A Year in Utrecht

I have felt many times in the last ten months of being abroad that I am experiencing something in my life that I will never again. A once-in-a-lifetime experience if you will. But right now as I enjoy Greek village life with Konstantina and her family, I feel it more than ever.  Not only am I having new experiences like swimming in warm water for the first time, but I am seeing a side of Greece and life that would be impossible to be a part of as a tourist. Thanks to my impeccable taste in friends, I have the privilege of eating local food, going to local beaches, listening to local folk music, as well as getting first-hand exposure to the classic Greek mothering that I have been hearing and enjoying memes about. Breakfast time In the mornings Konstantina and I eat breakfast on the terrace looking out at the cherry tree covered hills, and we stay there, reading and chatting, occasionally running an errand for said Greek mother, until it is time for the mid-day meal. In Greece the m...

Hello! After competing my thesis project and effectively my master's program, I am back to the blog. Currently, I am in Athens with my built-in Greek tour guide, Konstantina who wants a taste of fame and requested to co-write this post. I must repay her for her guiding services so, I have graciously accepted this request. Her thoughts are represented in bold  while mine remain classically roman (lol).  We spent three days here in Athens, and tomorrow we will head to Konstantina's hometown (village) to get some proper relaxation in the Greek countryside. Although the time we spent in the Greek capital were fantastic, it also opened my eyes to the fragility of the social and political systems we live and work within, and has reemphasized the need to fight for and protect our rights as human beings.  I have to admit; it's an honor to be invited in this co-authorship activity - thank you Abby! Well, being back to Athens reminded me in a nutshell, all the things that I love an...

A few weeks ago, I went to the library as I normally do, locked my bike to a small pedestrian bridge, as normal, and went inside. When I finished my work for the day that evening, I came out to get my bike, only to find that another had taken its place, and mine was nowhere to be seen. Before I left home, Rachel (my sister) gifted me a tracking device which I had taped to my bike in the event that it was stolen. I checked the corresponding app to see where it had wandered off to and found that it was across the city, in a warehouse district.  My immediate assumption was that it had been stolen, as is common here (and everywhere). I spent the next several days sending curses and ill will to whoever had taken it upon themselves to steal my beater of a bike. After complaining to several friends about my misfortune, someone suggested that I look on the municipality website to see if anyone had turned it in. To my dismay, I did find it on the municipality website, complete with its own ...

"In many ways the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgement." -- Anton Ego (Ratatouille)  Everyone, it seems, has an opinion on the city of Paris. For all of my life I had heard the seemingly fantastical tales of the City of Light from my grandparents, from friends, from media, from everywhere in fact. The Disney classic, Ratatouille, set in Paris, was my favorite movie as a kid (and still is), further fueling my imaginative picture of what the city is really like. I had expectations of a city brimming with fresh baguettes, buttery croissants, and beret-topped Parisians all with a backdrop of a gleaming Eiffel tower and sparking Seine.  Before I left, I made a little promise to myself that I would not be disappointed. I knew that my image of Paris was too good to be true and therefore I should prepare for a more realistic version of the place that I made up in my head. That being sa...

This week I officially gained Dutch citizenship (in my eyes at least). I moved across town, in with Constantina and out of my fortress of solitude. Now, how does one move without a car, one might wonder to ones self. Well the answer is with a bike of course! A cargo bike to be precise. In the Netherlands, you can rent an e-cargo bike by the minute (10 cents per), much like you would rent a shared e-scooter, or a bikeshare bike via a mobile app. Cargo bikes are the pickup trucks of the Netherlands, and are known in the bicycle planning world as a true replacement for any car needs. In them you can carry anything. From groceries, to children, pets, or even your friends, they are perfect for any kind of hauling. I used one to get all of my clothes, and miscellaneous items across town in one trip, and then yesterday, completed my most Dutch feat to date... The room I moved into was a bit larger than I was expecting (lucky me) so my meager belongings did not quite fill it out. So in an effo...

