Biking to Delft

Luke, use the Garmin

 

One of my new colleagues at TU Delft is a fan of the Star Wars series.  Yes, imagine, an engineering prof as sci-fi fan.   Hard to believe.  Anyway it reminded me of something that struck me when I started trying to pack some Dutch vocab into the old hat rack.  The Dutch for father is vader.  George Lucas is as subtle as a fork in the eye.  

Nobody compensating for anything here, nope, not at all. 

I have failed my technology

So I decided to bike to delft today.  It was about 4 degrees, balmy compared to last week.  I mapped a 24 km route.  I also had the new Garmin with the extra fietspad (bikepath) maps.  Things didn't quite work out.  I wound up going back and forth across Zuid Holland (South Holland) till I had racked up 38km in 1:45 .  I was a little miffed about the garmin.  So coming back I used google maps printed at the office.  

I realized as I came into Leiden that the garmin hadn't failed me, I had failed it.  I had misunderstood the directions in a crazy little intersection of two canals, three major roads and an uncountable number of bike paths.  That set me on a path that went way too far east (though it was very pretty) and thus the 38 km.  Initial conditions are so very critical. 

The short route was 24 km right next to a lovely canal almost all the way.  I'll take pictures next week.  It's very pretty, going through farm country with very active sheep and dairy farms.  Some of the little communities like Leidschendam look like really nice places to live for someone working at Delft. 

Word of the day

Schat. Like many Dutch words, this one requires a throat-clearing midway through: a bit of an 's' then clear the throat, then the 'at.'  It means a treasure and it is used colloquially to say that "You're a treasure," that is "Jij bent een schat," as a phrase of endearment.  The diminutive form "schatje" might be used with one's SO, but not otherwise.  

Milestone

I find news casts are great for learning Dutch.  Unlike in the US, speaking clearly and properly seems to be a job requirement for news readers.  Kids shows are usually good too.   I'm still at the simple conversation stage, though I find I can get through entire social transactions as long as the other speaker is willing to go slowly (A.u.b. spreekt je langzaam).  Speed matters because I am still translating backward and forward and my brain does not work that fast.  

Tonight, I passed a milestone.  Without thinking about it, I listened to 4 or 5 sentences in Dutch on the news cast about a local building plan and I understood it without translating in my head.  As soon as I realized this I lost it, but it was pretty cool.  

A few more weeks and perhaps I will at least be able to understand without translation regularly.  I have always found that producing the language without translation takes much longer.  We'll see.

Group meeting

My main agenda at Delft today was Taco's group meeting.  Here that meant an audience of 6 faculty and one grad student.  I spoke about contrast modulation for about 45 minutes.  Questions were many and insightful.  I really like the group here.