We made it!
That was my first thought as I stepped off of the train in Nijmegen, The Netherlands after travelling for 9 hours. The plane ride had been fairly uneventful – we only experienced a small amount of turbulence. Figuring out how to get to the waiting platform for the train was probably the most difficult part of this journey. I have travelled by trains before, so I was expecting that part of the trip to be the easiest. In the US, you just walk up to the ticket booth, purchase a ticket, and walk straight onto the platform. Here, however, the tickets have a chip reader, that you have to scan before getting onto the platform. We had no idea what type of machine we were looking for to scan these tickets. Eventually, we resorted to watching other people enter the platform by holding their tickets up to poles surrounding the entrance to the platform.
Upon boarding the train, we could finally relax and enjoy the scenery. For the entirety of the one and a half hour ride, I was glued to the window. Looking out at all of the greenery and towns was amazing. It all feels completely foreign, but somehow familiar all at once.
Even a couple of days later, I am still completely enchanted by the architecture of Nijmegen. I still cannot believe I am living in such a beautiful town. There is so much history here that is flawlessly woven into the modern shops and cafes. Sometimes, I feel as though we could be in an entirely different time period.
Needless to say, we began exploring Nijmegen the day we arrived. We hadn’t had the keys to our apartments for more than an hour before we were walking around Radboud University. Even now, I am still finding new areas of the campus that I love to go to to do work and write.
Everyone here has been so welcoming and accommodating. The people here seem really friendly. I am looking forward to being a part of James’ lab group. We had the opportunity to attend a lab meeting, and become acquainted with the other researchers in the lab. I am truly looking forward to being a part of that community for the next 7 weeks.