Or am I?
Mostly I’m just working right now, but things are just different enough to remind me that I’m not in Kansas anymore. At the same time, it feels like I’ve been here much longer than three days (in that good way).
Jet lag was my evil nemesis the first couple of days. I would have loved exploring more, but I could barely keep my eyes open. And even with that, I awoke from 2:00-4:30 a.m. Tuesday morning (6:00-8:30 p.m. Tampa time). Benadryl is my friend. Today has been better…
Even with the excessive (though waning) fatigue, I’m still enjoying my trip immensely. Everyone has been so incredibly welcoming and kind, and I am feeling very blessed to have the opportunity to come here. The people I am staying with are sharing their space with me. Someone is sharing their room and bike with me while they are away (at a Bruce Springsteen concert 
). They share their food with me, which partially means that they walk into their back yard to pick vegetables for dinner salad and harvest eggs from their chickens.
Everyone bikes here, and it’s safe to bike. I enjoyed my first bike ride to the supermarket Tuesday evening. I went for a run tonight and saw farms with horses, cows, sheep, ponies, deer, and goats… The trains are fantastic.
The past couple of days have also been awesomely productive work days. I’ve seen what the lab here is working on. NIOO has really awesome facilities: a high tech greenhouse, an avian facility, a new office building that was build green, a nice social area where everyone goes on break and has lunch, free coffee machines everywhere… It’s been a welcoming environment, and a lot of great science is done here. We’ve been brainstorming about data analysis, and this Ph.D. thing is seeming like a reachable goal.
I’ve been forgetting to take my camera places, and here in Wageningen I feel like most of the pictures I would take would be boring to anyone but me. But I learned today that Wageningen is the City of Life Sciences, which is fitting for my purposes here. The entire university is devoted to some aspect of biology. Huzzah for science!
And, of course, for living daringly.