Running route: keep straight on and make a U-turn after 5km

Running routes in Delft are quite easy to follow. Today’s route was as follows: first we went straight, then we made a U-turn and then we went the same way straight home again :-) Another route, which we took last week, featured more variety, because we had to go four times left. This was nice, although the straight parts seem to never end.

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Next time we should run around De Grote Plas in Delftse Hout:

BTW: I am wondering whether Dutch websites, which allow runners to upload their running stats and GPS logs, also plot an elevation profile: ________________ :-)

Is she real?

Last weekend Lydia and I went to Mauritshuis (Den Haag) and Kunsthal (Rotterdam) to ask ourselves: is she real? “She” is the girl with the pearl earring, who does not look like the traditional girl from the 17th century and was painted by Vermeer. And “she” is the lady, who was relaxing (without clothes) in the middle of the Kunsthal exhibition area and made people behave quite strangely :-) I am wondering whether there exist videos showing how people behave when they are confronted with Duane Hanson‘s people (the visitors, tired man, facility manager).

At the moment, Kunsthal also presents paintings from Edvard Munch. However, I could not really enjoy these paintings because I was still shocked by Hanson’s (artificial?) people.

Back in Delft: where is the snow?

During Christmas break I was in Germany. We started our Christmas tour in Halle (Saale) with nice live music at Brohmers and then went to Magdeburg, Waren (Mueritz) and Hannover. If one counts in my tour from Delft to Hannover then I did more than 1500km in 5 days to have a cozy Christmas celebration with my lovely family :-) Thanks to snow and delays the overall traveling time was something like 200 hours :-)

Back in Delft I was wondering where all the snow and ice is gone. Before I left, I thought that I could make my first skating experiences on the frozen canals in Delft, but now all the ice is gone.

December 20th

January 4th

Anyhow, I am happy to be back in a city with an Albert Heijn and I am looking forward to make use of my new Museumkaart!

Lichtjesavond in Delft

Yesterday evening there was some sort of Christmas market in Delft, the so-called Lichtjesavond. The city center was quite crowded, some music bands were playing on stage, people were singing and the city was illuminated very nicely. I tried to take some pictures with my mobile phone, but the quality of my camera is either too low or I had already too many hot wine punches :-)

In the evening Menno and I then had Zuurkool en Worst at home and were listening too Jazz music with intensive bass, very nice! At midnight there was suddenly also noticed a bass resonance coming from the first floor. We thought that our neighbors switched on the music as well, until we realized that it was the heating system. Danger! The sounds were really bad and we feared that it will explode, but “luckily” the heating system simply stopped working after five minutes so that we could have a safe and freezing night :-/

High Voltage Snow in Delft?

It is currently snowing in Delft (like in most European countries). You can see it on the Webcam of the botanic garden (from TU Delft). This week Menno showed me the high voltage lab of TU Delft. It’s an incredible large hall where they do tests with really high voltage. They even have a construction where they can test the influence of rain on their high voltage devices/cables (it is the tower on the left):

I was wondering whether they can also put snow under high voltage :-)

Knight Willem van der Poel

Last Friday a living legend was giving a colloquium at the ST department: Willem van der Poel, who is basically the inventor of the computer in the Netherlands. Although he is already 83 years old (CV), he still doing research! Incredible. And when he is at university, he is just sitting two offices next to me :-) In his talk he was explaining to us the principles of cellular automata and how one can design useful computing elements with them. It was an honor to listen to him.

Welcome Sinterklaas!

Yesterday, Sinterklaas arrived in Delft. I heard already that Sinterklaas Day is an important celebration in the Netherlands, but I did not expect that his arrival is also a big party. Sinterklaas comes together with Zwarte Pieten, who help him distributing presents.

Some black Petes come on Jet Skis and drive like crazy.

After the landing Sinterklaas, the crazy Petes, brass bands and all the children went to the city center. Lydia and I joined them as well and climbed on top of the Nieuwe Kerk to watch the celebration in front of the town hall from above.

Today we went to Den Haag and had a bread with eel at the harbor. Great weekend!

La Schouffe

Every second Thursday there is an international pub evening evening organized by Joe. It usually takes place in Bier Cafe ‘t Proefkaal, I think, which is a nice pub that has an incredible high variety of beers. I know that it can get quite difficult to order a beer. I was looking for some special beer, which I had half a year before in another pub in Delft. It reminded me on Tannenzaepfle, but I didn’t know the name. After discussing almost 15 min with the bar keeper (Mischa), I finally took another Belgium beer (forgot the name, but this was actually very tasty). Then Ilknur ordered a beer: La Chouffe, the one I was searching for :)

Of course, my next beer was a La Chouffe. But to be honest, I preferred the other Belgium beer. As I forgot its name, I am already looking forward to my next discussion with another barkeeper in Delft.

Jazz in Delft

Work: nice. People: nice. Weather: kind of nice (yes, I could really see the sun today). Music: nice. I am happy that there is a cozy bar, in which every Tuesday there is live Jazz music. The bar is called Cafe Bebop, it’s quite small, but comes with a very nice atmosphere. Gian Luca and I went there already the second time and I think this will get one of my favorites. Tuesdays they do some sort of Jam Session, which ends up in many Jazz standards but is still nice :-)

 

Registration at Gemeente Delft and Table

If you start working in the Netherlands and would like to open a bank account, you need to register at your local city hall, so in the city where you live (you will also need to bring the rental contract of your room/apartment as well as your passport and birth certificate). People who are registered in the Netherlands will get a tax number (burgerservicenummer, BSN), which is required to get a bank account. For me, registration at Gemeente Delft was quite convenient: I called them on Monday morning (14015), made an appointment for 11:30, arrived there at 11:25 and left at 11:45 (no waiting at all, just some problems with my birth certificate, now I know that it should also somehow work without birth certificate :)

BTW: I now also have a table in my room:

Goede Nacht!