March 2024

 3/6/24

Hello!

This will be one of those updates where too much amazing stuff has happened to fit into one reasonable email. So I will cut to the chase!

Last weekend I was in Rotterdam with my good friend Thomas, a fellow water manager, to see the city and a concert. Both his parents are classical musicians in the Hong Kong Philharmonic, and they’re on a big tour of Europe. I think it was nine cities in two weeks! So we took the train 90 minutes to R’dam, a city which has a saying of its own in Dutch: “In Rotterdam they sell shirts with the sleeves already rolled up”, alluding to the hard-working nature and utilitarian feeling in the city.

I think that the place has a distinctly American feeling to it: wide avenues, right angles, and tall buildings. It was once full of ancient buildings like Amsterdam, but it was leveled during the war and entirely rebuilt during the following years. So on every street corner is an amazing piece of modern art, a strange bit of architecture, or an impossibly large brutalist monument. We took the liberty of going to Five Guys, embracing our American heritage for the nostalgia and the cost-effectiveness of getting everything on a burger. Yes, there were many other unique places to eat, but we were short on time and couldn’t spend too long hunting for the perfect place. 

We met Thomas’s parents at the hotel and went to get coffee at a market-square type establishment. His mum is from Iowa, and his dad from Georgia (the country, not the American state)! That said, they’ve lived in Hong Kong for 20 years. So quite interesting folks! Like almost all of the international-parents of my HZ peers, it was through the Facebook group “Beyond the States” that they discovered the school. And of course we chose the HZ for the same reasons, the low cost, great program, and quality of life in The Netherlands. 

The performance that night was at De Doelen, Rotterdam’s largest concert hall. Its name, roughly translated, means “the target, the goal, the success” or something of the sort. For the regular Dutchman, it’s €75 for a ticket to a concert like this, but for students it’s just €10 to encourage young people to get into classical music. Including drinks at intermission, what a deal! 

According to Thomas’s aunt, who is also a classical musician and lives in Amsterdam, all Dutch performances start at 8:15 in the evening, which is really late for a double symphony with encores. We heard both Rachmaninov and Mahler’s first symphonies, the former joined by an incredible guest pianist. This guy’s hands moved so fast, it was a blur! The legend is that he learns a different encore piece each night, so he’s really a prodigy. 

The Lomdaridzes were very kind to get us a room in the hotel with all the other members in the orchestra, taking up the entire 4th floor of the Rotterdam Hilton. Understandably it was a late night, and incredibly the whole operation was headed to Basel, Switzerland at 10:00 AM the next day! There was, however, an excellent hotel breakfast to be had, with all the local specialties and more. The two of us hungry students made good work of it!

Seated a few tables away from us was Jaap van Sweden, the longtime conductor of the Hong Kong Philharmonic, coincidentally working in his own country. I heard that at one point a few years ago, he was conducting three orchestras simultaneously and as such was the highest-paid conductor in the world! So I got to watch his hand-waving and pointing the night before, and also see him scarf down scrambled eggs and croissants the next morning. 

We said goodbye after breakfast and went off to see some more of the city. It’s a little gritty in the corners, like Antwerp, but still shiny and new in structures like the Euromast and the Erasmusbrug. It was Sunday, so everything was closed, but the waterfront was still amazing and the weather tolerable. Our route took us near the Hogeschool Rotterdam, another university of applied sciences, though ten times the size of the HZ. So wandering its campus was crazy! With nothing much to do and an excursion the next day, we left at 2:00. 

Well, that excursion in question was to a beach north of Middelburg to collect data and construct a profile of the area. So a few Dutchies and I cycled from Middelburg at 9:00 AM out to the coast. Not as interesting or intensive as the long weekend, but I do love living so close to the sea. The weather cooperated for once and it was almost summerlike! Among my group’s observations was a live starfish, snails, shipworms, and a rare species of bumblebee.

On Friday I helped to clean the ring-canals in Middelburg, a sort of municipal spring cleaning on behalf of the student garden. It was a great success, we even pulled a complete bike and a traffic sign from those murky depths! All this made it to the school Instagram page, including a very muddy and sort of disheveled-looking picture of myself. All in the name of the environment!

I’ve got plenty more to tell, but I’ve got to consider the readability of this edition, so I’ll close by saying that Dune: Part II is just as good as the first. It’s three hours, though regardless of the film's length, there is always an intermission here. I saw this new release in Vlissingen on Thursday night, a great way to remember that leap day. (in 2020 I went skiing)! So, I hope that  everyone has enjoyed, and until next time!

Savor the sunshine if it’s there/geniet van de zon als die er is, 

Aaron

—

3/10/24

Happy Monday, 

It’s cloudy and cold here today, which is my most productive weather. So when it’s sunny and warm, not much gets done: I’m outside enjoying my vitamin D! Unfortunately, The Netherlands is a land that involuntarily lends itself to productive days. Meaning I’ve done all my homework and have time to write, which of course is no punishment. 

