From Delft to Den Haag (The Hague)

Five hours of interviews was the order of business on Wednesday. These were all held at the Netherlands delta research institute, Deltares. As usual, all these conversations were fascinating. For example, one researcher told me of a stakeholder engagement process he had worked on with farmers in the "dry" part of the Netherlands (didn't know there was a dry part? Me neither). These farmers had been fiercely independent but when they were hit with a multi-year drought, they found they needed to work together. When they did, they were able to create new approaches to water management that essentially enable them to "farm water" in order to take advantage of precipitation and ground water storage to plan their annual water usage. 

At this point, I've interviewed 11 people and new concepts continue to come up every time. Tomorrow I travel to the Deltares office in Utrecht, in the central part of the country, for more interviews and a presentation of my own work. 

And Wednesday night, Kyle and Jane left from Boston, and through Dublin.

While the boys and I packed up in Delft for our move to The Hague. When Kyle and Jane join us, we need a slightly larger place, and that's definitely what we've got! At about noon, Jane and Kyle met us at the new place - a 3 (depending on how you count it, maybe even 4?) story loft. 

And these are stories that are reached by  multiple sets of stairs that are more accurately called ladders....

So we will all get in some extra aerobics while we are here. But before burning anymore calories, we had our first dinner in the new place

And then toured the neighborhood, starting first with our street, Maliestraat,

To the canal on the corner 

And on to the grounds of Parliament.

Next we're looking forward to introducing Kyle and Jane to Katja and her family!