Den Haag, Dutch Chicks and Leiden, also Dutch Space

Well, a lot has happened, and for the same reason I haven't had the time to make a new post until now, just when most of you are coming back from vacations. OK, here we go:

About the girls, Delft (where I am) is a small town, the Technic University has only engineering careers, and it uses a considerable proportion of Delft's surface (about 20% I think). In other words, there are no women in Delft. In the aerospace engineering faculty (where I study), the proportion of female students is lower than the one of the dutch navy.

Analisa (italian) studies in Leiden, a university that is composed mostly of female students, and my italian friends wanted to go to visit her at her new room, of course I wanted to go also. However, they wanted to go in the afternoon, and I decided to go earlier in order to se Den Haag in the morning, which is in the way to Leiden. This, because the cost of the ticket to Leiden (go and return) is 7,5 euros, and I have to make my money more efficient.

DEN HAAG:

This is the dutch parlament building.

Another very old church.

The chilean embassy, nothing special, very disapointing.

The international court building.

The beach and a wharf with watch towers, restaurants and shops.

A very nice hotel next to the beach.

The view from a tower of the wharf.

Another perspective of the hotel.

LEIDEN:

Later, at about 5 pm I meet with my italian friends.

The way to Analisa's building.

After having dinner, we went out for some drinks with some french guys.

We heard about an Erasmus party next week, on friday (february 24), for foreign students of Leiden University (here, most of events are called Erasmus), so we came back.

Because of the cold, the dutch people doesn't go out a lot, and they do most of thing earlier: launch at 12:30, and so on. The only place were there is activity during the day are the commercial streets, usually called "marktstraat" or something similar.

At least, the party started!

It started a little slow, but now it's very crowded.

A very nice dutch girl dancing for the audience.

Another dancer girl.

There am I, right of the girl, climbing to the stage.

O yeah!

Peter Twister rules!!

The poor inocent girl couldn't handle the thrill of dancing with me.

Yeap, my dancing knowledge is proving to be very usefull.

Analisa, me, Roberto and Giovanni.

Our norwegian friends (Lars and his girlfriend).

At the bottom left corner, Max (germany), at the top left Phillip (france). You know the rest.

The next day, back in Delft, there was this carnival that I missed. My italian friends went to Maastrich, were the biggest carnival takes place, but I didn't go because it's so dam expensive just to go there and return: 30 euros.

I'll ask Giovanni for his photos of Maastrich, so you can see what is it about.

Then, on monday, I went to visit Dutch Space, where I saw the ERA, a robotic arm for the International Space Station.

This is one of the two connectors ERA uses to dock with the station and to catch the cargo.

The cameras that ERA uses to see it's targets.

Solar panels built at Dutch Space.

The back of the solar panels.

A sun simulator, to test the panels.

Well, that's all for now.

Euravia, Party, and Rotterdam

After some days "getting around" in the Aerospace Faculty of TUDelft, I made some friends at EURAVIA, an association of students that try to build networks between Europe's aerospace engineering students (Translation: they reunite mostly to party arround Europe). They invited me to the Kusk Bar; at the beginning it was not very crowded, as you can see...

Don't be fooled: the girl (Marcia) is the girlfriend of a EURAVIA guy (Ivor, white shirt). In the Aerospace Engineering there are less women than in the dutch navy.

More people arrived! These guys drink very fast, and since they made a deal to obtain beers at 1 euro each, everybody wanted to invite me a beer!

The next night, we went to the TUDelft version of "Miercoles'po", a wednesday party for foreigners. It was crowded to the level of "unpleasant". Here I am with Giovanni and Carlos, the guys who live with me.

Another napolitan friend arrived: Analisa. Here we are, cooking pasta again. Then, we decided to go to Rotterdam, Analisa, Roberto and Salvatore need (cheap) bikes.

We found this old building called Stadhuis, and a statue for the fallen of the WWII.

Here everything is expensive, we couldn't find cheap bikes, so we kept walking, and we found the cube houses and a street market.

Here is the market, and the Cathedral of Rotterdam (St. Laurenskerk).

The cube houses (Kijkkubus).

We entered for 2 euros.

Also there was a book to leave your signature, or whatever you want. A spanish guy wrote "the guy at whom you had to pay is a lame".

Peter Twister was here!

We continued our way.

And we found this old harbor.

Hey, that's the famous bridge Erasmusbrug! (Here, everything is called Erasmus).

It took us some time, but we arrived. After having lunch, and 2 hours of more walking, the guys got tired of not founding any cheap legal bike, so they decided to return to Delft, but I wanted to keep fooling around.

A beautiful sunset at another old harbor near the Wereldmuseum.

A nice old dutch boat called Costersche.

I got into the Parkheuvel, and I found this old mansion.

I can see the Euromast from here.

Now, I'm nexto to the Rotterdam's World Trade Center, it's getting dark, and I'm tired, I think I'm going too....

But first, I think I'll try this Haagen-Dazs icecreams. Mmmhh, this is delicious.