Where do I live?

As some of you know, the travel from Nijmegen to Amsterdam four days a week was a killer (and expensive). It just so happened that for the first month of my new job there was no direct train. On average I was spending 4.5 hours a day in the train. A day. In the train. I took to taking cereal with and having breakfast in the train so I could have breakfast at a semi-normal time.

Time to live somewhere else.

Before my contract started in Amsterdam I was busy trying to find somewhere to live. Oh, the prices: a studio apartment was going to eat up at least 60% of my salary (and a 1st year PhD salary is nothing to get excited about). And pay all this cash for what? So my bed was within hopping distance of the kitchen? And do you know how much just renting a room costs? A bit more than half of what you pay for a studio. Trying to find a place to live in Amsterdam that is (a) not really crappy and (b) affordable seems hopeless. I have heard of it taking people more than a year to find a place to live.

For the past 3 and a bit weeks, and for the next 2 months, my new home is Utrecht (and it is Martijn's home on weekends). Via-via we heard of a couple who were going on holiday for 3 months and wanted to sublet their apartment. So here I am living in a strangers apartment surrounded by stuff that I'm scared I'm going to break (I only brought clothes and a sheets). I'm scared that I might clean the bathroom with non-approved cleaning products or forget to deadlock the door and I will return to find all the designer furniture and gadgets stolen (the other week when I was walking to the train station to head to the airport even came back to check that the door was locked). I see a water mark on the coffee table and can't remember if it was already there or not.... living in a 'trendy' place that is not your own is stressful. This being said, I can state that square sinks have no functional place in a kitchen and dark tiles in the bathroom near the basin only get covered in bits of toothpaste that fly out of your mouth while you brush your teeth. Why do people want these things?


Grotere kaart weergeven (see, Utrecht is in the middle)

I have learnt that if you want to have 'design' stuff in your place, make sure it is the functional sort.

What else has been going on? Work is okay. I don't feel like I'm really doing anything much except learn how to use a heap of new computer programs and new computer operating systems. Also, I am taking a 1st year uni subject (computer programming in Java). And as of November I will also be the new Web Master for the research institute where I work. When did I become so technical? Or perhaps put correctly, when did people start thinking that I was technical? (note: only people my own age or older are under the impression that I am technical. The 1st year Java students all assume I am repeating the Java subject because, as one student put it, I am obviously not a 1st year uni student)

So, work is encouraging me to push my technical boundaries. This is perhaps not a bad thing. I was starting to think that technology had passed me by because I couldn't work out how to get my public transport chip thing to work for all modes of transport (buses and metro = good beep sounds; train = bad beep sounds). I have, however, caught up again.

Oh, want to hear about my bargain-hunting skills? On Friday I am going to Japan for a work thing and thought it might be handy to have a map and information about Tokyo (I saw an overview of the Tokyo rail system and it freaked me out). There were two copies of a book on Tokyo: one was the 7th edition and the other was the 8th edition and the price was more than 20 euros ($28 AD) regardless of the edition. I spoke to the manager and I offered to help them out by buying the older edition for a heavily discounted price. And it worked. Sometimes, I think I am more Dutch than the real Dutch.

September has been a month of:

• winning badminton (my badminton buddy returned from o/s)
• only web-cam photos (the camera broke)
• bringing my suitcase to Utrecht
• keeping food waste in the freezer until it can be easily disposed of
• conference in Germany
• upcoming conference in Tokyo
• watching a total laryngectomy be performed on a fresh cadaver (I had to excuse myself twice during the procedure)
• no sport (except for the one game of badminton)
  
• re-installing Skype (yes, you can now contact me again.... if you dont have my skype name just let me know)
• not sleeping well (strange bed, weird mattress, no-one to warm my feet)
  
• a Vegemite and chocolate package arriving from my mum
  

I'm looking forward to:

• seeing Maria and Lars in a few weeks
• exploring more of Utrecht
  
• talking more to my supervisors about doing some research in Australia for 4 to 6 months as part of my PhD (in 2012)... imagine that
• convincing my supervisor that he should take me with him to Brisbane next year for a workshop.. imagine that