Sweaty Kingsday

Hi all,

I am very sorry for not writing anything on the blog for a while! It has been some very crazy weeks, which I will tell you all about now. And I promise to write regularly again!

I've been back to the Netherlands for almost two whole weeks! There was a CMV (my virus) conference in Noordwijkerhout and I decided to take some extra days off before and after. As the conference started on the 30th of April, I of course made sure I was back home on he 26th of April just in time to celebrate the best day of the year: Kingsday!

I arrived on Wednesday evening around 9:30pm and my lovely friend Maaike picked me up, all dressed up with a "Prof. Dr. Bots" sign, a card, balloons, and a cute pink fluffy elephant. It was the best welcome I've ever had!! We went for a quick bite at the airport, travelled to Maaike's place to drop my things and off we went for a small Kingsnight celebration. At the Herengracht there was a small DJ booth were we met up with Rebeca for a drink. It was so wonderful to be back in my loving city with my best friends! I really missed it. The party ended at 1am, so we went home to get some rest for the next day!

On Kingsday, we went to a festival called Loveland, which was close to the Science Park. They had predicted that it would be extremely cold, windy and rainy, but none of that was the case. At the festival, they had set up two stages of which one was inside a massive (circus like) tent and the other one was covered by a big glass roof. Especially the second one turned up the heat to around 25 degrees once the sun started the shine. As a precautionary measure, I wore around 6 different layers of clothing, so I wouldn't be cold... Well, that wasn't really an issue! Rather I had to undress a lot and was still quite sweaty haha.

I really enjoyed that day, the weather, the people, my friends, the music. It was amazingly great. In the evening we went for an after party, where I even bumped into my former housemate! (oh so popular in Amsterdam) When we finally got home, I was pretty wrecked though... but very happy.

Next up will be my very first conference experience. Less party and more science!

Lots of love & good night,