Koningsdag

Every 27th of April, since William Alexandre is the Dutch King, it take place koningsdag (King's Day). It is the national festivity of The Netherlands and the it is celebrated on the birthday of the king. It started with the Queen Wilhelmina in 1885. It has been always celebrated on the birth day of the monarch, except during the reign of Queen Beatrix, who keep the birth day of her mother. When the monarch was a Queen the festivity was called Koninginnedag (Queen's day).

In this day almost everyone wear something orange, which is the colour of the royal family (House Oranje). The exception for this are the people supporting a Republic inseat of a Monarchy. They wear white clothes. 

It is fairy common the vrijmarkt (stand market), where peple sell second-hand objects. This is not only common among adults. A lot of kids sell hand-made necklace etc, as well as old objects.

As a foreign living in Leiden, i decided to go to Amsterdam, where the biggest celebrations was supposed to be. Although here in Leiden Armin van Buuren, who was born in Leiden, was giving a concert.

In Amsterdam there were a lot more people in the streets than in Leiden. In several streets DJ's and stages were setted up, so there was music almost everywhere. Besides, food stands stood every step.

I was expecting some kind of steet shows, parades or something but it was only music, food, drink and weed. That was why it reminds me to the typical villages festivities, although even in these there is cultural activities.

For all those who enjoy big parties, then, this is your day. Music start in the morning and stops at 20:00. You can drink, eat and dance all you can. Remember to take care and do not overpass the limits, there are hundreds of policemen looking after attendants. Actually, during the time I was in Amsterdam, they take two people to their van. So please, be careful.

Kaasmarkt in Alkmaar

Do you love cheese? Would you like to see how cheese was sold some centuries ago? 

Then you should definitely go to Alkmaar, famous by its cheese market (kaasmarkt in Dutch). Every friday morning from spring to autumn a great market is setted up there. In the road to get there you can enjoy also one of the most famous icons of The Netherland, flowers. Not only tulips but also hyacinth and narcissus. As you can see below not all the flowers had blossom but some of them gave very beautiful colours to the landscape.

After an hour or so of car trip we finally arrive at Alkmaar. It is a lovely village with some canals and parks (inside one of them there is a huge windmill). In the central square of the village they perform how the cheeses were carried, weighted and sold some centuries ago.

Of course you can buy cheese. They have all sort of cheese from the most typical ones to pesto and rum cheese. The whole city is replete with shops selling this wonderful product. However, in the market other product are offer. You can also find Dutch clogs, art pieces, pancakes... And the most curious thing: you and your friends can be weighted in an old weight used for cheeses, in our case the result was 305Kg. I keep the signed document. They also lend you the hat they wear for the photo.

After having enjoyed the kaasmarkt it is recommendable to visit the rest of the city. It has medieval walls and a 500 year church. Church in The netherland worth a visit, at least in my case, because they're completely different from the Spanish churches and cathedrals. They lack of christs and other traditional issues, ceiling are made of wood, distribuition of the space isn't the same and their window are remodelled in order to get rid of Spanish past.

The city center has very nice restaurants and shops (for ice cream for instance) and some buildings are very appealing. If you enjoy seeing how different old houses looks here you will find this village interesting.

 Either if you love cheese or not Alkmaar is a must see in this country, you will have a really nice day with good food, spectacular views and nice environment.

Escher Museum

In Den Haag It can be found the Escher museum, where some of his most representative pictures and some photos of him are shown.

Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972) was a Dutch artist well-known by its impossible works. In them imaginary worlds or impossible situations are painted.

The museum is located in The Hague. The building is an old palace used by the Queen Emma. It is divided in three floors where not only Escher work is shown but also photos of him and games based on his paintings. 

Inside,  the most striking object are the lamps. They have quite impressive different shapes from the bugs of the groundfloor to the worldglobe, the vase or the pirate skull.

The price is not that high, about 9 euro for students, and worth a visitit, definetely if you're in The Hague you should go there and feel your mind blowing. It is placed in the following adress: Lange Voorhout 74, 2514 EH Den Haag.

Personally, I found it fascinating, amazing and incredibly joyful. I must say that I liked his pictures since I was in the school. Besides, there are some sets to take a picture pretending his visual effect as you can see below:

 

While visiting the museum it is also possible to learn about the building. There are some posters with the History of the palace, the Queen Emma, WW1... Two visits in one!!

On the top of that, the museum has just in fron of it a beautiful park near the canal where you can enjoy the good weather, the flowers, Nature, etc. And also some international office are there, such as the Turkish or the Spanish. Next to the museum it can be found a luxurious hotel, one of the most required by the well-known people.

Because of all these reason don't miss this terrific museum if you're around Den Haag.

Minor in Innovative Molecular Diagnostics

Today I'm going to tell you a little bit od the minor I'm doing here, in The Netherlands.

As you can see on the headline, it is about diagnostics, which is a very prolific field in Leiden. It combines some molecular techniques from a prersepctive focus on set tests up to know if a patient (or a plant or whatever) is sick or not, as accurate as possible. I mean, the aim is to be able to detect all the people who suffer from a disease (not having false negatives, people who is sick but the test says they are healthy) and trying to not detect as a patient a healthy person (false positives). For this reason statistics are very important and we have to know how to use them. 

Here in The Netherlands, in contrast with Spain, you don't have all the sujcets during the week, but you have basically one subjects until it is finish, then a new one begin. This week we finished, almost, nucleic acids and diagnosis (NAD) by taking an exam last Tuesday. Next week Proteomics begin. One of the thing we have to do for NAD is to determine, in a case they give to us, if it was a outbreak and what is the source. It is amazing because they are actual cases so basically we are doing what is done in the real world. In the case of my group there is a little elephant suffering from a cutaneous infection and treated by 10 caretakers (possible source). Who will be the transmisor???

Besides this, we have also practical work in the laboratory. Some of the practices we did include isolation of antibodies using an HPLC and a western blot, a quick test to know if a blood sample come from a person suffering from sickle cell disease or a PCR based test to detect thalassemias.

If you like to know whta is done in this minor don't worry, I will tell you more in future posts.