I am once again Marc-less as he travels to Europe for a conference and to see family. It is strange how the lack of another humans' presence can be so unnerving. I have also been having a harder time getting up in the mornings without Marc around to nudge me along with his coffee-making.

I have yet spoken to Marc since his departure on Saturday, but we have been communicating daily via email. His poster sessions went well and he is getting ready for the seminar he's giving at the Hague. He are some short excerpts from his emails:

On Amsterdam (Sun-Tues):
"Boy did I have a good night's rest! I headed to the hotel around 3:30 pm following the first few sessions of the conference. I was already falling asleep then, and the room was quite warm. It's better so far this morning. In any case, it took a while to get to the hotel (I took a taxi since I was not sure how best to get there and was tired. It would have been a bear with the suitcase anyway, so I feel ok about the taxi splurge. But car traffic is really slow in this town, since it is much more bike-friendly than anything else. There are gazillions of bikes in this city! It cost about 13 euros to go 4 km!
The hotel is quite basic. One twin bed in a narrow room with a small placard to put stuff. The bathroom is shared by the four rooms there, but that's not really a problem as it stayed fairly clean last night. Rembrandt Square gets quite loud at night, so I am glad I brought my ear plugs along (those disposables you made fun of me for keeping). After going to bed at 8 pm or so, I awoke around 1:30 am to techno music and loud noise in the hall of the hotel. I popped the plugs in and then fell right back to sleep and woke up around 8:45 am! That's alot of sleep, so I think I am about even for the two nights (plane + night in Rembrandt square). I went for a run (about 72 minutes up and down the canals of central Amsterdam) and had breakfast (assorted meats and cheeses, coffee and fruit and bread) and made it here to the conference around noon. My poster goes up around 3 pm.
I spent much of the Sunday walking around Amsterdam at a leisurely pace and also went for about a 35 minute run in the late afternoon before grabbing dinner. Last night was a bit of a splurge for dinner too, as I went to a Pizzeria (yeah yummy Italian pizza) and had some wine to go with it and the dollar is so weak (13 euros = $19). I'll probably try to get something more traditional in the Hague after my talk, when I am a bit relaxed and get recommendations from the people at ISS."

On the Hague (Wed):
"I had a lovely stroll around the center of town this afternoon. It's a very wealthy city with a really chic feeling, which is a contrast from the more grungy feel of Amsterdam. The architecture is more recent as well. The older buildings are 18th century mainly, and there is some off ultra-modern looking stuff in the financial district which is a bit further away (I did not go there). The avenues are wide and German cars zoom along. I walked through the old palace and around the historical parts of town, with old churches and pretty building facades. There are numerous museums to see as well, but I doubt I will have time. My talk is at 1, and I want to practice it once more tomorrow morning and go for a run. Then I will meet with Kristin about the Ghana paper and also perhaps go to another talk at ISS about natural resource conflicts and governance in India. We'll see if that fits in at 3 pm. I should get back to my hotel by 5 pm and then will try to find a nice dinner at some place. Apparently Indonesian food is the thing to get here. I would not have guessed it. I kind of want something traditionally Dutch though too, and I have not had a chance to shop yet either. Arghh."

I am keeping busy with preparing my students for their final (tomorrow -- hope they do OK) and figuring out the details for our trip to Ethiopia in Jan. We now have a place to live for almost 4 weeks in the heart of Addis at family-run guest house. It's about a 10 min drive to the office where Marc will work, and about a 15 min walk to the Addis Ababa University, where hopefully I will be able to stake out a spot in the library a few days a week to get some work done. It should be interesting to learn how to commute in a foreign city :)
At some point we will look into making weekend trips to nearby historic towns -- but I have not done enough research about the area to tackle that yet.
I've also got my immunizations taken care off which hurt both my arm and my pockets. Vaccines do not come cheap nor painlessly! But I should soon be Polio, Hep A, Meningitis, Typhoid & Yellow Fever resistant. Next thing to look into will be travel insurance & our visas. This trip is quickly getting increasingly expensive :P

~ Shuwen