Last day in the Netherlands

For the last 2 years I’ve been studying at TU Delft, Netherlands. Now that I've earned my slip of paper, my time has come to fly back to Australia via Malaysia.

I was expecting the feeling of departing the Netherlands to be much harder than it actually was. I have made a lot of good friends here, adjusted to the bike culture, and have developed a pretty severe addiction to chocolate croissants. But to my surprise, the departure was simple and easy.

Perhaps what made the departure so easy was the interaction I had with a lowlife at the train station on my way to the airport. I was walking through the gate with my luggage, and a guy in his mid 20’s squeezed in right behind me to avoid paying for a ticket. Partially out of surprise, and partially out of a burning sense of injustice, I tried to block the guy by propping up my luggage. It didn’t work though; he simply clambered around me. As he passed me he shouted in a Dutch accent “Why you block me, man?! Next time, I’ll cut you!” and made stabbing gesture. The Dutch really are direct.

My flight was at 8:55am so I had to wake up at 4:50am in order to get me there 2 hours beforehand. I would rather sacrifice an hour of sleep and walk 3km with luggage, than spend 3 euros for a quick and simple tram ride to Delft station.

Netherlands, you've been fantastic. In particular, I love your biking culture and the friendliness of the people - although, this doesn't apply to customer service - you can improve a bit on that front. 

Even though I feel just as unprepared for the industry as when I first entered Delft, I'm slightly optimistic that I can now get a job that will utilize my theoretical knowledge. Watch out world! Here I come! I may stumble, slip and fall, but dammit I'm going to move forward. 

England day 3

Today I dragged my throbbing head out of bed and into the shower in a futile attempt to null the pain of my hangover. It didn't work.

Shortly afterwards, Mark and I hoppped in the Porche to drive to Bermingham. The weather was forcasted to be horrible, but it turned out to be OK. I pressured Mark to allow me to drive, and he reluctantly agreed. After about 30 minutes of testing the speed limits, I could tell I was making Mark uncomfortable, so I decided to let him drive the rest of the way.

Bermingham was a surprise to me. Based off my Dads stories, I had pictured a beaten down empty city filled with homeless people and closed stores. To my surprise, the heart of Bermingham was busy and vibrant. I visited my Dads university and was quite impressed at how beautiful it looked. I toured the Engineering and Physics department and got to see some of the lecture halls. The small staircases and cramped study areas reminded me of hogwarts from Harry Potter.

Im glad to say that I overheard a proper Bermingham accent while touring the city. It wasn't as pronounced as the accents from the TV show Peaky Blinders, but was still almost incomprehensible.

We also toured my Dads old house and got to see the guarage his Dad had built. It was nice hearing Mark reflecting on his chidhood as we drove around the neighborhood.

We went via Oxford on our way back to London. We got to visit Cathy and Scott and their adorable puppy Milo. Mark also got to show me more of Oxford.

On arriving back in London, we had dinner prepared for us. Marcus also joined in. :)

Germany day 3 and England day 1 & 2

Eeep, getting behind on this blog.

My flight out of Germany (which I purchased for 13 Euros) was in Memmingen. John and I toured the town for a little while, and waddled around the fair.

When I arrived in England, I took a coach from London Stansted airport to Victoria station, and walked all the way to Marks appartment in Chelsea. Claire and Mark had prepared a huge dinner since Laura and Jake decided to come too. It was very interesting to see how the family communicates with each other - it's totally different to my family. Once the subject of Brexit got brought up, the conversation turned turbulent and emotional; similar to how I expect a lower income Italian family would behave. It was interesting, but I couldn't contribute much to the conversation because I was very ignorent of the details of Brexit.

The following day Mark took me on perhaps the worst bike ride of my life around London. There are still no designated bike lanes around London, so we were swerving onto pedestrian lanes, avoiding huge piles of rubbish and stopping frequently to avoid hitting parked cars. We eventually gave up on the bikes and entered a few museums. Mark was kind enough to take me to the science museum, which despite being swarmed by large groups of children, was a pretty educational experience. I was very impressed with Marks knowledge of Engines and WW2 history. It's always a pleasure to talk to Mark about history and machines - it's just important not to derail the conversation to a topic about taxes or unions.

