August 12th

Weird writing my weblog in word. I was for the first time in my life enjoying a wireless internet connection, it’s such fun being able to surve on your couch. To my horror the unsecured internet connection I was using disappeared yesterday, really bad timing, could they not have waited a week? I don’t want to pay for 4 months connection when I wont be using it. And now I really miss it.
Finally managed to reach the person whose room I am renting, was getting a bit worried she might have changed her mind. She sounded quite nice and she found it no problem driving me to a grocery store on Sunday. So that’s one of my worries solved, although I still don’t know what to eat on Saturday evening. New worry arose though when she told me the price of the room, its 600 dollars. I have seen flats cheaper then that. Because it was via my supervisor and she is his neighbour I assumed it would be reasonably priced. That would mean an entire grant goes towards paying the room, such a shame. Maybe I will look for something else when I get there. Every time I tell someone I’m going to buy a bike to be mobile they tell me it’s extremely hilly there. So what? I hope it’s American mentality, and not that I have to bike uphill for 40 minutes before reaching a grocery store. I keep saying “I’m Dutch I don’t mind biking up hills” (which is actually pretty stupid because we don’t have any hills in this country + I hate biking up hills). Hmm, we’ll see, I can’t imagine living out of a car either, which is just as well as I’ll probably spend part of my stay looking at my car standing in the driveway. NO one told me it’s so difficult to register a car. I think I’ll have to take a driver’s license there, just to register a car… But everything is difficult in the states, not just getting visa, also getting a mobile phone seems to be quite an experience (you need a social security number for that) – and then we haven’t even talked about doing research. I have to hand in all my experimental material to an ethical committee more than a month before I run my research – anything the subject might read I have to put on paper. And I tell them that if they get injured during my experiment the costs will be covered by their medical insurance. Could this ever happen in the Netherlands, will this country ever become so, what is it, paranoid? How come being sued can become such a problem in one country and not in others? Will we go in that direction as well in Europe or is it something American? And how did it evolve? Curious, but interesting to think about. Perhaps I’ll have some more answers when I’ve been there for a while. Last time I was there for a longer amount of time I was 13 so you don’t really notice these things (I just enjoyed the hamburgers for lunch!).
Well it’s finally stopped pouring so I’d better go shopping. My well disciplined mind tells me I could also go running now, and SHOULD go running now but I really don’t feel like it so perhaps I simply will disobey….. And it doesn’t help my insomnia either so why bother anyway!