Cowboy hats and flowers
Trip Start
May 31, 2005
1
12
13
Trip End
Jun 22, 2005
Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands
Thursday, June 23, 2005
another adventure(remember what I said about that word?) Our plane was
supposed to leave at 12:30pm, so we all boarded at 12, and then they
told us that there were "technical difficulties" and we ended up
sitting there on the plane for another three hours before we could take
off. A 7.5 hour plane ride was suddenly a 10.5 hour plane ride, and
full of not-so-happy people. I ended up home safe and sound though, and
got to see most of my family last night as they were all in lansing for
4-H exploration days at State. So let me tell you more about
Holland. You've only heard the grumpy complaining things that I wrote
either early in the morning or late at night, so here's some good
things...We went into the town of Amsterdam on Sunday, that was
fun, and rather eye opening. Amsterdam has a bit of a reputation for
some not so great things happening there, full of coffee shops where
coffee is not the main thing on the menu, and a rather large red light
district. We wandered around, and did some shopping -happy to have
found some stores actually open when we were not in lectures! We've
been in lectures most days until 5, and that's when most stores close.
Then a group of us wandered off to find the VanGogh museum, a very neat
place, I might add. It was interesting to see the progression of his
work, and the speed with which he painted. He was only an artist for
about 10 years, and rapidly progressed from dark and dreary things to a
french modernistic brushstroke oriented way of painting still lives and
bright and cheery things. Outside of the museum was a great park area
full of people sitting with a picnic lunch and playing ball. Next to
that, in front of another museum was a really neat pool that everyone
went wading in, or sat on the edge and dangled their legs into the
water. It was a great (and popular) cooling off break from the
unusually warm weather they were having in Holland. After drying off in
the sun, we wandered the city some more, enjoying all the canals
running through the city. Some of our girls took a canal tour and loved
it, I prefered to walk and see the sights that way. Amsterdam was fun,
and I loved the park, but overall it's not really a city I would need
to see again...The next day we had lectures all day, some good,
some really boring...do we really need to know the four different
curriculum changes you have gone through in the past 10 years, utrecht?
I didn't think so... But, the school redemed itself by the tour of
their new equine facilities...all you equine people out there drool
away. The place was only 6 months old, and designed impeccably. Their
exam areas are well designed, with different types of stocks for
different purposes, and quite rooms for auscultation. They have easy
trailer access to their colic stalls, and nice ob stalls. They have
monitoring equipment that will tell them when a horse with foal is
lying down for more than a few minutes and will send a page to the
on-call tec, so they can check on the foaling progress. The iso wards
are fabulous, as well as the other stalls...incredible place I must
say. And, the horse doc that led us around was the only genuinely nice
faculty member that taught us. (From Utrecht, that is). Tuesday
was a pretty good day. We had lectures in the morning again, a great
one from a professor at the vet school in Pretoria (S. Africa), who
gave us an overview of foreign animal diseases-an incredibly nice guy.
He does short courses at Utrect, and Cali, and Wisconsin...maybe we can
get him to come to State. That would be really neat. The afternoon was
spent going to a dairy farm, but not just any dairy farm, we went to
one with robotic milkers. That's right, it was incredibly neato. They
have 2 milking machines that are always on standby, and the cows go
into the stall, the machine reads their number and if it has been
enough time since their last milking, the machine turns on and uses a
laser to guide the cleaners and milkers to each teat. It was super cool
to watch working. Kristi took video of it, so any of you out there that
want to see this working, I'll have a copy of that soon. It's a really
neat idea, but I'm not sure how applicable it would be to large dairy
farms. You have to have a machine for each 70 cows that you have. The
thing id full or technology, though. It analyses the milk, and alerts
the farmer if there is any abnormality (ie. mastitis or injury to the
teat). So, that was fun to see. We spent the rest of our
afternoon shopping in Utrect, and ate dinner at a fabulous restaraunt
called Casa de David, and David himself served us dinner. And also
asked Hilda out for drinks...she was wearing that perfume
again...whenever she wears that stuff the men just come to her. In
Canterbury after two different episodes, she swore off the perfume for
a while. The samples she got were like gold for some of the girls on
the trip...Lol, not me, all I need is a cowboy hat and some peonies...
sooo...funny story. After our great Italian dinner, I some of us were
walking home and I had on a (rather spunky) cowboy hat that Barb and I
bought for a friend, and I was carrying two bright pink peonies that
Hilda bought for us girls. We were standing on the corner waiting for
the light to turn when this guy rides his bike past and falls over
turning the corner. I was laughing (on the inside...I'm not that mean)
because it was amusing, when Sara turns to me and says, "You know why
that guy fell? He was staring at you while turning the corner." That
was just too much and we all burst out laughing. Poor guy... So, I've
been told not to give the hat away because it suits me...
