One Week in Maastricht

Selexzy Bookstore

London was a blast but it was time to get back into the swing of things. For awhile I felt like I was on an extended vacation, but when we had orientation last Friday, I realized that all vacations must come to an end. Orientation was fun and I got to see where my classes would be held.  Maastricht University provided us with a free breakfast, and the info meeting was enlightening. I enjoyed hearing about the campus and I found myself liking it even more. There were somethings I didn't like though. Two of those things are that the campus buildings are spread across the city and there are no free gym facilities. Good thing I brought my P90X and have a bike. Last Friday we also visited the Selexyz Bookstore, which is one of the most famous bookstores in the world. It is built inside an old Dominican church and is simply amazing. On top of that, we ate at a really nice Dutch restaurant inside a shopping mall that had some great food.

On Saturday we toured the WWII memorial that the Dutch built to honor American soldiers who died attempting to free the Netherlands from the Germans. It was a very beautiful cemetery, but the wind chill made the trip less enjoyable. We also toured the city of Valkenburg, which is small quaint town about 6 miles from Maastricht. The reason why it is famous is because the Red Bull Crashed Ice 2011 would be held there and also there are catacombs that are the exact replica of the ones under Rome--without the dead bodies. We got to tour the catacombs which weren't that interesting. We each had a candle and I was tempted to burn the walls. The only fun part of the catacomb tour was that we were given the opportunity to go through a section of the catacombs without any light. Now that was fun. It was crazy to be robbed of your sense of sight and having to feel the walls. I never ever would want to go through those catacombs without any light, but apparently if you want to work as a tour guide there, you have to go through the catacombs without a light and make it out in under 2 hours!! That's insane. 

WWII Memorial Cemetery

Sunday was pretty uneventful. I wanted to go to a Catholic Church but was pretty unsuccessful because I woke up too late. So Sunday ended up being the day when I finished my laundry and started getting ready for my classes tomorrow. Of course it was my last day of my vacation so I treated it accordingly as well. ;) My first official day of school was this past Monday. I only have one class on Mondays and I didn't have a bike yet, so I walked to class with some other students. Good thing I have a bike now because walking to class takes about 15-20 minutes. Brief digression: Maastricht courses only run from M-TH, which means I have Fridays off every weekend! Awesome right? Now back on track: My first teacher was amazing and a little crazy. She had an interesting sense of humor and a very thick accent. The name of the class was International Relations. The great thing about Maastricht classes is that there can be a 15 minute coffee break, which is awesome because each class is about 2 hours long! Around 1:00 PM I got my bike and started touring Maastricht on my own. It was a little scary at first to be riding on lanes that ran between cars and buses but fortunately I had no accidents that day. I got lost a few times but overall it was a good way to explore the city.

Since they don't serve us lunch--only breakfast and dinner--I decided to eat at a local Dutch fast-food joint. There I had fries covered with some interesting sauce and horse meat and a chicken burger. That was my first time tasting horse meat. I don't know how I feel about it. It was delicious with the sauce though.

My chicken burger and fries with horse meat sauce. Yum

On Tuesdays I have two classes, International Management and French History. Back to back. Which sucks because my IM class is in the CES (study abroad) building and my French History class is in the Guesthouse (where I'm staying) and I only have 15 minutes to get from one place to the other. Fortunately my bike makes things a lot easier. I've mentioned my bike a few times--for a reason. I'm going to digress a little bit and tell you why bikes are so important: Most Dutch people bike everywhere. In fact, bikes have the right of way over pedestrians, which means it is very easy to get run over by a bike.  Luckily that hasn't happened yet but it has almost happened a few times. Now back to my original story. My IM teacher is 26 years old and looks like a student. In fact, I thought she was a student until she entered our class with the study abroad director from Maastricht University. She brought apple pie for the class, which was amazing, and told us that for the next few weeks, we would teach the class to each other. Talk about a game-changer. My group volunteered to go first, so on Thursday we had to present Chapter 1. After International Management came French History: Revolution/Napoleon. Dr. Longfellow, the program director, lectured this class. I found the subject interesting but I wasn't too keen about the lecture.

My Wednesday International Relations class got moved to Thursday meaning I had a whole day of nothing. Unfortunately I slept in, missing breakfast, which apparently is hot on Wednesdays. Normally we have cold breakfasts, so this was a bummer. My roommate and I decided to go shopping for some groceries because we can cook food in our dorm rooms. I bought some vlees (pork) chops and had a delicious, cheap lunch. Cooking our own meals saves us more money in the long run, especially since we are not provided lunch on weekdays or any meals on weekends. I spent my Wednesday relaxing and working with my group for IM because we were presenting tomorrow.

I had three classes total on Thursday because my IR class was temporarily switched to Thursday. I don't know how I made it through each class that day. Of course my IM class was fun--I got to teach. My French History class was a bore and by 12:45 I was ready to fall asleep, only to realize I had  to cook lunch and head to my IR class. Thursday's lecture was pretty interesting--when I wasn't falling asleep. We were talking about the framework in which to discuss International Relations, sounds fun right? Now you know why I was falling asleep. Good thing I had something to look forward to. Two hours after that class, I packed my bags and headed with some friends to Amsterdam. I'll save that story for another blog. :)