Maastricht

This post is way way way overdue. I went to Maastricht, Netherlands on Friday, October 8, with Anne-Michèle and Mami (host grandmother). It was a Friday, and I had off of school, so we piled in the car at about 8 am and drove off. It was about an hour away by car, and the drive went by quickly.

We got to Maastricht and one of the first things I noticed was the bikes. There were bicycles EVERYWHERE. It was a noticeable difference when we crossed the border. The bikes had special lanes and traffic signals. It was amazing! There were probably more bicycles than there were cars. I love "green" countries!

We parked the car and commenced the shopping. Every Friday, there is a huge outdoor market in Maastricht. People sell fabric, batteries, lamps, dresses, purses, watches, cheese, shoulder pads, bracelets, shoes, lightbulbs, buttons, makeup, scarves, you name it. It was truly an incredible sight, with all of the booths and vendors. As the day went on, more and more people came to the market, so eventually it was a massive throng of bodies pushing and pulling to get to where they needed to go.

While Anne-Michèle and Mami were looking at some fabric, I was approached by a young man about my age. There were two other guys with him. I'd seen groups like this all day long. They were carrying clipboards and doing some sort of survey. The guy walked up to me and started speaking what I'm pretty sure was some very broken Dutch (it sounded a lot like me speaking French, so I only assumed that it was not his native language). I, of course, had no clue at all what he was saying, so I interrupted with "Desolée, mais je ne comprends pas. Je suis americaine." (Sorry, but I don't understand. I'm American.) I figured he might come from Belgium or another place that taught at least rudimentary French, but based on the blank, defeated look in his eyes, I was wrong. He gave me a pained look and asked, "Do you speak English?" My response: "Yeah."

That sure turned his frown upside down!

He said, "Oh, well this will be easy then!" He proceeded to ask me a survey of about 10 questions, along the lines of "Where do you come from?" (You're American?! Wonderful!) "Where do you live?" (You must be going to the university in Maastricht! No? You live in Belgium? Well that's exciting!) "Age of shopper." (You're not over 20? Are you sure?) It was quite fun. It turns out that the group of guys were from the international school in Maastricht. Based on the guy's accent, he was British, but I never asked.

After we finished at the market, Anne-Michèle, Mami and I went to a little tourist shop and I bought a keychain and a few post cards to remember my trip by. After that, we went to a little café for lunch. I had an iced cappuccino that was absolutely delicious. Gosh I miss Starbucks. And Dazbog. And Loveland Coffee. Sigh.

Anyway, we did a little shopping at a mall in Maastricht as well. Anne-Michèle bought me a very cute plaid shirt. Granted, it was from the guy's section, but I don't care. I like it a lot.

This is Eduardo, the AFS exchange student at my school. This is the shirt Anne-Michèle bought for me. As it turns out, we have the same one. We ended up wearing them on the same day, a complete coincidence. :)

We stopped in Zara and a few other stores before calling it a day and heading back to the land of les belges. All in all, it was a great day. I really enjoyed the market and the fresh air. It was amazing to see so many cool things for sale all in one place. I also snacked on some delicious cheese, which was super wonderful. Nothing beats Wisconsin cheddar though! :)





One thing I noticed is that I'm not posting as much about what I've been doing lately. I'll try to rectify that in the coming weeks.

Coming up:
exams and why food in Belgium doesn't make sense


Also:
Aachen, Germany, the Marche de Noel, and the Bal de la Saint Nicolas


Toodles,

Mikayla