This was a busy week: counting another outing on Monday the 11th, I’ve had four field visits in six school days, and then none again until April. The magic of the scheduling-department here is a beautiful thing. So on Tuesday the 5th I was in Leiden, between Den Haag and Amsterdam and a two hour train ride away. This visit was to gather inspiration from the Singel, an ancient defensive canal much like Middelburgs though twice as long. The city feels like a fusion of my city and Amsterdam; with the canals of the latter and the architecture of Zeeland.

That was a long day! I didn’t get back until 9:00 at night, though Leiden is one of the nicest cities in Holland. My favorite bit was our visit to the Hortus Botanicus, the university botanic gardens. (Leiden University is the Harvard of The Netherlands, it’s where the royal family is educated. Likewise it’s really expensive and over-hyped) Everything feels like Hogwarts, the tropical greenhouses especially. Though we were there to see an ongoing experiment on green pavement, where students are testing different plant-paving material combinations to find the ultimate pairing. 

Since it was with the HZ we all got free drinks and food at the end of the day, in a splendid old cafe which had taken over the city weighing house of medieval times. As our group wandered back to the train station, we climbed de Burcht, the ancient hill-fort in the city center. There was a friendly cat there and a good view of the rooftops, plus some gigantic trees that gave the fortress a mystic feeling. 

Wednesday was a regular day of classes; in fact the only such day this week. At least it was my favorite, Spatial Analysis II, where we discussed the merits of public transport and compact urban design. This class is in the new research center wing of the HZ, meaning that there’s usually some academic event that we lowly students can poach food and coffee from– this is what we do on our break mid-class.

Thursday brought about a huge gardening session in Vlissingen: we had a dozen people all working hard all afternoon. I dug dozens of holes to plant willow saplings, which can be trained and trimmed to grow in geometric patterns over time. What a crazy plant! The longer I live here, the more I realize that this country rests on the shoulders of the grocery chain Albert Heijn, bicycles, and willow trees. 

I also made the acquaintance of Kris, a really interesting character. He’s from Iceland, used to operate cranes in the port of Vlissingen, does freelance carpentry now, and is maybe going to apply for a job teaching GIS at the HZ. He was invited to build a bench and table out of scrap wood, and he did just that while I was busy digging. We both appreciate that spring is really here now, and I noticed that the tulips which were planted in January were already sprouting. What a short winter here!

Friday brough no end to the excitement, it was another field day. This time a trip to Vlissingen to sketch various buildings and landscapes across the city. It was cold and windy, so most of the time we hid in cafes and tried to warm our stiff hands. Cold weather always stimulates my appetite, which was good for that evening’s outing: “Bulgarian Night”, a joint cooking challenge between the HZ and the UCR, the other university in Middelburg. 

(UCR of course stands for University College Roosevelt, a branch of Utrecht University in Middelburg. It’s a small institute of 500 students which focuses on humanities and “American Studies”, which I chuckle at. It’s named in honor of the Roosevelt family of presidential fame, who all emigrated to the US from Zeeland in the 19th century. Sometimes I wish I studied there, but they don’t have Water Management as I know it) 

It was me and my fellow American Ethan making a potato-onion-mincemeat dish, which I have entirely forgotten the name of. But it was good, I think we beat the Bulgarians at their own cuisine. For dessert it was an impossible amount of rice pudding: we had three big pots going at once, four or five kilos of the good stuff was dished out. This is what happens when the organizers buy too many ingredients!

Finally, on Saturday it was good weather again so I got out my bike and rode 20 miles north to the next island, over the Scheldt-ring storm surge barrier. My mission was to test my bikepacking setup for a big trip I’ve got planned in April, and to explore the vast dune areas near the coast. It was pretty warm and I was really sweaty, so I went for a swim to cool off. As you might’ve guessed, the North Sea in March is anything but warm, I found it refreshing. Inland, I found shallow lakes and tall conifers that made a Minnesotan feel right at home. There’s a cool watchtower in this preserve too, though I was disappointed to learn that the forest is only a hundred years old. All 330 hectares were planted in the 1920s to stabilize the dunes, quite the achievement considering the state of these trees!

The place was quiet for a weekend, I reckon that I wouldn’t see another soul if I was there on a weekday. In the great Dutch tradition it was a headwind riding there and a headwind riding back. I stopped to investigate the wholesale seafood store on Neeltje Jans island which lives up to its reputation– I’ll be back there soon. Another short stop for ice cream, and then back to Middelburg. Thank goodness the snack bars have all opened for the season now. 

Hopefully you’ve all enjoyed hearing about my busy week! Considering all I do, it’s amazing that I can still find time to write these updates and watch the occasional Formula One race. So, life has been good. A fine week to you!

Successful week to you/succesvolle week voor jou, 

Aaron