Groningen

After two crazy months of work and travel and thus, blog inactivity, I am writing again from the Netherlands, which was the real birthplace of this blog already many years ago. In the meanwhile, we have been to Tainan in Southern Taiwan and around Chengdu, in Sichuan, China.

After more than 5 years without coming back to the Netherlands, I came for a conference in Groningen, in the North of the country.

Groningen is a nice student town with a compact and beautiful city center. Some buildings are truly gorgeous and the general feel of the city is pretty nice. Groningen can be reached from Schiphol Airport by train (just over 2h). For me, it was the first time to go that far North in spite of having lived in the country for two years.

Now, some photos to show you the city!

My last weekend in the Netherlands

It is almost 3 months since I left the Netherlands and I must admit I miss many people from there! The weather was terrible, that's true, but people were nice! I have just come accross some photos I took during my last weekend in Leiden in July.

I went out with Felipe and Cynthia on Friday, to have the last good Leffe biertjes in Leiden:




And there was time even for creativity! :) Felipe's work!



On Saturday, we enjoyed a great sunset in Bloemendaal. A nice beach area near Harlem.





So, this is dedicated to everybody I met in the Netherlands. I miss you!

Sport times in the Netherlands

When I came back from Athens last Monday, I went directly to Amsterdam to see Bad Religion live! In the end, I got carried away in the concert and decided to go trashing instead of taking pictures... :)

But at the same time, the Euro2008 was on and the Netherlands was playing Italy! What means a huge match! The concert hall where Bad Religion played was next to Leidse Plein, one of the most famous squares in Amsterdam and the atmosphere was incredible: Dutch were already using fireworks before the game!





The Netherlands defeated Italy 3-0... so you can imagine the result... people in orange drunk and pushing the trams as they passed by! hahaha...

The next day was the turn for Spain and we won against Russia and scored 4 goals!! Of course, I watched it in a pub in Leiden with all the Spanish people.

On Friday, Holland played against France and the score was 4-1!!! People went crazy...




And all the Spanish community and friends joined the party! I was wearing an orange T-shirt to support my "home country" ;-) We were partying until late at night...




Next morning, I bought a Spanish national team jersey and went to our usual pub, Bad Habbits, to support Spain. There were some Swedish there... And we won in the last minute!! Unbelievable!!

In addition to all this, now it is time to watch one football match per day. And NBA!! The NBA Finals are still being played! Last night, I woke up at 5am to see the final quarters of the game and LA Lakers won!! Let's go Lakers! Let's go Gasol!!!

Columbus Astronauts (STS-122)

Last Tuesday, the astronauts in the Space Shuttle Mission 122 came to ESTEC. These astronauts were the ones who brought the European Laboratory, Columbus, to the International Space Station. There was an astronaut missing, but he was still up there or just came back. They explained their mission and the deployment of Columbus and answered to our questions.

This is one of the best things of working at a place such as ESTEC!!

These were the crew:



The conference room was full, mostly with young people!




And they signed some official photos of the mission which were handed out in the conference room. Before getting mine signed, I also got a picture with them!!

Mifergi in ESTEC

Wow, what a long Champions League final game tonight! Congrats to Manchester United supporters!

Today, Miguel Angel, my house mate when I studied Telecom Engineering in Valencia came to ESTEC and we had lunch together. It was really nice to meet him after so long and to get to know life is treating him well! It was also kind of a shock to see him suited up! What has happened to us! We were around 20 when we started leaving in our appartment in Ramon Llull... and now we are in the space industry, wearing suits for meetings and travelling abroad for work... Well, it looks like we succeeded in getting an interesting life!!



Por cierto, Mifergi parece un reportero de CQC!! :)

Back in Leiden

I am finally back in Leiden after more than 1 week out of town. I have visited London with my family, enjoyed in my home town and visited Paris (Louvre Museum and Montmartre) before coming back to my "home" country. And met many of my friends: in London, Almansa and Paris! I will tell you about everything in the coming days. Now the weather is amazing here. Temperatures are slightly below 30 degrees and it is the time to bring all our summer clothes out of the wardrobe!

When it is sunny in here, this can be one of the most marvelous places on Earth where to live! As an example, this photo I took with my mobile phone some time ago.

Sinter Klaas

This post comes really late... I admit I should have written it like some months ago. But later is better than never :) Besides, some Dutch tradition is not bad from time to time!

In the Netherlands, there is no Santa Claus or Three Wise men tradition. Instead they have Sinter Klaas. Sinter Klaas (Saint Nicholas) looks pretty much like Santa Claus but it is completely different. He comes on 5th December, for example.



