Life in Maastricht

While my weekend adventures are inevitably more exciting, I have yet to share anything about the little town I get to call home for the next 2 months. 

Maastricht is about as far southwest as you can go in the Netherlands before crossing into Belgium. In fact, the first night we were here, some of our friends accidentally walked to Belgium, and it took them all of 30 minutes. It takes that long to drive from my house to Taylor's in Dallas, much less change countries or even states. Crazy. 

It is the oldest town in the Netherlands, and the buildings that have been there the longest are beautiful. There's an old church downtown that has been converted into a bookstore, and a beautiful church very close to where we're staying that's just completely empty. 

There are twice as many bikes in the Netherlands as there are people- don't worry, I'm still trying to work out that logic too. But I believe it, because I see many more people walking and biking than I do driving. 

The university itself is spread out throughout the town in multiple buildings. We are staying at the Teikyo guesthouse, and most classes are either in there or in the Center for European Studies (CES) building in town. The only other buildings we've been inside are the business and economics building and the library. Baylor's campus is beautiful, but can't compare to this until there's a river prettier than the Brazos and a gorgeous green park outside the business school. 

My philosophy class is going to be challenging (philosophy = free thinking, accounting = this is the right way, this is the wrong way. There's a reason I like accounting), but I love the professor. He's a Netherlands native and speaks roughly 8 languages. He is highly understanding of the fact that most of us want to be here to travel, not study, so he has quickly become the most popular professor. 

I just started my modernism class this week and I'm equally overwhelmed. Having not taken a REAL English class (excluding my idiot of a teacher senior year) since junior year of high school, I would definitely count myself the dumbest in the class. I just didn't realize how much I'd gotten used to the atmosphere of a business class, or how different it is from other classes. 

On Thursday after class I had a little time to wander, so I walked from the CES building and found a town square and this pretty church. 

I like how late the Spanish eat their meals. The Dutch disagree, it would seem. We eat breakfast every morning at 7:30 and dinner every evening at 5:30. Stroopwaffles (a word my phone is still learning and currently autocorrects to Strip Waffles), a Dutch specialty and Baylor student favorite (so we're told), usually make up our second dinner when we're hungry again around 10:30. I will probably spend at least €50 to bring as many stroopwaffles home as I can. 

Knowing the copious amounts of bread, cheese, and chocolate will catch up to me, I found a running trail through a beautiful nearby park. The early dinner and the fact that the sun doesn't set until at least 10pm allows plenty of time for an evening run. 

Today I had the whole morning to myself, so after a semi-successful trip to Liege to book Prague tickets (I'll be providing my travel companions with Benadryl since the man could not for the life of him understand the word "couchette" which I repeated 3 times. 10 hours of sleep sitting up, here we come), I spent a few hours walking around Maastricht. 

First, this happened: 

As if I needed something on top of Stroopwaffles. This is from Pinky's and there's one on every corner, so hello next 15 pounds. Then, because I packed light to come on this little European adventure and I am insanely bored of my wardrobe, this happened: 

Oops.

On Wednesdays in the square there's a farmer's market and it's actually out of my dreams. There's fresh vegetables (to complement my Pinky's) so I stocked up on those to cook dinner and apease my bell pepper addiction. The rest of the booths are all clothes and CRAFT SUPPLIES. I told you, heaven. 

During my 20 minute walk back to Teikyo I was sweating more than I did during my 3 mile run yesterday because thank you, Texas, for your heat that you've so generously shared. So I stopped off at the mall for a fan since the Europeans like to channel their inner Amish and boycot A/C. So here's what I ended up with: 

This picture was taken 20 minutes ago. It still looks like that. The instructions appear to be for some other fan, not the one I spent 18 Euros on, so I'm leaving that task for later and meanwhile desperately wishing I had a swimming pool to go jump in. 

Anyway...

Maastricht is perfect to act as "home base" for the summer.  It has a pleasant feel of being not too rural but not too "city", and everything is more or less within walking distance of the guesthouse. I don't understand a word of Dutch, but the people seem friendly nonetheless. Maastricht is starting to feel more and more familiar, and I know come August it will be hard to say goodbye to this quaint little town. 

There is, however, a KPMG office not far from the train station. So who knows...