I am back in the Netherlands! Arrived on a busy flight with many tourists (recognizable on their frequency of talking and running to the restrooms) on Wednesdaymorning. It is good to be back home, althought the distance is so short that it does not feel strange to be here at all. The difference between Dutch people and American people (this refers to US citizens, not Mexicans etc) is quite obvious. Dutch people are awfully rude, Americans are awfully friendly.

You have to pull a fight to get a luggage cart at the luggage belts in Amsterdam, in Boston people will offer their cart to you and get a new one themselves. Keeping the door open to any next person is very common in the US. So is offering help to people visibly in need of it, of any kind. It might even refer to the filantropy that I have brought up in an earlier blog. This difference is present throughout bot societies. I really think Dutch people are very rude. Does that mean American society is better? Well, it is more pleasant on a daily basis. Of course I do not have to point the flaws in their society - ask the 40 million US people without a health insurance. And their are places that are much worse, go to Egypt or India for instance. But please, is it so much to ask to be a little more friendly sometimes?

I am Dutch, so I bike. Everywhere, anywhere. Rain or shine. That is how we are brought up. So when we move to a foreign country, we bike. When I left Rotterdam, I shipped a whole bunch of stuff, including my Gazelle. This is now probably the only Gazelle in Boston. Boston is according to US standards a pretty ‘bike-able’ city. Boston has about 575.000 inhabitants and is about 200km2 in size. Compared to say, Rotterdam, Boston is about twice the size the same number of people. Hence, the distance from my house to for instance downtown or my old neighborhood Jamaica Plain is a fair bike ride.

However, compared to a similar size city in the States such as Austin, TX (656.000 people) Boston is small - Austin is about 500 km2. You need a car in such places. The bike-ability of Boston is increased by the relatively large number of students here, due to the large universities. Yet it is bike unfriendly compared the Netherlands. The quality of the roads is just very poor.

There are many potholes. Also, you have to be very careful - auto doors swing open without looking, cars turn right without having a clue you were ever there. So far I have survived without accidents. And although Boston has a pretty decent public transport system, my bike has saved me a lot of time. All my American friends think I am crazy though. I am just proud to be Dutch :).

I will try to make this post not as boring as the title sounds In Europe, you hear many stories about how bad and evil health care in the US is. I have now some first hand experience to share with you. First of all, you need insurance. I don’t actually know what would happen without insurance. A few weeks ago, a friend fell down while climbing and broke his neck (surprisingly, he is almost completely recovered now). An ambulance came before anybody asked about his insurance (in fact, two ambulances came. And a firemen truck).
My insurance is a collective insurance through my employer, Dana-Farber. I could choose from three different plans, with personal contributions ranging from $15 to >$100 monthly. A benefit from the expensive plans is that you do not have to go to a general practitioner (”huisarts”) to get specialized treatment; you can go to any specialist directly. This is also why hospitals advertise in newspapers and on the metro! In my plan, I have to go to a GP first.
I wanted to check some blood levels; something I do annually since I am a vegetarian. The major difference with Dutch health care and American health care seems to be the time and energy a doctor is willing to invest in you. In the Netherlands, you usually have to wait for an hour and your doctor then has a maximum of 5 minutes for you; I always got the impression they want you to leave as soon as possible. Over here, the doctor took the time, looked at some other basic functions (weight, length, thyroid glands), asked some relevant questions. At the end of the consultation, he encouraged me to come back and discuss the blood values with him when they come back from the lab.
Although this seems surprisingly friendly (and I am sure all his intentions are good) I suspect that this warm bath of personal attention is at least partially due to the fact that doctors are sued all the time here. Hence the 2 ambulances and the firemen truck when my friend fell. I suppose this directly hits the nerve - money is priority no. 1 in this country.

Did I already mention that I have found a new apartment? Per September 1 my residence will be the first floor of a house, two small bedrooms and about 500 square feet. How much that is in square meters? It is about 50m2. In the US nobody uses the metric system (meters, kilos, that stuff) but the English system of miles, Fahrenheit and feet. It takes some time to get used to that; a mile is 1.6 km, 1 feet is about 32 cm, 1 inch is about 2.5 cm. The most confusing thing is Fahrenheit; the formula to get to Celsius is to subtract 32 and to divide by 1.8. Our current temperature is about 85F.
My new place is essentially around the corner from where I live now, moving will be simple. I have signed a 12-months contract for it, had to pay two months ahead (”money talks” according to the landlord). Rent is $1250,- really not bad. What is very good is the spare bedroom. That is not very common, I got lucky (it also means that the rooms are pretty small). I am happy with it, because I expect many people to come and visit me. So far, only one person has signed up for that (hello Judith, see you August 12!). I encourage everybody to start looking for tickets now!
Fortunately for all of you, I will be back in Europe in only three weeks and I am looking forward to it

Few weeks ago I was talking to a friend on MSN (side step: where are the great days of IRC) and I remember saying something like being almost bored and not having enough work to do. Well, that has changed. Seriously. During the last years I got some experience in analyzing a particular type of data. In my current lab, although there are several computational biologists, nobody has specific knowledge about that kind of stuff (and the persons who do are too busy with other cool projects). Somehow my boss found out and ‘promoted’ me to The Expert on Expression Data (TEED). That is great! But, now I am to over my ears in projects and frantically working to get things done! And somehow I suspect this will be just the beginning. Alas, the things you have to do for a simple Nature paper! I also suspect that becoming TEED is mainly due to being one of the few with not too much work at hands.
Friday will be an exciting day; a project group meeting in Washington DC for one of the first projects I got involved in. With several different centers involved and everybody thinking they are very good, it will likely be a very political event. Oh, and ‘we’ (read:my boss and I) were a couple of months too late with our results and will have to lobby a lot to have them considered. Well, if they will not consider them, at least I get a free trip to DC (for one day) and some namedropping.