[Hells Gates-entrance to the city of Maastricht]So far this week has been relatively good! My classes have been great, with the exception of travel writing. My professor is crazy and disrespectful during workshops. It’s gotten to the point that we all spend workshops just looking at each other trying to figure out who deemed this woman competent enough to teach at a college. It made us even angrier after reading her poetry online. WOW. You’ll have to see for yourself... This is our particular favorite (it’s best when read outloud): http://www.poeticencounters.net/Poems/S.Poems/Bones&Stones.htm
Last night was a carnivale themed American Night at the Linden and it was so much
fun! The jungle shirt made its first Dutch appearance! The night was filled with a lot of dancing to great music and just an awesome time overall. Everyone was dressed up in crazy costumes and the pictures are hilarious! After a successful night, we went to sleep idealistic about our 7 am wake up time to go to Cologne, Germany for more carnivale festivities. Well, fun nights don’t make for fun mornings so we decided to forgo Germany for the mineral thermal baths in Arcen which allowed us to have a later start. The thermal baths were… great? The pools were both indoor and outdoor and weren’t really hot, rather just like a warm bath. There were massage jets all over to work different muscles which was much needed! Cailin, Louisa, and I swam around in the bath for about an hour and a half before heading to the sauna to try out an eucalyptus sauna. One word can sum up our experience: NAKED. Ah so many naked Dutch people everywhere! Old, skinny, fat, wrinkly, super fat. We saw way too many Dutch butts and other body parts for our liking. We sat awkwardly as the only clothed people in the entire vicinity. All I’m going to say is Uncle Joe, you were totally right. We grabbed lunch back in Well at the snack shop where I had an interesting spicy meat (not sure what kind…) and onion fried deal and frites. On our way back we developed a plan for a “Budget Benelux Beer Tour” and hit the supermarket for supplies. We decided that since we don’t know that much about different kinds of beers we would try one of every kind that we could find and make a chart of which kinds were which and what we thought. We got ones from all over Belgium, The Netherlands, and Germany (and all for under a euro each!). I think I’ve decided my favorite was a Palm Amber Ale…
Saturday we boarded the buses around 9 to go to Maastricht with my professor Rob. When we got to the city he took us for coffee and pastries at his favorite coffee shop before we crossed the river Maas to go to the historic center. On the way to the first church we were visiting, we saw the spot where one of the three Musketeers was killed in battle and the famed “Hells Gate” that is part of the city’s medieval wall (which is still standing). Maastricht is one of the oldest cities in the Netherlands, dating back to the Roman Empire. Rob led us to the Church of Our Lady, a Romanesque church on the outskirts of the center of town. It was gorgeous with frescoed vaults and stained glass windows. There was also a statue called the Miraculous Mary that people come to venerate. After we left the church we walked to the town center (an old Roman cemetery) and broke for lunch. Cailin, Roisin, Meena, and I grabbed a quick Chinese take-out lunch and walked around an outdoor flea market for a little while. The whole town is completely decked out for carnivale. Everything was colored in yellow, green and red and everyone was dressed in crazy costumes! After the flea market we went to a tiny, extremely cluttered antique store where I bought a vintage blue and white Dutch plate that was made in an old tile factory in Maastricht that was destroyed. It’s gorgeous! We also went to another store where I bought these two vintage copper rings for really cheap. After about two hours we met up with Rob and the rest of the group (about thirty of us) and went to the church where he is the treasury director-the Basilica of St. Servatius. St. Servatius is a second cousin of Jesus and was the bishop of Maastricht. He was also given a key to the gate of Heaven by St. Peter (which we got to see). The basilica was so gorgeous and had a lot of stained glass windows that were so beautiful. Because we were there with Rob we got to see a lot of things that aren’t open to the public such as the actual tomb of the saint and the imperial gallery and vault. We also saw the tombs (and bodies) of Saints In the treasury we saw the relics of St. Andrew, St. Barbara, St. Thomas (it was his arm bone!), Mary Magdalene (a piece of her skull), St. Servatius (his entire skull in one holder and the rest of his body in another!), and relics of the cross of Christ. It was really interesting to hear the stories behind everything and to get to see everything up close. Rob told us stories about all of the saints and how relics work. It was really interesting to hear all of this information first hand from someone who truly has a passion for this.
[Church of Our Lady]
After we left the basilica, which was absolutely freezing as we climbed higher into the gallery, Rob took us to a bar in the square for a drink in celebration of carnivale. He bought us each a glass of wine or a beer in this bar that was decorated with really creepy clowns and was playing really loud Dutch techno-pop-dance-folk music. It was really nice to get to spend time with Rob outside of class because he is a really interesting guy and very funny too! Roisin, Cailin, Holly, Meena, and I grabbed Vietnamese cart food and frites for dinner. I had a barmiol (?) which was a fired dough stuffed with noodles, vegetables and chicken and served with sweet and sour sauce. So delicious!! We then grabbed the train to Venlo and bus back to Well. We had to defrost for a while because Maastricht was absolutely freezing! It also lightly snowed all day too which made everything look so pretty. The town was actually beautiful because it is really old and has narrow, cobblestone streets and gorgeous buildings. The whole town actually had a really cool vibe, definitely way less touristy than Amsterdam.
[Basilica of Saint Servatius]
[View of the River Maas]
A food update (because I know my loyal reader Aunt Fran loves to hear about this): I’ve realized that I haven’t eaten meat that I can recognize since I’ve been here. The exception has been an occasional piece of chicken. I think that the Dutch love sausage-tasting kinds of meat. What its comprised of is still a mystery.
[Below: Key to the Gate of Heaven] More pictures will come when people upload them to Facebook because my camera died after this picture!
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