Journeys of an Experimental Philosopher

The pharmaceutical section of this blog has been so far posted only in Czech. I often receive questions from people interested in studies of pharmacy and I always share my opinions on the web to make it reachable also for the other potential applicants. Recently I received a very interesting question. A full answer might easily turn into a book. Since it reached even behind the walls of the Faculty of Pharmacy, I decided to share my views also with the English using readers.

Dubrovnik is a wonderful place! Finally we can confirm that. Finally, after several months of listening to fabulous comments on this Croatian city, all made by our boss every now and then. He visited Dubrovnik couple of times during the past years, the purpose of his visit being always the same: the summer school on Mass Spectrometry in Biotechnology and Medicine. Its seventh edition took place this year and it was my greatest pleasure to participate on it.

Actually, there IS the city of Delft... A city of the Netherlands, located in the province of South Holland roughly between the cities of Den Haag and Rotterdam. However, the description mentioned above tends to be more apt. Since when you arrive to the center of Delft, you got the feeling as being in a fairy tale. You feel as getting centuries back somehow expecting Johannes Vermeer or Antoni van Leeuwenhoek coming out of the small houses any moment later.

Every year on 30th April, the whole Netherlands is plunged into a orange sea; it is a day of celebration of Queen's birthday (Koninginnedag). Well, Queen Beatrix was actually born on 31st of January, but the celebrations are rescheduled on purpose to increase the possibility of nice wheater. The last day of April is therefore a unique opportunity to have a proper fun in the streets for otherwise decent Dutch people.

That is a random selection of some of the words that accompany me during my first spring in Amsterdam and at AMOLF. I spent two weeks in the Czech Republic earlier during April. I managed to visit the Faculty of Pharmacy in Hradec Kralove and to make all the arrangements necessary for the final moving to The Netherlands. I met also many of my friends, which was highly appreciated. Additionally I took part in a two-day course on MATLAB programming. Why? Let me explain in the following article.

What you can read about Keukenhof when you visit the official website is, that it is „the most beautiful open spring garden in the world.“ It is open through mid-March to mid-May. This year the timing of the blossoming is shifted due to an unusually long winter. We started to plan our visit to Keukenhof in the middle of March and by that time we had no idea then on 20th April the tulips will not be ready yet.

The movie Alois Nebel, based on the graphic novel by Jaroslav Rudiš and Jaromír 99, became the Winner of the Grand Prix HAFF feature films in 2012 on the Holland Animation Film Festival in Utrecht. A year later, the authors returned to the festival: Jaroslav Rudiš was about to read a short story about Alois Nebel and Jaromir 99 came with his band Priessnitz to perform a live concert show.

Alright, welcome at the second and simultaneously final part of the report on COST workshop, which took place in Vienna first week in February. I will save your time and simply skip any lengthy boring recapitulation by beginning where I stopped in the previous post. That is on Friday morning. (Jackson should get some inspiration here, as it is not polite to let the audience wait for the next part for a long time...)

I was back at AMOLF’s labs for only one full week after getting back from Switzerland when on Tuesday evening (5th Feb) I was packing my suitcase for yet another trip. I was invited to give a small talk on my STSM on a COST workshop, taking place at Technische Universität Wien in Vienna, Austria. 
 

If someone had told me couple of months ago that I would have been skiing with Dutch guys in Swiss alps, I would have seriously doubted it. Yet, it just happened! And as I find myself being back in Amsterdam, I can officially claim previous five days the best holidays I had in years and one of the best I have had ever … which actually makes it far the most genius business trip ever.