27 Juni - Day 2 of Masters Class

Lectures began bright and early this morning. Each of the participating Universities gave a talk about their programs, their research and their schools. The University of Amsterdam and the University of Leipzig sound very interesting. Both have strong PhD research and are in fantastic locations. Leipzig is in Austria and I want to see if we can make a site visit at least. After lunch, student project presentations started. With my research being in flux right now, I had nothing to present, so I didn't. Some of the students are MS and some are PhD, so the projects varied in complexity. All of them were quite interesting and making me think more and more about what direction I want my research to go in. 

Skylar's patience was waring thin... or maybe mine was.. but we made it through. He had his games to play and a new book to read. He also brought a stack of movies to watch, so it's not that different from an afternoon at home. I know we don't do many of those, but still. For the most part he has been very well behaved and only occasionally whiny. Since the lectures and presentations are in the Hostel, he can stay up in the room, but he seems to rather be with me. Go figure. 

We had a quick break and then walked to the canal for a boat tour. Skylar of course wanted to sit outside in the back of the boat so we missed the tour speech, but it was beautiful and interesting just looking at the architecture and all the bridges. Skylar thought all the boat houses were so cool, he says he wants to move here... or maybe Venice.  There were people just hanging out and cruising around the canals on paddle boats, row boats, cruise boats, and even some canoe type things. Many people were hanging out along the edges or in boats that probably were just stationary. The house boats looked very stationary... some even looked like structures built on top of what used to be a boat. We even saw some brave souls swimming. The canals of Amsterdam are about as clean as the Hudson River... I'm surprised there limbs didn't just dissolve into the water.

We went back to the hostel and hung out a bit before dinner. Then we all had a lovely Indian dinner again with vegetarian options. We hung out a bit more and then Skylar, Shann, and I walked through the park and toward the bug I AMsterdam letters in city center. We played on the big swing and climbed the letters. At nearly 23:00 again, we realized how late it was and headed back to the Hostel.