Breakfast in the Van Gogh hostel was served from 8 till 9, so the 2nd day full of fun and NFP research started early. Instead of a thin slice of bread, a wide range of foods like toast, yoghurt & muesli, croissants and bread rolls awaited us. A great start of the day!
Around 9:30 hrs. everyone took off to their research spots. For me and my “partner in crime” Linda this meant we took the tram to the Albert Cuyp market. We collected quite a lot of questionnaires, to compensate in advance for the afternoon (according to some classmates the Kalverstraat was a difficult spot to find willing respondents. But also with willing respondents there can be difficulties. For example because of language: one Japanese respondent didn’t fully understand all the emotions she had to grade. We showed her the glossary, but a few words were still not clear enough. So what to do? Use body language and mimics to explain what you mean! These encounters made collecting questionnaires a lot of fun. And next to conducting research we had time enough to look for souvenirs, buy some fresh fruit, and experience the Albert Cuyp market as a tourist ourselves.
After 2 hours and 11 questionnaires we dropped by the hostel to store our fresh gifts and headed off to our meeting with Ondrej and Sebastiaan. We discussed how our research was going and got some useful feedback on our field notes as well. With some new thoughts, we headed off to the 2nd location of the day: the Kalverstraat. It’s one of the main shopping streets of Amsterdam and thus very crowded. Unfortunately for us, people weren’t very helpful, and a lot of people refused to even listen to what we had to ask. When you are tired of walking all day and people rudely pass you by, it doesn’t do your mood any good.
The highlight of the afternoon was our encounter with a Polish woman who was on her way back to Cork where she lived. Travelling from Asia she made a quick stop-over in Amsterdam to meet up with a friend she had met on her backpack trip. We talked for almost 45 minutes about our research and the fact that smartphones cause less face-to-face interaction. Which is quite sad!
After our 2nd research day it was time for a nice dinner with the entire class. We gathered at an East-African restaurant called ‘Azmarino’. We got 6 big plates full of food which we had to share with 5 persons. Surprise: we had to eat the food with our hands. Well actually with some kind of bread that was provided and served as plates/cutlery. This was fun and made for an interactive dinner. As not everyone was used to spicy food, people appeciated the flavours differently. It was an interesting experience and…. sharing is caring 😉
The night ended watching soccer, enjoying a movie in the hostel, or gazing at the Museumplein lightshow, before taking a well-deserved rest.
Written by: Saskia Peters