In the evening I met up with Daniel Chee, a friend of mine from highschool. He's been living in the UK for about 2 years now and doing extreemly well. In good ol' British style we had a few too many pints far too quickly.

Germany day 2

Today we took a break from driving and decided to turn into a bit of a sports day. We went bouldering at a local gym which was great, and then followed it up with a 10km run around the park in Augsburg. To celebreate we decided to go to a local brewery to have some traditional German food and beer. Once again, I'm proud to say German food is my alltime favorite.

I also purchased a bottle of Rose and some flowers for Johns mum for all of her hospitality.

Germany day 1

I awoke to the small of white sausage, pretzels and wheat beer. Johns mum had a prepared an amazing traditional breakfast.

Today we drove to Neuschwanstein castle in the very south east of Germany. Aparently it's the same castle which the disney opening cinematic is based on. John and I toured the place and did a hike on a nearby mountain.

We were pretty sweaty after this so we decided to stop by a 'crystal spa' and relax. It was awesome. They had pools which had so much salt in them you could almost Jesus it from one side of the pool to the other. They also had a sauna section which was for both genders and required (yes, required) nudity. The pain of seeing so many old male and female naked bodies was nothing in comparison to the bliss of the sauna. It was great!

Italy day 5

This was my last day in Italy. We decided to visit Lake Braies in the morning and drop Federico at a train station in the afternoon. We shared a final meal together at a restaurant, and got to enjoy the perks of a menu that was both Italian and German.

On the way back to Germany, we drove via Innsbruck. Unfortunately we couldn't do much because it was getting dark, so we decided to go to the famous olympic bergisel ski jump. It was even larger than I thought. It was this large artifical totum sticking out of the ground, shadowing the city below. The gates were closed so we decided to tresspass. It was worth it. The views were spectacular and the sense of scale of this behemoth could only be properly appreciated by climbing to the top step by step. We must have sent off a silent alarm at one point, because we saw a guard park his car to check things out. Fortunately years of playing Splinter Cell prepared me for this moment, allowing me to dissapear in the darkness and escape safely.

After our close encounter, we decided to flee the country and head towards John's house in Augsburg. John's mother, who works as a nightshift nurse, prepared a dinner for us upon arriving. She is really a super woman.

Italy day 4

Today was the day. We woke up at the crack of 10am to make our way to the Dolomites. We parked our crumpled car at the foot of the mountains and began our adventure. The views were spectacular. Giant pillars of rock jut out of the ground, giving it an almost unnatural feel. There were a lot of tourists, but we managed to solve that problem by taking one of the more difficult tracks around the Tre Cime.

There were a few paths that were dedicated ‘via ferrata’ tracks. We didn’t have the necessary equipment, but it was very easy and simple, so we decided to do it anyway. The views were worth it.

About 4 hours into the hike, John decided to take off his shoes and climb around the side of the mountain. This wasn’t part of the path. There was a solid 800m drop below him as he climbed vertically around the loose limestone. It was terrifying knowing that one small slip could be the end of a friend of mine. As he did it, a crowd of about 50 Italians stopped to witness the horrifying event. I was furious; I had begged him several times not to do it – it wasn’t worth the risk for an Instagram photo. Needless to say, he made it back in one piece, but the mood had changed slightly. A pure sense of tranquillity had been replaced with a nervous energy for a few hours.

However, once things had calmed down a bit, I started appreciating nature in all of its beauty again. We took a long path back and got back to the car just as it started to get dark. Federico purchased us drinks, and we got to see a sunset on the top of the world while sipping on a few beers.

Italy day 3

Today we had our sights set for the Dolomites! Our plan was to 1) drive from Lecco (where Federico lives) to a lake called “Lago di Braies”, 2) Swim and eat a late lunch at the lake, 3) Make our way to our AirBnB near Sexten.

But then we had the car crash...

Driving on the highway is pretty crazy in Italy. It's not uncommon to see cars zipping past at 160 km/hr on 110km/hr highways. Italians are also very agressive drivers, and try and squeeze their way through intersections. It's what I imagine Indonesian drivers would do if there was no traffic. 

