Project subject and Housing

All this time I have such a surreal feeling. Me 24 weeks living in an abroad country and saying goodbye to people for half a year. This week lots of last goodbyes for the next six months. 

 Well I have good news, this weeks lots of things have happend. I have received my project description! I will do a research to the use off a biomass driven mechanical drying technique for drying fresh harvested coffee beans. Normally, the beans are sun dried and sometimes mechanically. There are some problems with a biomass driven drying technique. My job is to try solving these problems and/or suggest solutions. Besides that there is a possibility I will help with a project which focusses on the reuse of process water which is used on the coffee plantations.
Some more good news? YES! I have a place to stay in Viçosa, a really good place! It is right in front of the UFV campus, an apartment on the fifth floor. The apartment is shared with two other students. I already have some contact with one of them, a very nice guy. See pictures below.
My room, yes I have yet to furnish it. But my apartment mate has offered me to help me with that! 

The beautiful view from my bedroom! The UFV campus starts on the left where you can see the roundabout.

The living room

The kitchen

Até mais!
Location: 5708 Stiphout, Nederland

Comments

  1. duijsensfamilyFebruary 2, 2017 at 4:11 PM

    Gaaf Bart! Je appartement ziet er echt top uit! Zeer uitnodigend!
    Fijn om te weten wat je stage-opdracht wordt, daar kun je nu naar toe leven! Nog een dikke twee weken en dan gaat het gebeuren! Zitten we wel in dezelfde tijdzone! Succes met de laatste loodjes!

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownFebruary 19, 2017 at 5:14 AM

    Hey Bart, niet verkeerd man!
    Ik wens je een goeie reis (neem het ervan aan boord :-) ) en ik ben reuze benieuwd naar je allereerste indrukken.
    Give 'm hell Bart!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Brazilian Culture

Image
The weekend started well with an invitation from Micael to go to the Saturday's market. While I walked to the meeting point which was near Lucas' home, I noticed that some buildings really look like the time of colonization. Even it is not my first time that I walked there, I just now noticed there were some nice buildings. What do you think? Together with Micael and Paula (a Colombian exchange student) we walked to the market. There we went straight to a place were the sell Pastel's, it is a typical Brazilian fast-food. It is a crispy, brownish fried pie of filo dough (I think) and is filled with a variety of food options (meat, cheese or vegetables). If I knew this I wouldn't have eaten so much during breakfast. I tasted some of the sugarcane juice, it is sweet (as you can expect) but not that sweet to. It didn't taste wrong, but its not my taste 🙈. From this place you had a good look over the market, which is how I actually imagine a market. There where you o
Read more

The Creation of your Lovely Cup Coffee

Image
As I promised before, I would tell you about the production of coffee. Now I will tell you. Please note that most pictures are from an internet source,  and only are used as a visual support. So pour some coffee, then we can start talking about how your hot cup of coffee was created. Ready! The Creation of your Lovely Cup  Coffee Producing the coffee bean Ripe coffee cherries Green coffee cherries not yet ready to harvest. The beans aren't fully developed yet. In order to get a coffee bean in the first place, you need to plant the coffee plants. There are special coffee farms who produce coffee seeds (unprocessed coffee "beans"). The beans used to make coffee are actually coffee seeds. The farm I went to was one of those coffee seed producing farms. Seedlings are nursed in large shaded beds and will be watered frequently and protected form bright sunlight till the are strong enough to plant. Planting happens mostly during the w
Read more

First week in Brazil

Image
After a really difficult goodbye to family and friends the journey starts. Me and my mom spent the night before departure at Van Der Valk Hotel near Schiphol airport. This way we didn't risk to get stuck in traffic jam. At D-Day (Departure Day 😉) we had breakfast at the airport and again after a difficult goodbye we went to the customs. But time was short and the queue was really long, really... long... and we were the last in line. I figured we wouldn't make it in time to pass through the customs and board on time, short story we will miss our flight this way. (By "we" I mean Katinka and I, Katinka is a fellow student from the HAS who is also going to Brazil by Living Lab Biobased Brazil).  Sooo I asked an airport employee what to do, because our flight was already boarding and we have 30 minutes left. It was genius, we could skip the whole row and were directly at the customs turn. After the customs we hurried to the boarding gate and we were one of the last to b
Read more