The last day!

Today was quite stressful, but it was the final presentation of a months’ hard work. The entire group had to get up around 5AM, met at 5:40AM and walked over to Central Station. I woke up with a realization I had no closed-toe shoes. I resorted to flip-flops and felt vaguely guilty. Eddy biked with me on the back and my legs almost fell off. We all found each other around 6:00AM, got some food, and boarded the train. Most everyone was sleeping; Kelsey and I talked for a bit before falling into an uncomfortable nap. We got to Rotterdam in about an hour; the group of us, dreary and not yet drugged on coffee, walked through the rain to stand at the tram station for about 20min. Finally our tram came to take us to the conference. We saw the stamper with the most ridiculously long strippenkart ever for the group of us.

View from train:


Erasmus University:


We arrived at Erasmus University of Rotterdam, where the social science conference was being held. We shuffled in to get our name tags. Eddy became Edward and of course “Jenny” was omitted completely from my tag. We somehow got up a flight of stairs in search of the cafeteria but it was not yet open. Instead we all dogpiled on a long bench; some groups practiced, I slept solidly for 2 hrs until 10:40AM—20min before our presentation. My neck felt stiff and my whole body hurt. Gugg.

Anyway we got into room T3-17 (M Building) and set up our computers. Eddy’s group was first with their fantastic Google Earth whirliness. I jotted bullet points of my notes and redid parts of my slides (again). About 5 strangers showed up for our epic showdown in the M Arena!! Paul introduced us briefly as students as researchers and the students he, himself, is finding out more about: how we approached research, what e-research meant to us, etc. Then Clifford talked a bit about some of the themes of our study abroad including the concept of “radical transparency”. Everyone looked pretty pumped.

The presentations were extraordinarily well rehearsed and well-thought out. Although we’d just heard everyone on Wednesday, so much improvement had been made I was astounded. My favorite presenter was probably Lauren; my favorite presentation overall must go to Eddy’s. The squatting group should be seriously proud of how much improvement they’ve made…amazing.



After our presentations Jessica made a brief closing speech, quoted a beautiful poem, and opened the floor to questions. We got praise on how tremendous our short research was, etc. etc. but we did have a man who was disappointed with the program description since apparently our program (not equal) our program description.
Anyhow we had a good discussion with all of the participants and audience members, so we all felt good. Outside at the sign of the university we took just short of 500 group pictures (I don’t have any). Tired and on an adrenaline low we sleepily trotted back to Amsterdam. Eddy and I went home to make grilled cheese with really good chunky tomato soup, sold our bikes back for 40E a piece (not that good, not that bad), got some coconut beer, and got various last souvenirs (Eddy got a teeshirt, I got new sunglasses).

We then went to group dinner at a cute Persian place. The food was fantastic. I got mint tea to start and dolmades (little rice/meat wrapped in grape leaves) for an appetizer and this “labour-intensive” eggplant dish. The eggplant didn’t even look like eggplant, but it was so delicious with the tiziki sauce and saffron rice it was served with. Eddy & Clint got pomegranate duck, which was tasty but vaguely strange. Kelsey got this chicken which was melt-in-your-mouth delicious. Later we got dessert! Kelsey and I split this yogurt, which was delightfully thick but still fluffy. Clint and Eddy got Iranian ice cream that had pistachio and herbs in it; it was really hard (like harder than regular ice cream) and icy but yummy. Just something you had to get used to.

Lauren got Mirjam a card, so we all signed that and said our goodbyes with flowers. How nice. Paul also called on Clifford’s iPhone 3G and congratulated us over speakerphone.

During the dinner the restaurant staff was setting up a large hooka outside (7E a puff!) which was rather distracting. It was really funny to see these old me preparing hooka in front of all of us. Also the bathrooms at this place were really nice.

Anyway that night our group cranked out some serious work. Kelsey busted her ass getting our video and our conclusion done. I finally wrote my analysis so it made sense, and Mimi helped me integrate and synthesize. At around 2AM we finished; I fell asleep immediately and didn’t even see Kelsey leave.

So, the last hurrah! Amsterdam has been quite a journey. I think I learned a lot about both Dutch people, the people on this program, and what this program really strove to achieve. I had a good time doing my project and exploring the strange things around the city. Kelsey and Eddy really helped me from having too many panic attacks. Paris taught me I should never return to France again as well as be careful on trains! So I leave you with this: Watch your bags and wear a lot of sunscreen.