Dutch things in the US

It's been a while since my last post. I think that my daily routine is abut too boring to write blog posts about, I therefore will start off with a blog post about some of the Dutch things I've encountered in Michigan.

To start off, I've only briefly spoken to another Dutch person a few weeks ago, there seems to be a lack of Dutch and Flemish students inn Ann Arbor. The French and Germans seem to be well represented however.

The first thing is the cheese plane or kaasschaaf. I had often heard that this was a Dutch invention and hard to get outside the Netherlands. Its availability at the local Kroger seems to counter that.

 

Rookworst

No Dutch winter meal is supposed to be complete without a rookworst. It seems that these smoked sausages are quite prevelant in michigan as well.

Let us not forget speculaas (windmill cookies)

I have never before heard of chocovine. I think it's one of those Dutch things that is exclusively exported (like many of the Dutch cheeses which I did not photograph).

There was also so e Dutch chocolate to be found.

 

 

One of the main differences between the products is that they're not just labeled in SI (metric), but also in medieval USC units which includes units such as oz, fl oz, lb, qt, gal, gulp, chug etc.

 

First contact with UofM

My fortunate fortune cookie.

Something If forgot to add to my previous post is the fortune cookie I received during my first lunch/meal. I thought it was a good beginning of my stay in Ann Arbor. It says "FUNCTIONING SUPERBLY COMES AUTOMATICALLY TO YOU".

I started Thursday with a walk to the Aerospace building to get an office assignment. This involved filling in a form after which I got a key request form. Unlike TU Delft locks at UofM use "old fashioned" keys instead of RFID. This means that in order to get access to the office I had to go to the key office in central campus and pay a five dollar deposit.

An official UofM key!

So after some introductions around the dept. I decided to head to the kroger's to do some shopping. On my way there I passed by the UM credit union, I decided to go in to ask if I could open an account there as a visiting scholar, this wasn't a problem and a short time later I had a US bank account and 8 temporary checks (I only need six to pay my rent). I grabbed a sub at the sandwich shop next to the bank and headed back home.

After lunch I headed to the key office on central campus. After a short wait my key was made. I read on facebook that the international center was organising a trip to the Detroit auto show, that sounded good so I wanted to buy a ticket. Once I got to the ticket office I found out they were sold out. I would still like to go there, but I'm not sure how I'll manage without a car (renting+ticket might get too expensive for my student budget).

My desk at UofM, the chair's back rest squeaks loudly.

The international center organised a meeting with other international students to get to know people. Most students were from China (of course), but there were a few people from Europe. I was however the only Dutch person in the room. After exchanging some phone numbers interested (and 21+) students decided to go the a bar later that night. It was fun.

I went to the dept. meeting of my research group on Friday, it was pretty short due to a PhD defence later in the afternoon. I got to meet my prof. in person as well as a number of students and researchers in the dept. After the meeting I headed to my office to try out the network and printing. I quickly discovered that the printing system is somewhat archaic. In Delft we use a system that allows you to directly print to a server. You can then swipe your campus card at any printer on campus and have your documents printed (and stapled automatically if you wish). At UM it is not possible to print directly to printers/a print server. Instead you are stuck using a web interface creating additional steps to printing documents. This immediately become more annoying when I tried to print out a thesis which was more than 25 MB in size. I had to use acrobat to split the pdf into two documents before I could send it to the printer. The printer itself also acted a bit quirky, it stopped halfway through the document, spat out a lot of white pages and started printing over again. After finally having printed out my thesis I had my Mcard (campus card) activated for building access off hours (the buildings are always open inside, unlike Delft). After a stop at a wine/beer store and a supermarket I headed home. After dropping off my groceries I went to a nearby Indian grocer and ordered some spicy lamb biryani. That was my week so far. 

I went for a walk downtown saturdayafternoon, taking it easy sunday as my many walks through the cool air have taken a toll on my thoat.

An exhausting start

My bedroom.

The last few days have been quite exhausting. I had to sleep on the couch in Sunday and next to my dad on Monday. I don't think I had more than a total of 6 hours of sleep on those nights.

After an early start (5:30) and a drive to the airport I said goodbye to my parents at about 8:30. After going through screening at the gate I noticed Thijs, a fellow master student was also in the lounge waiting for the plane. It seemed that his trip to Boulder, CO (to do research at the University of Colorado) started with a flight to Detroit.

My shower.

The flight itself was quite tiring (a shortage of sleep does not help), the food was mediocre at best. I sat next to a Canadian who was originally from India. He was flying India -> Amsterdam -> Detroit -> Toronto -> 1.5 hour drive. He was already 24 hours into his trip, I'm glad I was not in his shoes.

The plane arrived 35 min early. The unloading procedure was one of the fastest I've ever experienced. After a short walk and wait inline for a passport check I got to claim my luggage (which was already out, I found my bag in less than one minute!). After a short wait at border control I was out in what must have been no more than 15 mins of waiting.

My desk, that door is supposedly an emergency exit.
The light switch does not seem to do anything.

