Hello, here I am again returning to the blogosphere to share yet another amazing adventure. This time I travel to The Netherlands to do my masters in astronomy at the University of Leiden. The unknown awaits and beckons like a beggar's crooked hand! I am recently graduated from the University of Toronto, having taken an extra fifth year to complete my physics specialist. In the last five years I have found reasons to travel.

In the summer of 2010, after completing a research project on proto-planetery formation simulation using parallel computing, I did my first bit of traveling. I ran away to southern France with a girl and caught the bug (not la tourista - I mean the travel bug!). I got it bad enough that the following summer of 2011 I did a summer research project in India, where I kept a blog - my first - on my experiences. I began learning German soon after France happened so that I could do an exchange semester in Germany, which happened in the summer of 2012 and where I popped out a shorter blog on my time there.

Abby being adorable at my cottage, where I found
some final peace before my departure.

After a worrisome and anxiety-stricken grad school application period I finally arrived at the University of Leiden as my preferred destination of torture - the torture being to my mind as I search out the answers to the universe. With acceptance to the school came a confetti of paperwork and maze-like procedure with an ever mounting todo list.

High on that list was to find money. For that I found it difficult to find acceptable employment, until I settled with the most brutal of summer jobs. I became the hated door-to-door salesman - 100% commission based - selling water heats, furnaces, and A/C's. You see, while I must deal with roughly three hundred furious, hateful, strikingly retarded people on a daily basis (six days a week!), a rare few are kind enough to let me into their homes, and furthermore down into their basements. I won't describe the licentious scenes I have seen in some people basements, but you can be sure I have been surprised quite a few times by what I see in peoples' basements. The short of it is that, while I must endure verbal abuse consistently throughout the day, the sale of just one appliance would bring me anywhere from $170 to $550 in commission - and I averaged three sales per day. Mind you, the working hours, 10:00-23:00, were in stark contrast to any notion of a social life.

Summer in Toronto.

I was still in a monetary pickle until I received a gift of about 15,000EUR from the university, at which point I was able to quit and spend time with loved ones (you know who you are). It is a thing of regret that I am nearing the end on my summer - only ten days from my flight out on 21 August - and I fear I will not be able to see all of you!

I would like to mention happy retirement to Linda! I'm sorry I couldn't be at your surprise tea party, I hope it was an elegant affair!

The woodwork shop finally see some action. This is as we
left it after six days of toil.

Lastly, and most important I wish I could have finished my woodworking project with my dad. We spent some quality time working at our cottage on a beautifully complex replication of Edwin Lutyen's century old garden bench. So far much of the base is formed with the crest and much of the joinery (mortice and fixed tenon) to be done.

It is ten days until I leave, in which time I must renew my passport and driver's license, get proper health insurance, do some medical checks, get final paychecks, move out of my apartment, and arrange affairs. See you soon.