After a couple of cancelled flights, I did make it to Amsterdam in the end. I used airbnb to book a place—I stayed in Martijn's apartment (he wasn't there, so I had the whole place to myself). It was a lovely building from ~1644: low ceilings, wood floors, some exposed brick, and right on one of the canals.

Martijn was at the beach surfing (!) when I arrived, so he arranged for me to pick up the keys from a coffee shop down the street. I felt a little bit like an international spy: walk off the plane in a new country, walk into a coffee bar, and say "Excuse me, I believe Martijn left some keys for me." I was worried there might be a password but luckily it wasn't needed.

The conference is one of the smaller that I know about, with around 35-40 attendees each year. This is a very different feel than most conferences, which have at least a couple of hundred people, up through nearly 30,000 at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting. The small size means that we can meet in interesting buildings: two days of our conference were spent in the Cafe Sluyswacht (we set up chairs on the second floor; when it's not rented to groups, it just becomes part of the cafe). From 1695 the cafe had a charming lean, uncomfortable wooden chairs, but ample coffee (and beer).

We had a full day outing, which included a tour or a church. My favorite part were the amazing staircases (all wood) that took you from the floor up to the ceiling.

My last day I went to the Rijksmuseum, which houses an amazing collection of Dutch art. It was very cool to see Rembrandt, Van Gogh, and others in real life. A wonderful collection.

Epilogue: On my way back through Chicago (ORD) I had 2 flights cancelled due to bad weather, and my ticket on a third was cancelled by the airline (they thought I had gotten on a plane flying standby...but I hadn't). I stayed over at a hotel and took a train the next day. What a pain! I was not enamored with United. The weather is out of their control, of course, but customer service is not.

Hopebench