Greetings from beautiful Maastricht in the Netherlands! I have been here for three days and just now got access to the internet. Apparently Europe does not support Macs, but it worked out. And I am so happy.
So, update! My trip to the Maastricht University Guesthouse was uneventful in the sky, but exciting on the ground. I took two flights (Boston to London, London to Amsterdam), and three trains (Amsterdam-Eiendhoven-Heerlen-Maastricht, everything was in Dutch, it was confusing, I fell down the escalator in Eiendhoven), and a cab before arriving here at the guesthouse. I have a single, which is great. It is really nice, well-lit, with a bed, desk, comfy chair, bureau, bookcase, and a sink in the room like at Mac. I live right next to the kitchen / common room. Almost all of the Mac kids live on my floor, except Lelde, Helinna, and Fed live upstairs for some reason. We have agreed to eat together and take turns cooking / buying groceries, which really saves time and money.
The first day we got here we got our rooms and met the program coordinator Nathalie. She is really awesome and nice! Her husband is American, so she speaks perfect english and understands where we’re coming from. She took us to the close mall / super market, Brusselport. We got some food and essentials and came back to the guesthouse to recuperate. The next day a professor from Maastricht University gave us a tour of the city, and then Nathalie showed us some good restaurants and other places we might like. We went out to dinner together at an Italian restaurant on the Virtjhof (I think that is how it’s spelled), which is the main square. Yesterday we were free and we all went exploring downtown and across the river. I cooked dinner. Today we had library orientation, signed our visa applications, and said hi to Professor Samatar. Afterwards I got my internet working, my phone working, and got a used bike. However, my bad luck with used bikes continues on a second continent, and the chain keeps falling off. So I have to bring it back tomorrow to either get them to fix it or exchange it. We’ll see. Basically, I’m exhausted. So that is the short version of what I’ve been up to! I’ll be more specific when I only have one day to write about instead of four. I hope everything is well with everyone, and I’ll let you know how the seminar goes tomorrow!
cheers,
liz
