Afsluitdijk

So I mentioned a multidisciplinary project in my last post.  I'm working on a saltwater intrusion mitigation project in the IJsselmeer, a giant man-made lake in the north of the Netherlands.  It was created when they built a dam (the Afsluitdijk) over 30 km long, closing off the link between the North Sea and the River IJssel.  Now the lake is fresh, but they open sluices in the dam to let diadromous fish (like salmon) pass.  This means saltwater can get into the lake (which is now used for irrigation), and our task is to slow the spread of saltwater and pump it back out.

Last week we went on a site trip to see what we're dealing with.  The thing is REALLY long, and since it's in the north, we stopped by some other cool sites along the way.

These are the armor stones they use.  They're actually 2-m basalt
columns from Germany, and they don't overturn because they're buried.
So cool.

Huge dijk.  On the right is the North Sea.
On the left, about 2m lower is a town.

Cafe & monument in the center of the Afsluitdijk.
Ice on the lake side (not the ocean side, though!  Cool!)

Warning at lock complex at Lorentz Sluices (E. Afsluitdijk).
Oh, Americans...

Lorentz Sluice Complex.
We got to sneak in since the highway was under repair.

Also, this week a bunch of structures started appearing in the Civil Engineering building.  Things I know:  Civil Engineers know how to drink.  The Dutch know how to drink.  Dutch Civil Engineers...  They build 4m towers of Heineken cases all over the building...  Geez.

For the children!?

A Place of my Own!

On 6 Feb 12 I was finally allowed to move into my flat!  It's really nice to have my own space again; sometimes you just need to sit in a quiet place.  I've got a little kitchen, a bathroom, a bed, a desk, and a nice chair for reading.  I also bought a bike!  It's a red road bike, which makes it something of an oddity here in the land of city cruisers.  I'm also probably one of 10 people in this city who wears a helmet, and the other 9 only do it when they race competitively.  But that's okay.

My bike (red-orange), my building (green), and snow (white).

My room, looking from desk to kitchen.

My room, looking from kitchen to desk.
Note the nice guitar :)

View from my west-facing window.

It's a pretty nice place.  The first couple weeks were FREEZING, though.  Do you know how cold and difficult it is to bike in -15 C into a 15 kph headwind on snow?  Well, if you're from the States, you should convert that over to customary first, then tell me. :-p  The answer is REALLY COLD.

Classes are good so far (it's been 2 weeks now).  I've got Coastal Dynamics, which meats 4 days per week, 2 hrs per day.  I've also got Computational Modelling of Flow and Transport, which only meets 2 hrs per week.  Then there's Probabilistic Design, which is a video-lecture from last quarter.  Finally, I've got a multi-disciplinary project (working with Aline, Bojan, and Trisno).  It'll be a busy semester, but it should be a good one.

Winter School

Late in posting once again!

Winter School was the first week in February.  It was basically an orientation program just for the CoMEM crew, which could've been great but was actually not very well organized.  Most of the people we talked to were caught off guard by questions we considered obvious things we'd ask.  However, we went on a really cool field trip to the Port of Rotterdam Extension (Masvlakte II) and the Maeslantkering (it's a storm-surge barrier).

Masvlakte II is the larges land reclamation project in the world.  They're dredging up sand from over 35,000 years ago and depositing it along the coast to extend the port.  They actually dredged up mamoth bones when collecting material for construction.  We drove out to the end of the thing (in a tractor!) and stood on a huge man-made beach in the snow, which is still crazy to me.

At Masvlakte II site with snow

Intense Dutch "How to wash your hands" poster in the bathroom at
one of the Visitors' Centers we visited.

We also went to Maeslantkering, which I've wanted to see for a long time.  It's like 2 big arches that swing together to close the waterway connecting the North Sea to Rotterdam.  It's closed during high storm events to keep the Port of Rotterdam from flooding.  Each gate structure is longer than the Eiffel Tower is tall.

Me with a model of the gates 

Me with one of the REAL gates!