me to write this. I can find dirt-cheap store brands there and fancy imported cookies, which is rather unique. So at the end of the day I find a nice balance between "cheapest option" and "deluxe truffle-aged gouda". 

Suggested product combos: take-n-bake meals and a big bottle of beer. They target all demographics!

Naturally, they have an impressive case of cheese, (impressive in size, not diversity. All Dutch cheese is a variation on gouda, just aged in different conditions for a different time) bread, and dairy. Especially dairy, which is cheap, quality no matter which product, and beloved by all bezoekers to the store. 

The bread is cheap, delicious, and often sold out by 3:00 PM. 

The dairy selection is... staggering. The specialty brands are all plays on the name Zaandam, so for dairy it's De Zaanse Hoeve, "The Zaanland Farm". 

The Dutchies love a good bargain and Appie loves to provide them: anything in orange that says BONUS is a hot item. (though like most chains, they'll just raise the price when an item is on sale, so the buyer ends up paying the same amount as they usually would) 

Here borrelnoten (lit. "drink nuts") are on sale, 3 for €4.00. An example of a good deal! I got smokey BBQ, paprika, and Asian flavors. 

Another major component of the store is the booze. Hard liquor is sold across the street, by a subsidiary of AH. I reckon they must have at least 10,000 liters on hand at any given moment. (2600 gallons)

Some foods are remarkably cheap; especially staples. Which suggests an underlying philosophy that everyone should be able to afford food, nice of them if it's true. Take the example of peanut butter, in a 600-gram / 1lb 5oz. jar. It's a pillar of the student diet: 

€1 equals $1.09 at the time of writing. Prijsfavoriet, "price favorite", denotes the cheapest store brands. 

They also have many Dutch classics; like ontbijtkoek, "breakfast cake", a spiced treat which is always pre-packaged and probably not as good as it looks. 

Flowers are also very cheap here, and if I'm not mistaken the Dutch are among the largest exporters and enjoyers of cut flowers in the world. 

To close I will tell the story of Gerrit Jan Heijn, the grandson of the original Albert. He was a prominent businessman and head of the family company, until his untimely abduction and murder in 1987. (this happened to the head of Heineken too! Well worth a read. It must be a Dutch thing) Despite the death of his captive, the criminal still received his ransom by pretending that poor Gerrit was alive. He was caught when he spent some of the ransom money... I guess they turn to a life of crime for lack of intelligence! Sorry to leave you with such a morbid story after writing about a supermarket, but Halloween was just last week.