Daily Life and Duck Eggs

Recently I've settled into a nice routine in Middelburg. The schoolwork has been easy; the days getting brighter, and the weather, well, supremely warm for this time of year. Lacking any major, jaw-dropping events to explain today, this will be more of a day-to-day post. 

In the news...

Middelburg has two universities, my own HZ and the University College Roosevelt. The latter has been experiencing an unprecedented rough patch this semester; some poorly communicated cuts to staff and programs have not gone down well. To make a long story short, 25% of the professors have been fired and many students don't know what the future will look like for them. (worry not, the HZ is stable as far as I know...)

At a protest on Friday against the cuts. Around 200 students!

So in light of these uncertain times, I rode my bike out to what must be one of the only duck farms in the country, with a few friends from the UCR. What better way to distract from a bad situation than with exotic (but local!) produce? It was pouring with rain that Saturday afternoon, so we were certainly dedicated. This farm is one of the kinds where you ring the doorbell up at the house and the owners will come open the shed for you, where all the goodies are kept. 

Stock image for illustration purposes; this is very close to the actual condition. 

They were very kind and willing to hear our pidgin Dutch. "Ah, jullie zijn studenten, wat fijn!" I've come to discover that the farmstand-produce, available nearly year-round here, is only marginally more expensive than grocery stores. And they definitely won't give you an apple voor onderweg at Albert Heijn. 

In the weather...

All last week it was in the 50s and 60s here, really remarkable considering our high latitude and that it's still February. I took the opportunity to get out and explore the countryside a little bit; and take in that unmistakable smell of grass, wood, and manure that is so pervasive around here. It's quiet on warm winter days like this; were I to frequent this area in the summer I'd be surrounded by throngs and hordes of tourists. Anecdotally, I've heard that Zeeland receives as many visitors as Ibiza does. 

A very low tide on the left and my trusty bike on the right. I'm coming up on 3000 miles (recorded, many more small trips around town are forgotten) ridden on this frame!

This was also a new record for me- the earliest in the year I've been swimming! (though all the locals have me beat. There is a great tradition called the "New Year's Dip", wherein everybody charges into the sea to celebrate) The water was around 40 degrees, so not all that different to a spring-fed pond back in Minnesota. In this case, "swimming" meant about a minute-long spell in the cold, gray-blue clutches of the waves. Regardless, you will never feel so refreshed!

The beach at Vlissingen. 

In the schoolwork...

For this semester we are studying the Elbe River basin in Germany and the Czech Republic. It's our first non-Dutch project area, and come early April we'll go visit this region. For now, it's the analysis phase, understanding the area and its many challenges. Namely drought in summer, exacerbated by sandy soils, and extreme floods in spring. We're asked to do most of our work in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, the two fine pieces of software where I endlessly toil about. 

Some analysis work on Dresden, Germany, from a bird's eye view. This took about three hours to make from scratch, and a lot longer to read up on. 

Soil and elevation map of Magdeburg, Germany. Again, these take quite a while to produce. I think I will change the colors; the assignment was to do it in black and white but it doesn't look nice. (Justification: most of this study is learning to make things look nice!) 

Ideally, I'll be doing a minor this fall at Mid-Sweden University in Östersund, in the far north of that country. Already I'm hoping for a severe winter! And in the perfect world, I'll find an internship there too, paving the way for a whole year away from the low countries. So more to come on this in the near future, in another captivating post!