Kasteel Vaeshartelt Maastricht

... which also showed nothing, and blood and urine tests which showed a small infection somewhere. I then had to drink special fluid, which I spent 2 hours drinking only to promptly vomit it back up, in order to have contrast dye put through my stomach and another CT scan. When this showed nothing, the doctors decided that maybe I had a lung embollism from so much flying, and ordered another CT with contrast dye, this time of my lungs, as well as an ECG to make sure my heart was OK ...

... for some hay. On the way home we dropped by a bakery and picked up some traditional dutch pies (apple, custard and berry) which looked exactly like the pies grandma makes! I had multiple pieces of each.
The next day was a Saturday so we headed into Valkenburg for lunch and We all had a go on the Rodelbahn (think go carts mixed with bobsledding) and went on a tour of an old coal mine - one of the last to be closed in the area and now only open for tours. My ...

During our stay in Spa we had the most scary, horrible, unpleasant experience ever in a restaurant.

The restaurant to avoid is "Le Bouchon Gourmand", the owner does not hesitate to insult customers, lock them into the restaurant if there is a dispute on the bill, and claim more money than is due.

See more on www.bouchon-gourmand.blogspot.com

... guide came within 30 mins and let us in. We had missed the English tour, but the tour guide was kind enough to explain a few things to us after talking to the Dutch tourists. The caves are actually stone quarries. They had been used for hundreds of years. Each year the tunnels would get longer and deeper. The majority of the passages were around 3.5 stories tall. The quarries now extend to about 80 km of underground passages ...

... good. I now understand why restaraunts have picture menus!! I don't know if it's just because it's Valentine's Day, but I think that people over here have almost as big of a sweet tooth as I do, hard to believe but true! I haven't tried any real chocolate yet, but I did chocolate toast at dinner today and don't even get me started on the candy stores here!! Amazing!! There will probably be a whole entry or two dedicated to candy stores later on...haha! I do have some very ...

... to Detroit and then to Amsterdam. The plane was actually pretty small and of course I ended up sitting between two gentlemen who were very nice, but slightly stinky. As we were pulling onto the runway I started crying and the man on my right, who was from Nicaragua, after careful consideration asked me "What is wrong? Do you miss your peoples?" It made me laugh and cry even more, but then the three of us began talking and I got ...

... coffee and filters, and bananas (the essentials) for about 10 euro...not bad. On Sunday, a few people from the group decided to check out a local music festival in what appeared to be the central downtown plaza. Hardly any shops are open on Sunday so the locals are sure to have a good time. The beer was flowing. After listening to the music for a while, Emily and I took a long walk (and our first) around the city. Beautiful, historic ...

Today was my last day of class for the week, we went to EDD's (eat, dance, and drinks) to see a dutch band called the five strings. They were actually a really good bad and played a little oasis, some red hot chili peppers, some green day, and some other stuff ...

... amazement we saw that the sign on the black iron fence above the enclosure confirmed it was indeed a ‘Tasmaanse Buidelwolf’.

Perhaps in a bid to prevent the Dutch caging us up like our presumed-extinct local friend, we decided to flee from the Netherlands entirely, though just for the rest of the day. After hiring bicycles we had barely pedalled our way out of the western edge of the town before ...

Dit is de start van een nieuw leven! Een jaar lang weg uit de omgeving die voor mij gedurende 18 jaar zo bekend is geworden. Die bekende omgeving ga ik nu verlaten en ga nieuwe horizonten opzoeken. Spannend? Eng? Ik denk een beetje van beiden. Maar dat wil niet zeggen dat ik het niet meer zie zitten.

De laatste dagen zijn hier wel wat vreemd geweest, de dag komt ook zo dichtbij. Afscheidsfeestje is geweest voor vrienden en familie. Want ik ga ...