Where was I? Oh yeah, the car crash. We were driving along the highway, jamming to the Pokemon theme song, when John (the driver) turned to face me (the front passenger) for a split second to request that I change the song. In that moment we had rapidly approached a stationary car in front of us. By the time John managed to slam the breaks it was too late. We hit the back of a big white car (I don't know cars that well), which caused a minor dent for them, but completely buckled the front of our car. Everyone was completely fine - no injuries. To my surprise, the suited Italian guy that got out of the car was remarkably calm and understanding. He even appologised to us briefly for coming to a stop so suddently. We exchanged insurance details and went our separate ways. This completely destroyed every agressive and argumentative Italian steriotype that I had in my mind. 

Unfortuantely, the radiator in the front of our car was badly damaged and was causing our engine to overheat, so we had to go to a mechanic to get it repaired. We stopped in the nearest city called Verona. While the car was being repaired, we walked around town and got to see how beautiful it was. We lazily waddled around town eating gelato and sight seeing colloseums and the famous Romeo and Julliet balcony. 5 hours and 750 Euros later we were back in the car driving towards our AirBnB. 

When we arrived we wolfed down some pasta and went to bed. 

Random side story: Italian news had reported that a hiker had died climbing to the top of Mt Resegone - the exact same hike we were doing yesterday. Apparently he had slipped on the ridge near the summit and fell to his death 300m below. We saw a rescue helecopter yesterday - now we know why.

Italy day 2

Today John and I woke up at 8am to begin our day long hike. I stuffed our bag with chocolate muffins, croissants, and cookies, whereas John, insited on packing German sausages, cheese, and water.

The hike was to Mt Resegone. It was beautiful. There were multiple tracks to the summit. One of them involved climing up a vertical cliff face using steel supports. You're required to climb with a via farata set due strong chance of death if you slipped. John tried to insist on climbing it anyway, but I chickened out. After a lot of delibration and awkward map reading, we found another track to the summit that didn't involve the high risk of death. The track was lovely and the views were divine.

At the summit we stopped by a hut to buy some water and beers. Once the locals discovered that we weren't Italian (which wasn't hard given my strong non Italian accent while speaking English), they ripped us off with blatantly fake prices. I didn't care too much - my good mood overcame my stingy inner self.

The long detour cost us plenty of time and made us arrive home at 8:40pm - well after dark. Fortunately we had flash lights to help us navigate our way down the mountain :)

Italy day 1

Background:
I'm planning a hike in the Dolomites with a German friend of mine, John, and an Italian friend Federico. After that, I'm traveling to the UK for a few days.

 I had booked a 10 euro flight from Eindhoven Netherlands, to Milan, Italy which arrived at 7:30pm. The 20 minute delay turned out to be perfect, because John, who was driving from Augsburg Germany, arrived at the airport literally 1 minute before I did. That's pretty impressive timing considering John drove 6 hours through 3 countires to meet me at the airport.

After an hour of crazy driving we met up with our friend Federico in the province of Lecco. Since he had a final exam tomorrow, we decided to stay in an bed and breakfast around the corner. The BnB is located right next to some beautiful mountains near the boarder of Switzerland, so John and I will hike those by ourselves, and meet up with Federico to celebrate the end of his exam in the evening.

Overall, it was a pleasure meeting up with these friends again. John brought several fantastic German beers with him, and Federico was very hospitable and used his impressive cooking skills to feed us in the evening. Somehow I'll need to use my Australian powers to offer something back - perhaps I'll teach them how to swear at minorities while struggling to keep balance on a bar stool.

Graduated!

On 30th September 2019 I graduated from Tu Delft with a degree in High Tech Engineering!!! Yay! It was a 2 year degree - 1 year for classwork, and 1 year for thesis. Both were very challenging in different ways.

The thesis title was "Hamaker constant and tip radius determination in dynamic atomic force microscopy". In short, it was about improving the way scientists can measure very small things. I got an 8.5 for my work, which I'm happy with.

Now that I've graduated I need to decide what to do with my life. Time to choose a direction.

On your marks...
Get set...
Go!

Narrator: Will Matthew choose the correct path? Will he use his degree to get a high paying Engineering job? Will he miss the opportunity and travel aimlessly around Europe? Will he find a discarded winning lottery ticket in a parking lot somewhere? Stay tuned to find out!