The story tells that Sinter Klaas comes by boat from Spain a few days/weeks before 5th Dec (Sinter Klaas' day). The day he arrives in the Netherlands, TV broadcasts his arrival in the country. Some weeks before 5th Dec, kids leave their shoes next to the fireplace and sing some Sinter Klaas songs. The day after, they will get some chocolate or cookies. That goes on for some days/weeks depending on how good kids have been or family economy! Since he arrives in the country, he travels from South to North. Every day, he is in a different city or region. For example, last December, I found a crowd composed mostly by children waiting in Leiden's main square, next to the small boats'harbour. The explanation I got from a Dutch college was that they were waiting for Sinter Klaas to arrive at Leiden.



Additionally, Sinter Klaas has an assistant called Zwarte Piet (Black Peter). He is not black, just he is dirty with chimney soot he gets when he comes into houses using the chimney! This Zwarte Piet (or Zwarte Piets, as they usually come in packs of 2 or 3) give cookies or chocolates to kids. Those days, it is actually normal to find cinnamon cookies everywhere! In every shop or every restaurant!



We also had one guy disguised as Sinter Klaas and some Zwarte Piets in ESTEC! They were asking some people what they wanted for the coming year at lunch in the main restaurant!

Ahh, by the way, if kids behave badly during the year, Sinter Klaas takes you with him to Spain!! Just another proof that the wars between the Netherlands and Spain for religion are still well rooted in Dutch tradition!

Paseo por Leiden

The weather in Leiden has been really nice since last Sunday. Temperatures have risen and the sun shines... days like these make you feel the Netherlands is a nice place to live in!! The problem is the harsh winter and the lack of a proper summer... If only it'd be spring all year round!!

Last Sunday, I went for a walk in Leiden (first possibility for a walk since maybe july last year!) and took some pictures. Here, there are some of them:

Sunday in Amsterdam

Yesterday, I was all day long in Amsterdam. Last year, I bought a card, the Museumskaart, which gives you free access to almost all the museums in the country. However, I am not very fond of museums and I did not go that often. Therefore, I tried to compensate for all these months of not visiting museums in the Netherlands, and I went to Amsterdam to visit as many places as possible.

The first I did once I arrived at the central station, I checked the front gate. Some weeks ago, I read in Kirai.com that Tokyo Station had been designed taking Amsterdam Station as a model. Actually, now I am pretty sure that is the case! Have a look! The first one is the one in Amsterdam, the second one is Tokyo Eki.




Afterwards, I headed towards NEMO, the science museum. When I arrived there, I found out I could not use my card there... so I decided to move to Sloterdijk Museum, a modern art museum nearby. I really enjoyed this visit! I think I quite like modern art. This photo shows the interesting building in which NEMO is.



And this is the view from the 11th floor of the builing housing Sloterdijk Museum.



Then, I went South, getting lost in the Red Light District. I wanted to see the Oude Kerk (old church), which was nice according to my guidebook. When I found it, it was closed. So, I checked a close place where I could go. By chance, I read in my book that there was one of the more enjoyable places in Amsterdam just a few blocks away. This place was a secret catholic church. When the prostestants defeated the catholic around the 17th century, catholics could not have churches any more. However, Dutch authorities were quite lax and they allowed catholic gatherings in churches provided nobody could tell it was a church from outside. Then, these people decided to join the penthouses of three house and they created a church there. This place is quite unique. You go into a normal Dutch house, start climbing the stairs (in Dutch houses it is literally climbing...) and in the 3rd floor, surprise! a church... I was quite taken aback... This is what it looks like.



Then, I went to the Oude Kerk and checked it out. In my opinion just another church... it was quite messy though... it had been made bigger little by little and it looks quite heterogenous now. This is the organ, quite beautiful...



After that, I came back to the city and went through one of the biggest contrasts Amsterdam shows. You go out of the church and you are in the middle of the Red Light District, with prostitutes and sex shops everywhere. Sometimes, Dutchies keep on surprising me! This is a country full of contrasts and sometimes, grotesque stuff...

I made for a place with less junkies and ended up in Dam Square. Here, a photo of the Obelisque and the Royal Palace, together with the Nieuw Kerk (New Church) on the right.



Then I continued walking along the streets full of shops parallel to the Amstel canal and checked some book stores. I ended up in Rembrandtsplein, so I decided to visit Rembrandt's house. I was surprised when I found out it is not in that square but a bit further away on the other side of the canal, near the Portuguese Synagogue. I visited the house and it was cool. I was happy I had visited it for free! There are no photos though, not allowed. Then I just came back walking to the Centraal Station and back to Leiden by train.

This photo is from the nice clock tower next to the Flower's Market.



At the end, I could visit 5 museums/places, saving around 30 euros. Maybe I will do the same next weekend!