It seems I promised another Belgium post, and did not carry through. As I mentioned (some time ago at this point), I went to Belgium in February with my parents. We went to the cities of Ghent, Bruges, and Antwerp. Ghent was the most medieval city I have ever seen. Think Game of Thrones times Harry Potter with a touch of Throne of Glass (if you know, you know); that is, until I went to Bruges. Ghent had that whole mossy, damp, run down kind of feel with molding buildings that clearly haven't been altered in centuries. Bruges on the other hand was more like stepping back in time to the height of the medieval era, complete with the near constant sound of horses hooves clopping along on the cobbled streets.  Bruges Ghent  While in Bruges, we toured the historic "de Halve Maan" brewery, home to the world's first ever beer pipeline, which transports the freshly brewed beer two miles across the city to the bottling plant. Although it sounds tempting, we were informed that n...

They say that the Dutch are direct, and the Germans, punctual. These statements, paired with my lived experience, have lead me to believe that stereotypes such as these are not only inaccurate, but are in fact the opposite of true. In the six months that I have been across the pond I have missed vital connections due to notorious late German trains (see post Berlout) and fumbled social interactions due to what I now know to be the Dutch tendency to say one thing and mean quite another.  Two weeks ago my parents came to visit me in Utrecht, and from here, we ventured over to neighboring Belgium for a bit of an adventure. This post will not chronicle the highlights of that trip. This post is dedicated solely to the only true stereotype in Europe. That, is the Belgian waffles.  Now, I've been burned before by seemingly delicious (Dutch) foods which turned out to be unexciting and unoriginal. This was not the case with the famous Belgian waffle. I've had waffles that claimed Belgi...

Historically, Berlin has not been the easiest city to get out of, and it seems this holds true in modern times.  On the day of our departure, Guy and I spent the day pursuing the museums of "museum island", enjoying some art as well as various ancient historical objects. Usual museum suspects. I'll admit that my stamina was particularly low that day as the previous night had been our exploration of Berlin's famous techno scene. I spent much of the day fantasizing about chilling out on the train, and the comfy bed that awaited me at the other end of it. At around five, we managed our last long trek through (bitterly cold) Berlin, at long last reaching the pearly gates of the central station.  By the time we collapsed into our seats on the train, my feet were aching (thanks Dr. Marten) and I was ready to sit still for the six hour ride. Guy and I settled in to watch some Avatar: The Last Airbender (no judgement, it's a timeless classic), and I was feeling happy abou...

For the past several days, Guy and I have been traipsing about the city of Berlin, Germany. From Utrecht to Berlin it takes about six and a half hours by train to get there, assuming all goes smoothly. On the way there it was just that; smooth, easy, fun even.  Berlin was much different from what I was expecting pre-arrival. Having done very little research before our adventure, this is not terribly surprising. For one, the city is gigantic. It is about 554 square miles, compared to New York's 302, and LA's 501. However, even though it is nearly two times as large as the biggest apple, its population is less than half. This means that one of my first impressions of the city was that it feels very empty. Guy and I did a (very) significant amount of walking during our time there and it didn't seem to matter what location, nor what time of day it was, there were the same amount of people walking around. There was the same lack of bustle at 4am as there was at 4pm. Not to say t...

2023 came to a close last night, and let me just say, the Dutch really know how to welcome a new year.  In the weeks leading up to the new year, I'd been noticing a steady increase in the number of explosions heard during both dark hours and light, but I was decidedly unprepared for the culmination of festivities last night.  I'll preface this story with another one. Guy is visiting me for a few weeks, and yesterday we thought we'd go into Amsterdam and check out a few things. The plan was to go for one of the free walking tours, and then revisit and get a closer look at a few spots that piqued our interests. Well this plan was foiled, first by  a wrong train (my fault) and then by a desperate search for a bathroom (Guy's fault) which resulted in us missing first the 1 o'clock and then the 2 o'clock tours.  No matter though, in classic McFeeters-Krone fashion, we changed plans, rerouting for the Anne Frank museum. We were met there with the news that the museum ...

The allure of royal attention has been captivating the unwashed commoners for as long as the institution has been in existence. Today I got to witness first hand what sort of effect the presence of a Queen can have on a room full of equally (if not more so) influential individuals.  This term I am in a class entitled "Techniques of Futuring" in which there are about 20 students and an equal number of "practitioners" (people who work in all kinds of areas such banking, policymaking, the arts, private consultancies, you name it-- all with an interest in our class subject). Our goal for the term is to simulate the start of a movement focused on justice in the energy transition, utilizing the idea of imagining a just future (futuring) as our guiding method. As students we are in charge of coming up with the foundations of the movement, (e.g. mission statement, focus areas, target audience, and what our action or protests will consist of) and the practitioners advise us ...