Sinterklaus

Sinterklaus is a man dressed in red with a pope hat on. Resembles Santa Claus. He is accompanied by elven compatriots with black faces. He arrives on a ship from Spain with a list of who has been naughty and the elven friends pelt those people with gingerbread.

It rained heavily today.

A Turkey Dinner Party

We can expect Mason to fail his courses;
the amount of work he put into this meal.

There are so many holidays throughout the year, many of them specific to one country or another, and it always seems like one is creeping up on you. There are usually annoying preemptive commercials, radio tunes, decorations, seasonal foods, and festivities announcing it's trite arrival. Nevertheless, some never lose their sense of anticipation. Here in Leiden Thanksgiving came and went without much ado. In response to this, one Mason Carney revived our North American spirits with a turkey dinner party, and a Yankee gift swap (explained below).

Andrej really is quite tall.

The classy folk arrived from a concert!

A turkey is no small feat to prepare, let alone doing it well. Mason outdid himself in this respect, and our taste buds and bellies thank him. Starting a little later than usual, around 18:00, we watched him put the final touches on everything. As more and more people arrived it became ever more difficult to find a camera angle to fit everyone into the picture. I think this is a good sign of a dinner party, for it meant people had to get cozy. And how could we not, it's a Thanksgiving party which is all about spending time with good people. Having said that, I was reminded how I miss someone, who could not make it.

To Mandela!

At last the cranberries came to simmer, and I removed the tin. The guests were met, the feast was set, mayst heard you the merry din? I think that another good sign of a good party is when there is a lack of music and no one notices. Such was the case here.

There were two rounds of the main course: turkey, sweet potato pie, green bean cassarole, stuffing, mashed potatos and gravy, and homemade cranberries. We toasted the life of Mandela, who passed away at a remarkable age of 95! Then came the Yankee gift swap.

	Top Left: I love their expressions! "We get to eat that". Top Right: Mason de-stuffing the turkey's ass. Bottom Left: People standing in line for turkey. "Which part d'ya want?".

Not so happy with dino eggs.

Steals Julias Manatea!

The Yankee gift swap is a fun little thing. People bring mysterious, wrapped gifts and put them in a pile. Everyone draws a number from a hat, and the first person chooses a gift. Everyone oos and ahhs. Then the second person chooses a gift, to which more oos and ahhs, and decides if she would like to swap her gift with number one. The other numbers go and can decide to swap their gift with someone else. This can get aggressive I imagine, but things remained calm with only two people meekly deciding to swap their gifts. The ManaTEA was a hit!

More pictures.

After this came the rounds of desserts! I put out my chocolates, and sherry, Julia put out her Austrian "Kaiserschmann" (spelling?), Kirsten put out her Cool Whip(tm), and Mason -- being the awesome guy he is -- put out pumpkin pie! The latter was new to the non-North Americans who were dubious of it's taste -- until the first bite!

After dessert, you can see us settling into
food coma. Charlie Brown special comes on.

To wrap up the night we watched, with laughter, the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special. Going home was a challenge, and I fell into a lovely food coma soon after lying down. Thanks to Mason and everyone else for the good times! To those who could not make it, our good times are a'comin'.

Dinner Party, and Graduation Party

Well, as I'm won't to do, I find ways to neglect my studies. Today, a guy from my office was celebrating his graduation. He invited everyone from our office, all five of us, to his shindig which was held at his fraternity's club house. This was my first "frat-party" in the Netherlands. Incidentally, this was the first person in astronomy or physics whom I have met and was in a fraternity.

Before hand, those of us who weren't graduating from that office had a little dinner party. Arthur cooked up some Indonesian food, I think it was called Bah Mi, which is quite popular in the Netherlands. They even have hor d'oeuvres flavored like Bah Mi at Borrel parties.

I didn't get to really help prepare food, but got to test out my new tripod.	What you're seeing here is the dwarfing effect.
Dinner time with friends!	And then much fun and song. It started with dust in the wind and never ended.

We dimmed the light, played some guitar, and sang some tunes, sipping on our drinks with delight. We discussed our travels around the world, and about those who hold our heart most dear. Actually, we didn't want to leave for the graduation party.

Alas, we left Arthur's place and went to the Quintus Societeit fraternity clubhouse, and had a merry time presenting the graduate with our gift (a t-shirt with a string-theory innuendo writing upon it). We ended up spending our time there happily together in our own little group - For everyone else was from a different walk of the graduate's life, and we were but his office mates.

Congratulations to Joeren!	There were plenty of speeches given, it felt very wedding-ish.
Oh and it was an open bar! Fraternities are good for something right?	Me, Steven, Leandra, Arthur, Jorris.

Thanks for the great time guys! Happy graduation to you Joeren! Everyone be happy, think about that special someone and smile!

The Cram Is Begun

Having just handed in my last assignment for the semester, I'm officially dropping down to my lowest gear. Need to grind my way through the sludge of previous assignments, reading material, and exams. The lovely thing about my classes is that 100% of the grade comes from the exam -- a change up from Toronto.

If you can explain it to someone, then you know it. If anyone wants to talk nerdy about radio astronomy, origins and evolution of the universe, or general relativity please come my way.

My scrap paper pile is over one beer bottle diameter high for this semester; double sided, A4. This could double in a typical cram. Sorry trees.