July 30, 2007 First day of class!

My entry is about the first day of our program, summer has been going for quite some time and Mark and I flew into Amsterdam about a week ago so at first it was a bit weird getting back into the groove of going to class and really focusing on our research. Everyone had moved into the dorms over the weekend and we all had fun exploring the city, shops, museums, as well as some bars and coffeeshops. Overall I think everyone has been having a really good time just relaxing and orienting themselves. But now it was time to think about why we were actually here in the Netherlands.

At 10:00 we all gathered in the 1st floor (meaning up one flight here) classroom and had our overview of the schedule and normal logistics. Most of us took a break trying to figure out how to work the vending coffee machines in the cantina, not bad coffee for something shooting out of a mechanical machine :) Back in the room Mirjam gave a really interesting lecture about the Dutch people and her take on what pragmaticism was really about here, essentially that it is regulated tolerance as a way to exercise control. I found it particularly interesting to hear the view of a Dutch person on the subject matter and how the views and ways of dealing with 'problems' are so different from how they are in the states. A good example is how the Dutch look at addiction as simply a health problem rather than adding the moral aspect that Americans do.



I found the sociological explanation that hisorical need for water management was the reason for the cooperative nature of the Dutch to be extrememly interesting and so simple (and apparently the simpler the better here) We also learned the basics of the pillar model, but sadly I only got a blurry picture of Mirjam's excellent sketch of the pillars. Overall the lecture was great, and included some pretty awesome videos of rapping about drug policies that I have added to this post.

We finished class with a short lesson on Dutch, which I've realized there are some sounds like the 'g' one that I'm not sure I can ever make. It's sort of fun to try out simple Dutch words but I think the only phrase I have ever really been able to use in real life is 'dank u wel' and I think that is probably because it sounds a lot like 'thank you.'






Afterwards, Irina led us in a small circle around part of the city, it was nice having someone point out things about areas and show us some good restaurants and bars. Most of my pictures are from this excursion.





Later in the day Mark and I tried to go back to this notebook shop we saw on our way, but it was already closed. I realized attempting to go shopping anytime after 6pm except on Thursday is just pretty pointless. And some of us headed over to an Irish Pub called 'Molly Malones' just to hang out for a while. I'll announce that Jack will sometimes perform his Jack Jig if 80's music is playing, and everyone should peer pressure him into it. And of course since we seem to often spend a lot of time spending euros on food and coffee Chase and I ended the night by walking over to one of those fries places and buying delicious fried potatoes in a cone.


a train i saw the next day! (a slightly better video I think)

I plan to edit this somemore, but I wanted to at least put this out there since the page for the collective blog is finally up!