by Kaylee M Abend
I love this city. I love this country. I love the people here. I love the language. I love the bicycles. I love the little houses. I love the stroopwafels. I love everything. The end.
Day 1:
I arrived Monday morning jet-lagged and still a little sick from my flight. Of course, that all went away as soon as reality struck that I was finally in Nijmegen. A PhD student at the university here, Antje, picked me up from the train station and took me for my first Dutch grocery shopping experience. (Sidenote: Every time I go abroad, my mom insists that I bring a jar of peanut butter, since most countries don’t have it. This time, I caved and let her buy me a 3.5 lb jar of peanut butter. I even sacrificed precious luggage weight for it– leaving behind towels and shoes. Upon arriving at the grocery store, I realized that I would be living in a country with a surplus of peanut butter. Wonderful.)
We then went to get my apartment key and took everything to the guest house where I would be staying. My apartment is amazing. Enough said.
Day 2:
The next day, I finally started to get involved in student/researcher life here at Radboud. I met with Antje for a tour of the campus, then had my meeting with James, my PIRE partner. Aside from discussing the basics of my stay here and showing me where I would be testing participants, he introduced me to some of the PhD students (where I first met Iske, a student that I had been in contact with before, in person).
After that meeting, Antje invited me to attend a lecture on language acquisition with her. I have only taken an introductory course on language acquisition, but I loved it, so this seemed like a fun opportunity. It was an interesting presentation made by one of the MPI (Max Planck Institute) students on the nature vs nurture debate.
Antje and I followed the lecture by meeting with Iske at the on-campus cafe. At that point, jet lag kicked in, and that marked the end of my first real eventful day.
Day 4:
Today is a national holiday (Ascension), so pretty much everything is closed. I took advantage of this by sleeping in, then going to the park outside my apartment to read. Iske happened to be in her office today (at the Donders Institute, an affiliated research center), so I stopped by to hang out and have some coffee…and ended up getting to tour the empty labs. Which was awesome. The labs here are spacious and have so much high-tech equipment. This truly is a first-rate research institution.
My first few days here have been productive, and I really wouldn’t have it any other way. Not only am I beyond excited to start testing participants, I’m also excited to get involved in as many lectures/lab meetings/PhD defenses/whatever I can find on campus as I can. And obviously I cannot wait to make friends and assimilate into this incredible culture over the next few months.