Since I was out earlier than expected I was able to take a bus earlier. The two oddest things I saw on the ride to Ann Arbor were people talking on cell phones while driving (seems to be very common?) and lawyer ads looking for injured people. I arrived at the Blake Transit center around 15:15 EST/21:15 CET, at which time my landlord was nice enough to pick me up.

Two deer crossing the road at north campus.

After I unpacked my bag I was ready to fall asleep, but falling asleep at 16:00 is not a good way to get rid of jetlag. I decided to postpone my sleep with a walk to north campus and a walk to the supermarket. While walking through  north campus I encountered two deer running through a field, this is something you would definitely not see in Delft. Once I got to the supermarket (kroger) I was surprised by the amount of things they have. I had been to a supermarket in the US before, but that was before I cooked and looked at ingredients. There were a lot of exotic ingredients and almost an entire "international" isle dedicated to asian food. They also had some beers that I have wanted to try for a while.
After getting back from shopping I sat around until my housemates came home. After introducing myself and discussing cupboard spaces etc. I had the choice of ordering dinner or going to sleep, I choose the latter.

My Mcard, the visiting scholar tag makes me sound like I'm a postdoc or something(?)

I woke up relatively early and went to get my Mcard, this is UofM's campus ID and allows you to use the busses in Ann Arbor free of charge! The next thing I had to do is get a cell phone, the roaming rates are pretty bad, €1 per MB or €1.50 and calls are €1.27/min. Being a modern smart phone user in unfamiliar surroundings access to google maps was sorely missed. I decided to take advantage of the exchange rate and lower taxes I decided to get a new iPhone (my old 3GS was starting to feel antique). I got a month-to-month plan with T-Mobile for $50/mo, which isn't that bad for unlimited everything. Only the first 200 MB are on 4G speed, but considering the fact that Ann Arbor has not yet been refarmed to an iPhone compatible HSDPA+ frequency that does not really matter, I am stuck using EDGE for data either way.

Getting to the shopping mall was quite a challenge, I used the University's guest wifi to google maps the bus route to the mall. I sadly missed the bus and did not know how often that bus rode (every 30 mins I found out later). Instead of waiting to find out I decided to walk the remainder (50 min walk). On the way back I got on the bus which happened to be going in the opposite direction (to Ypsilanti), after I took notice I quickly got out and went to the bus stop on the other side of the road. It seems that the busses have the same route tag no matter the direction(!?).

Once I finally got home I had a video chat with my parents after which the landlord came over to bring some dishes and put together my desk chair. He was nice enough to drop my housemate and myself off at the supermarket after he was finished, this allowed me to get some essential supplies. After getting home I decided to get some dinner, I looked up a place which is supposed to have nice steak sandwiches, but after getting there I found out that they had already closed. I went to the pizza place next door to get a pizza after which the employee behind the register was shocked to find a customer walk in to order a pizza (I guess they're used to only having deliveries). And that is how my last two days were. I don't think I'll post in such detail every day (no one would read it, and it would take me too much time)

A hectic preparation

It's been a hectic few weeks. It all started two weeks ago. I had to bid the apartment that I had lived in for over a year farewell. One of the hardest things to say goodbye to was the view, which on this day was particularly dreary.

The move took longer than expected and involved a stop at my brother Lucas' apartment to drop off a couch. I have sold most of my furniture to my direct family in exchange for a plane ticket. The rest is temporarily stored in my parent's living room in place of their old furniture. I don't think I will use it again. I  consider myself a bit of a minimalist now. Most of possessions fit in the bag I will take with me to Ann Arbor.

After a long day of packing and moving, my parent's living room was transformed into a storage unit. This would be an annoyance any day of the year. The fact that I moved only a few days before Christmas did not help things. This meant that the next few days involved a lot of rearranging, cleaning and unpacking.

Following the wonderful Christmas celebrations the fun was not over. The new year celebrations were coming up, with guests coming over from the UK. They would be staying here. This meant that the stuff that was all moved upstairs to get it out of the living room had to be sorted. It was probably around this time in which my unworn TU Delft sweater got misplaced into a pile of things headed to the thrift store.

The new year celebrations were great. With my departure date just three days away it all feels a bit surrealistic. After some research I bought a carry on bag (why aren't the dimensions standardized?) and have been slowly packing my bags with things I want to take with me. Difficult choices have to be made. I can't take my entire library along with me. I also want space in my bags for any souvenirs I want to take with me when I head back in August.

Today I went to visit my grandmother to say goodbye. On the way we stopped at the thrift store to give away some old clothing. I had been unable to find my brand new sweater since the move so I decided to check the thrift store to see if it somehow ended up there. After a minute of searching I found it on the rack for €4.50. After explaining how I already bought it and did not mean to give it away I got a €2.50 discount. Still odd to pay for something I've already bought.

After a visit at my grandmother, who was surprised to find out that the US hadn't yet switched to the euro (I'm not sure if she was joking) I picked up some Indonesian takeaway for a nice goodbye meal this evening. This is probably the only and last post I will do from the Netherlands. I have two more days to buy a lot of liquorice to stuff the extra suitcase space with and say goodbye to my surroundings for the next 7.5 months.

I apologize if this post seems a bit hectic, it reflects the atmosphere.

View from my former home

It was nice

Alas it is the past, all things must pass.

 

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