Veronica's blog: Experiencing a bit of Holland and Space with my friend Sara

Hi folks,

After leaving New Zulland in mid June I have been catching up with a lot of people.

I spent a few days visiting my Swedish friend Sara (we went to upper high school together). She works as an Astronaut support crew engineer in Cologne. How cool is that?????

Her boyfriend, the German Torsten, lives in Nordweijk in Holland where she has also lived for a couple of years. We started off there together. I was pretty jet lagged but a stroll by the beach made me wake up a bit.

Sara and I caught up with lots of Swedes that she has been working with in Leiden at the European Space Agency before she shifted to Köln. In the sauna we all went (6 Swedes) and finished off with some beer. I got more and more sleepy....I had actually taken my movie watching record on the way from Auckland to Bangkok. I managed to see 5 1/2 movies in a row. Not bad eh??

I would recommend: The Departed, The last King of Scotland, Finding Neverland and Little Miss Sunshine. Don't know if I liked Casino Royale that much and I didn't even bother to remember the name of a miserable French movie I saw.

Since we were in Holland and wanted to experience something local, we went to an Indian restaurant :-) It had the most shitty service I have experienced in my entire life. We were a group of 13 and it really felt like we were intruding in their living room or something!! We laughed and blamed the crazy Dutch.

My sleepiness got worse and I tried to focus on the different conversations around me. A friend of Sara was talking to me and I promise, she was interesting, but it still didn't stop me from nodding off. I literally fell asleep while she was talking to me. Bad!

That was it though. I beat the jet lag by drinking black coffee. No heavier drugs needed.

The next day, Sara and I explored Amsterdam, by foot and by canal boat. It is a cool place and I like all the water and the narrow and crooked houses. People are close to rude, but they are just Dutch so they are excused. There are bikes everywhere. I thought Uppsala was full of them, but it is nowhere close to Amsterdam.

Back in the day, citizens paid tax depending on how wide their house was. This buidling in the background (centre right) is the skinniest house in Amsterdam. I can't imagine what kind of furniture would fit into it.

I tried some smoked eel in a sandwich, very delicious.

We had to see the red light district but felt a bit embarrassed when we asked the young guy who worked by the canal boat where we could find the prostitutes? He was used to the question I think. I guess the red light district is just like Manchester St in Christchurch, but maybe a bit more fancy since the girls are standing in glass booths. They all looked incredibly bored. We went to the Erotics museum and learned a lot about the birds and the bees and many other things as well. It was very "interesting".

Unfortunately we didn't have much time to explore the dodgy corners of the city. Next time. We went to Köln (Cologne) where Sara works at the EAC, European Astronaut Centre. This is a cool place where they have a training facility for all European astronauts. I am pretty skilled now with a few of the modules, so I am hoping to be sent up later this year to the ISS, International Space Station. The picture below is one of the modules (real size) of Columbus. The astronauts have to attach the feet so that they can screw on buttons etc otherwise they will simply spin around themselves.

I think I can never complain about eating dull food again. This is beef stroganoff which the astronaut just add water to and voilá...a delicious meal!!