Blogs from Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands, Europe - page 3

A brief word on food in Europe probably should be said. My first introduction to buying food in another language (other than Spanish) was on one of the first days I was here. We had to stock up on food for four days because the stores would be closed all weekend and Monday for a holiday, so we had to get food fast, with no time to figure out what we were actually buying. It actually worked out quite well, with some things being recognizable, but other things I just had to buy and hope it was moderately close to what I wanted to get. Some things are sort of close to what you intended to get, such as this peanut-butter type stuff. I think it is actually some sort of chocolatized-hazelnut-milk spread, which is ... read more

My dad made it to Europe safely! It's so nice to have him here again. I'm glad that he caught the "Europe bug" because now that means that family vacations will be trips through the Old Country... Today was a beautiful day. It was sunny, 72 degrees with a slight breeze & no clouds in the sky. Needless to say, we decided to spend today outdoors! Dad, Carolina, & I decided to rent Vespas, which has been a dream of mine for quite some time now. I've always joked that I wanted a Vespa at home so I could take it to Thunder in the Valley (a festival that our town holds where bikers come from all over the US to show off their motorcycles). I also want a green helmet that says "sustainable development," since ... read more

Day five, our last day of the group trip, started really early, at 7 AM, to be exact. Today we had to drive quite a ways to make it back to Maastricht, but we would also stop twice to tour World War sites. The first stop was at the city of Verdun, to pick up a map of the battlefield and to eat lunch after driving all morning. Almost everyone chose to eat at the same place, which had good food but was quite slow. It took awhile for everyone to get their food and then get back to the bus. Yes, I know slow service in Europe is considered polite service, but we were looking for a bit faster service than what was provided. After that, we stopped at the World War I battlefield of ... read more

Well, we left for real this time, and got to Amsterdam and Maastricht safely. The flight was just as good this time, only this time actually finished it. I got less sleep than last time I flew to Europe on a plane, though. After moving just about every piece of furniture in the house that could be moved, I left on Thursday in the afternoon. We landed in Amsterdam at 8:30 AM their time, where we claimed all our bags and trooped out to a waiting bus. It took until about 1 PM to travel through the entire length of the Netherlands, down to Maastricht, with a stop for lunch at a truck stop. It was actually quite nice, a small sandwich with ham, crispy bread, and cheese, and potato soup. Once we got to Maastricht, ... read more

As dorky as this may be, I thought our criminal law moot court was fascinating this morning, so I'm going to share some nerdy law school stuff. To help hold your attention, I'll bring out now that it revolves around the selling of soft drugs in the Netherlands & Dutch drug culture in general... The Netherlands is quite famous (or infamous) for its drug policy. While under the 1976 Opium Act, the selling of soft drugs is actually illegal, the practice of the Dutch prosecutors is to not prosecute individuals who buy or sell cannabis in small amounts for personal consumption. This is actually a de facto decriminalization based on prosecutorial discretion. (Sorry for the legal jargon for those of you who aren't law students, but it's the only way I know how to describe it). ... read more