EXHAUSTED

It feels like we haven't stopped since we've been here. And it feels like we’ve been here for weeks…I hope the rest of the summer moves this slowly! On Sunday morning we went to St. Servaasbasiliek, a Catholic church in Maastricht to celebrate the Pentecost. (Pentecost commemorates the descent of Holy Spirit, and is seven weeks or 50 days
after Easter.) We couldn't understand anything said since the service was in Dutch, but just to be there was pretty special. Maastricht has a lot of abandoned churches since the religion here is somewhat corrupt...I'm fairly certain that one of the acolytes winked at Erin which is proof that this MUST be true!

Later that afternoon a group of us road our bikes to Belgium and back! Maastricht in on the southern tip of the Netherlands so the rumors are true...it is literally 10 minutes away. It was a pleasant day, couldn't have asked for better weather or people to be around. However, Baylor...please invest in some new bike seats. Thanks. Yesterday morning--Caleb, Erin, Bonnie, Kaitlin and myself decided to take a day trip to Amsterdam. We smoothly entered the city by train 2 hours and 22 minutes after departure, grabbed a bite to eat and headed to the Van Gogh Museum. I think this may have been Bonnie’s favorite part of day, she's into that art stuff. After that we roamed to take typical tourist pictures by the "i amsterdam" blocks. After a stroll through another park to people watch, we wandered for days to find the Anne Frank House. I guess we thought we could walk there, but after an hour of walking and complaining about our feet, take my advice and take a bus if you find yourself in Amsterdam in the future.

Thoughts on Amsterdam: A lot cleaner than I expected. People are super friendly. I didn't see as much evidence of the legalization of pot and prostitution as I was expecting. I was pleasantly surprised.

ARRIVAL in the Netherlands

Our Thursday flight out of Houston was a success this time around! After we landed in Amsterdam around 8:10 a.m. we got our passports stamped and proceeded through "customs" (this consisted of a man pointing at the exit sign) and walked outside to smell the clear northern air and feel the cool 55 degree weather. We then jumped on a comfortable charter bus that was waiting for us and headed to Maastricht!

After we unpacked and settled into our rooms , we headed to the market to get various groceries...HELLO CARBOHYDRATES. I think that probably 1/3 of the market was devoted strictly to bread and cheese items which I am more than okay with. After this we all had dinner together and then went to explore downtown. We went to a pub called Shamrock and met the Maastricht and England Rugby teams. We felt like we were in a European movie. Bonnie and I were jealous of their chants and asked to join in...we were kind of disappointed to find out that all their "chants" consisted of were putting their fists in the air and singing a combination of words that sounded like "aye o’ aye o’ aye o’ ye." Not all was lost; they did buy us a pitcher of Grolsch (the beer of the Netherland's.)

This morning was busy. We met for brunch at 11, went to activate our Euro rail passes, met our CES coordinator, got our books and schedules and walked through town. I have to say--Maastricht is almost exactly how I had imagined it. It's quaint, most people ride bikes, those who do drive, drive Volkswagens, there are bakeries and markets everywhere. What I was surprised about is how many people there were. For some reason I pictured Maastricht as being quieter, having an almost retirement community feel (think Fredericksburg.) I'm not quite sure where I came up with this, but I’m happy I was wrong. All to say, downtown is filled with people eating lunch, drinking, sitting, biking, while the side streets have a moderate pace to them. It is a wonderful blend.

Of course, my reaction to Europe was typical of any newbie. The minute I touched European soil everything seemed better and nicer here. I wanted to go touch everything and try everything (DAD...relax I don't literally mean try everything!) The food, well the food is better. The architecture is better too. The grass is about the same I suppose...maybe a touch greener. See--typical.

Our first journey outside of Maastricht will start tomorrow when we take a bike ride around and outside of Maastricht and probably to Belgium. We are supposedly a 10 minute bike ride from "the border"...I'll confirm if this is true on my next post. Then on Tuesday we will fly out of Brussels to reach IRELAND! This is of course if the volcano cooperates and doesn't put this trip on hold as well.

It's a Hard Knock Life For Us

Okay...

So apart from the wasted 13 hour flight, the 36 hours of sleep deprivation and the not going to Europe after 8 months of anticipation (thing)...it's really not that bad.

To say that Bonnie, Erin and I were bummed to not arrive to Europe on time would be a crude understatement. We were in short...irate...at first. We had planned practically every day of our trip; so being that we were 4 days off schedule, this posed a problem. After we found out that the earliest flight available to Amsterdam was Thursday (tomorrow), our sweet friend Kaitlin Kerr graciously opened up her beautiful lake house to a handful of us while we waited out the week.

You could say we're making it.

Our Flight from Houston to Houston

Currently sitting in the lobby of the Airport Sheraton Hotel...

Our flight from Houston took a dramatic turn flying over the Atlantic 3 hours shy of Amsterdam. The volcano in Iceland made some unexpected noise while we were airborne and on our way to Europe. Had the air space not been closed, we would have flown to Paris and taken a train to Maastricht...however, this was not the case and since we were low on fuel we made a 180 turn and headed to Liberty International in Newark, New Jersey to fill up and head back to Houston. By the way, Newark is 8 miles west of Manhattan, the largest city in Jersey and a common sea port...which smells bad.

In other words...we departed from Houston at 3:40 p.m. on May 16th and arrived in Houston at 4:45 a.m. on May 17th. Flights back to Amsterdam are still pending.

On the bright side, I sat next to a U.S. Air Marshall on the plane!! This may not seem that exciting, BUT I convinced him to let me see his gun and badge, and he got me one of those first class business pillows (this is a luxury in comparison to the tissue paper they call a pillow in steerage). He's flown over 4,200 flights since 9/11...pretty impressive.

THOUGHTS BEFORE LEAVING

Greetings!! This is the inaugural entry to my blog I'll be updating during my time in Europe. More specifically, Maastricht, Netherlands. Maastricht is argued to be the oldest city in the Netherlands, and located in the southern tip of the Dutch province of Limburg. In the course of 3 months I will be taking 14 hours of class, taught by Baylor and Dutch professors at Universiteit Maastricht, and visiting a dozen (or so) countries in the mean time. While I walk the streets of Interlaken, run to catch the train in Barcelona, hold on to my passport with dear life and stand out like a typical American with my oversized backpack and camera in hand--my wish is to update and entertain my few reader(s) with news of my trip and embarrassing and shocking stories along the way. Bags are over packed, alarm set for the morning, too excited to sleep...Europe.