May 7, 2007: De Koog

This weekend I biked to the town of De Koog, which is located on the west side of Texel. The town is little and very touristy because it is on the beach. I spent some time walking along the beach and dunes and then took a bike ride through the "forest" on Texel, where all the trees are planted in rows. Here is a view looking to the south from the beach. I'm not sure what all of those little houses with blue doors that are lined up against the dunes are for but I saw a horse coming out of one of them...

Looking to the north from the beach.

There was all of this foamy stuff by the edge of the water. I was sort of alarmed when the wind started blowing and these balls of slimy foam were blown across my feet. But then I noticed that other people were walking through it and all these kids were playing in it - so hopefully it's not anything too nasty!

There are dunes separating the beach from the town of De Koog. Within the dunes there appears to be hundreds of campsites cramed into a tiny space. I'm not really sure what the point of camping here would be - the center of town is a 2 minute walk away on the other side of the dunes and there was loud techno music blasting from some large building located within the dunes. But camping here seems to be very popular. I guess if you wanted to go to the bar or out for a nice meal while camping it would be convienent? I'll have to check out some of the other camping spots on the island and see if they're all like this or not...

I guess one good thing about these campsites is that they are located right off of a paved bike path. It's sort of amazing how much stuff people carry on their bikes here. I saw someone yesterday who had a sleeping bag, tent, large cook stove, frame pack, food and a bunch of other stuff on the back of his bike.

A view of the town of De Koog, looking in the opposite direction from the dunes. This is one of the few "hills" I've seen here.

A sign in the dunes... I think it is saying something like "watch out for the speed bumps" but I really have no idea.

Another view of the ferry. It was coming in when I went to the lab this morning.

And a view of the lab - I'm relatively sure that most of the lab is actually below sea level!

May 4, 2007: My apartment

I am currently living in temporary housing at a place called Tubantia, which can best be described as an abandoned hotel. I'm not sure why anyone would build a hotel in this location to begin with - the place is literally surrounded by sheep fields on all sides.

Another view of Tubantia. My room shares the top balcony on the left. I'm hoping that I will be able to move somewhat closer to the lab by the fall since the winds are incredibly strong here and I'm pretty sure that biking between this place and the lab would be miserable in the winter. Yesterday it was quite windy out and it took me about 3 times as long to bike home from the lab as it took to get there in the morning...

My apartment is tiny but has two floors. This is the downstairs. There is a small deck outside of that door.

Another view of the main floor. You might think the brown thing on the left is a closet...

but in fact it is the kitchen...

Cooking in this kitchen is an experience. I definitely won't be making anything complicated here. The sink is so small it can really only fit one medium-sized pot. And there's no dishwasher so I'll actually have to wash my dishes. Yuck.

There is an incredibly steep staircase to the upstairs of the apartment. Actually, I've seen a lot steeper staircases than this one in The Netherlands but it's definitely a lot steeper than any typical staircase in the US. Let's just say it's not the type of thing you could quickly run down... At least this one doesn't require using your hands and climbing it like a ladder - however, you do need to hold on to the railing or the wall. These pictures don't do a real good job of showing how steep it is.

This is the upstairs of the apartment.This is the view of the manure field from my window. Last night the manure field was plowed so I'm hoping that will improve the smell..

I discovered that Texel has more than just sheep - there are also cows! And those tulips I took a picture of yesterday have now been all chopped off.

May 3, 2007: Texel

I have now been in The Netherlands for 3 days, although the first day doesn't really count since I basically arrived here in a daze and then went to sleep. I'm living on the island of Texel (pronounced more like Tessel), which is located in the North Sea. Check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texel for more information... So far I've been done such fun things as going to the grocery store (it's sort of fun trying to figure out what to buy when everything is in Dutch), figuring out how to ride the bus (luckily all of the bus routes on Texel eventually end up in the same place so if you get on the wrong one, it's no big deal), and I've started on the paperwork I need to fill out for my post-doc. I get to go to the immigration office in Den Helder sometime soon, I'm sure that will be fun... I've also rented a typical Dutch-style bike to get around with for a while until I find I decent bike to buy. The Dutch bikes take some getting used to - you sit up straight on them so riding is kind of strange. I've heard numerous stories about people ending up in the canals/ditches that always run alongside the bike paths so hopefully that won't happen to me. I can definitely see how it could happen though...


A tulip field on Texel - this is one of the few with the flowers still remaining. The majority of tulip fields have had the flowers chopped off already so that more energy goes to the bulb.


These sheep live in the field right next to my apartment building, which is basically surrounded by fields. Directly across from my apartment is a large field that is currently covered with manure. I'm seriously hoping they plow it under or do something with it soon, because my apartment is not smelling so great at the moment... I'll try to remember to take some picts of my apartment soon.


More sheep... they're everywhere here!

A view from the bike path. The bike paths are almost as wide as the roads in some places, and there are bike paths on either side of the road. This morning I was at in intersection that had a traffic light and there was also a little traffic light for the bike path traffic, which was nice!




This is the ferry that takes you from the city of Den Helder on the mainland to the island of Texel. The ride takes about 20 minutes and the ferrys leave every 30 mins throughout most of the day.

A view from somewhere along a road on Texel. This is what much of the landscape looks like here.